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Pluggers, 12/11/10

One of the running jokes with which I routinely irritate my friends and family comes up every time anyone discusses their plans for their mortal remains after their death. I always claim that I intend to have my corpse taxidermied and arranged in a heroic pose — possibly holding a sword, definitely naked — and that whoever wants to inherit my vast fortune will be required to place me somewhere prominent in their home. Now, this is all good fun (or at least it will be until my will is unsealed), but it did make my mind go someplace particularly grim upon seeing a typical Pluggers man-animal in a storefront taxidermist. At least pluggers don’t simply feast on the rotting flesh of their dead fellows, as the bird-inhabitants of their sister strip Shoe do. I for one would like to see a “plugger cemetery” (glassed-in display case) if only in the hopes that the taxidermist’s art provides the various schlubby, ill-dressed dead pluggers with a modicum of dignity and dynamism that was wholly lacking from their lives.

Gasoline Alley, 12/11/10

You don’t have to be following the current typically dull Gasoline Alley plot to appreciate today’s strip, in which the loathsome Slim’s mother-in-law does her best to pretend that he simply doesn’t exist.

Gil Thorp, 12/11/10

Oh, also, in Gil Thorp Jamaar died for our sins.

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Dick Tracy, 12/8/10

Oh, hey, Dick Tracy has been happening! The new plot involves Dick taking an inhuman maniac mass murderer, who’s wearing a terrifying gimp mask that also kind of looks like a toaster, to his sentencing, for reasons too unrealistic and dumb to go into here. However, I thought today’s strip was worth mentioning because of Dick’s dialogue in panel one — “Doctor, or whatever you are.” “I mean, I didn’t look at your CV or anything before they put you, draped and shackles and fetish gear, in the back of my low-slung sedan. Are you a medical doctor? Should I call you ‘professor’? Alls I know is that a depraved monster like you had to come out of the so-called ‘higher education’ system.”

Judge Parker, 12/8/10

Sam being garden variety smug about his wealth and privilege is all good fun. But Sam being smug about how his friend Judge Parker wrote especially erotic sex scenes involving his fictional stand-in, “Hank Austin,” and a beautiful assassin? That’s … that’s kind of gross, actually.

Mary Worth, 12/8/10

Obviously Jill’s drunken tirade wasn’t going to end nicely, with her storming out in a huff. I think that we all should have realized that the only way she was going to leave this hideously decorated reception hall was by being dragged out bodily, raving like a lunatic, clinging to her precious, precious bottle of wine. As usual, Jill’s apparent emotional state is all over the map: in the first panel she’s all rage, but in panel two she looks genuinely terrified, convinced that Adrian is making a terrible, fatal mistake. She reminds me of nothing so much as the final scene in the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers:

YOU’RE NEXT, ADRIAN! YOU’RE NEXT! Foolish Jill — did you not realize that you’re already in a room full of pod people?

Pluggers, 12/8/10

Dear Pluggers: If you’re trying to make a double entendre like this, keep in mind that we look at the cartoon before we read the caption, which kind of ruins the effect. Also: never, ever make a double entendre again, for reals.

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Family Circus and Dennis the Menace, 10/29/10

These two parents-on-the-floor panels were immediately adjacent to each other on my Chron page today, which allowed me to quickly come up with a game I like to call “Who’s the sociopath?” In the Family Circus it’s clearly Daddy, who’s sporting a sick little smile as he allows Jeffy’s utter terror and desperation to go on much longer than anyone should be comfortable with. (It should come as no surprise that budding sadist Billy can barely contain his glee at his brother’s panic.) Dennis, meanwhile, isn’t even deriving any joy from having literally knocked his mother out of her shoes and fused her brains into a molten lump. “Mommy isn’t moving anymore,” he tells his father, stone-faced. “Will we need to get a new mommy?”

Pluggers, 10/29/10

It’s true: blanket-stealing is only perpetrated by honest heartland folks of the sort depicted in Pluggers. We coastal elitists don’t worry about it, because we sleep under mile-long blankets woven out of feathers stolen from the wings of angels.

IMPORTANT SOCIAL NETWORKING UPDATE! You might recall from Wednesday that Mayor Dalton’s prostate has its own Pacebook page. It now also has its own page on Facebook, a somewhat more popular social networking service. Feel free to “like” it, or whatever you kids do!