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Pluggers, 10/7/09

Dum de doo, let’s see what folksy bit of lower-middle-class reactionary agitprop Pluggers has for us today AAAHHH TERRIFYING DEMON GOAT FROM THE PIT OF HELL ITSELF! All apologies to faithful reader True Fable and other known goat-a-philes, but this fellow looks a little bit too much like Baphomet for my taste. I believe that’s actually a mummified goat head that “Bernie Lange” wears as a mask for human sacrifices.

Satanism aside, what exactly is today’s Pluggers ostensibly indicating to us? That some pluggers have long, scraggly beards? I find this troubling, but it is true that with the aging of the Baby Boomer generation, the plugger and old hippie demographics will only continue to overlap, a long-term trend that’s much more unsettling that the fleeting dalliance between pluggers and hipsters.

Marmaduke, 10/7/09

Ha ha, the STIMULUS PACKAGE, am I right, folks? It looks like Marmaduke saw what a great job other cartoons did with stimulus package jokes and decided to follow up, on its own inscrutable schedule. Like Shoe’s Roz, Marmaduke appears to have ordered some kind of extra-large vibrator, or perhaps a device that electrically stimulates his victims’ flesh, the better to tenderize it before he devours them.

Marvin, 10/7/09

I know that it’s profoundly not news when Marvin makes jokes about shitting, but this week we’re being treated to an epic multi-day story arc — one that’s really impressive in its scope — about how one of Marvin’s associates has taken a huge dump in his pants and how the entire day care smells like feces, much to everyone’s disgust. The smell of poop is so bad that it’s threatening to blind Marvin, and it’s only Wednesday, so I can’t wait to see what heights of turd-focused drama we’ll see by the end of the week.

Hi and Lois, 10/7/09

Notice all the extra whitespace in Trixie’s thought balloon in panel one; does this indicate that the original dialogue was changed at the last minute? Perhaps Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Enterprises LLC tried and failed to get the first ever “infant with a hangover” joke into America’s funny pages.

Ziggy, 10/7/09

The car that Ziggy wants to buy is attempting to commit suicide, for obvious reasons.

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Mark Trail, 10/5/09

It’s becoming increasingly clear that Mark Trail’s clan is part of a network of isolated, hard-working, rural-cabin-based families who don’t get many visitors. Our reluctant poachers actually have more than a passing similarity to his old friends who own Sneaky, except instead of harboring sinister raccoons they just have a cat — a heavily sedated or dead cat, if the limp, compliant way it’s just letting Cindy tote it about is any indication. Anyway, one wonders how they all stay in touch. They could swap rustic livin’ tips on the Internet, or at least they could if any of their rustic shacks were actually connected to municipal electric or phone lines.

There’s something distinctly unsettling about Mark’s quick transition from “Rusty has been complaining about my cooking” to “You’re a beautiful young lady, Cindy!” The best case scenario is that Mark is going to set her to rustling up some grub for his young ward, both as a way to get her accustomed to her womanly duties and to see if she’d make a suitable mate for the lad once they both reach the traditional Lost Forest marital age of 13. But more likely, part of the purpose of this camping trip is to teach Rusty that sometimes when you’re very hungry, you need to eat things that you wouldn’t eat otherwise, and Nature’s Way is to start with the smallest and most feeble. (You’ll notice that we haven’t seen Sassy in a while.)

Dennis the Menace, 10/5/09

Today’s Dennis the Menace offers an amusing set of metaphorical nesting Russian dolls when it comes to absolute and relative chronology. Henry Mitchell is the father of a child who, I’ve always assumed, is in the 6-8-year-old range; obviously there’s an extremely wide range of ages that Henry himself could be based on that, but if pressed, I would place him somewhere between 35 and 45, and probably at the lower end of that scale. So, yes, he’s safely in the generation that spawned the whole “cartoons for grownups” phenomenon, which really took off with the monster success of the Simpsons twenty years ago. Which in turn of course means that Dennis could not possibly remember a time when cartoons were, in fact, for kids.

And yet, Henry goes about his day wearing black pants and a white shirt and a bow tie most of the time, which marks him out as a Stereotypical ’50s Dad, which has him being born in, I dunno, 1920 or so. This makes him about 90 years old, or means that he’s watching the 1955 version of Aqua Teen Hunger Force or Family Guy or whatever (and note that one of the cartoon characters is himself sporting Henry’s trademark outfit) on the DuMont Network.

Apartment 3-G, 10/5/09

Make fun of Dr. P (side note: my new nickname for the Professor is “Dr. P”) all you want, but before I met my wonderful and charming wife, I had a certain attraction to women who were mean, bad, and/or crazy (see also my devotion to Margo Magee), so I can sort of see where he’s coming from here. Pill-addled? Possibly suicidal? Hinting at a troubled, mysterious past? Shouting into the phone at someone who is probably supposed to be bringing her more drugs? Sign me up!

Pluggers, 10/5/09

You know, this cartoon would be a lot less confusing if the sarcastic postal clerk weren’t himself capable of flight. “Sorry, we don’t deliver via carrier pigeon anymore. I mean, I’m a carrier pigeon myself, but … you know, union rules. Now they’ve got me behind this desk, and let me tell you, it’s a drag.”

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Mary Worth, 10/1/09

So, everyone who bet on Scott surviving in the pool: you seem to have come out on top … for now. But will he pull through the surgery? And who exactly is this “Dr. Good” character? Does his name define his character, as the names of beloved Highlights icons Goofus and Gallant do? Or is it one of those ironic names, like when you call a big guy named “Tiny”? “Oh, look, here comes Dr. ‘Good.’ Hey, is that a lower intestine stuck to the bottom of his shoe?” If that’s the case, maybe Scott did die in that shootout after all. “Yeah, just give the corpse to Dr. Good and let him muck around in there for practice; it’s not like he can make things worse, right? And send the live one to Dr. Actually Good.”

Pool bets are now open on how long Adrian will stand there clutching at her chin in gape-mouthed horror. Hours? Days? Weeks? Will someone at least gently push her chin up so that her mouth is closed for the funeral?

Pluggers, 10/1/09

OH MY GOD FIXIE-RIDING HIPSTERS ARE ACTUALLY PLUGGERS EVERYTHING I KNOW IS WRONG