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Pluggers, 1/9/10

My wife has a theory that purse-snatchers should really focus their attention on men who have been forced by their significant other to hold onto said lady-friend’s purse for a few minutes, since they invariably treat it as if it were full of highly radioactive material, attempting to make as little physical contact with the purse as possible and holding it at arm’s length. Our gender-terrified plugger would make an easy mark for such a thief, as it looks as if he’d much rather lose some cash and spend and afternoon calling all his family’s various credit card companies than even briefly being mistaken for, I don’t know, a drag queen or something (OH AS IF HONEY).

Marmaduke, 1/9/10

I have always assumed that the thoughts running through Marmaduke’s head make up an unimaginable melange of nightmare and carnage that would drive any normal mind insane just to contemplate it for an instant; thus, I’m shocked that even Phil Hitler dares to ask the hell-beast’s opinion on matters sexual. Good luck with your rapid descent into madness, Phil!

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Oh my goodness, the site’s been all rearranged! More information about the redesign can be found on the Internet.

Curtis, 1/4/10

Oh, right, Kwanzaa! If there’s one thing that keeps me from viewing the purchase of a new calendar as just another step on the ever-descending spiral towards death, it’s the annual Curtis Kwanzaa fable of hallucinatory madness. I generally tear through the first half of the tale with joy when I return from my Christmas travels. Past adventures have included:

• The trials of six-fingered piano players
• Terrifying bat-winged bears
• Giant telepathic otters (still the gold standard, to my mind)
• Talking two-headed snakes
• Greedy maidens vomiting out various creepy-crawleys

This year’s story, involving nightmarish soul-stealing shadow-things, talking, styled animals, and all-knowing rhythm instruments, while whimsical and awesome when measured by other yardsticks, is thus rather pedestrian by when viewed in the Curtis Kwanzaa context. Still, today our hero appears to be passing through a magic mirror into the realm of the dead, so perhaps things might be looking up. I’d also like to point out that his sentient animal friends can speak and think like humans but, since they cannot enter the spirit realm, apparently do not have souls, which to my mind makes them by far the creepiest part of this whole drama so far.

Pluggers, 1/4/10

Speaking of monstrous, soulless beasts, let’s check in with Pluggers! Let’s see, yep, same old same old, pluggers are casting their minds back to a bygone age and … finding it … wanting? OH MY GOD EVERYTHING I KNOW IS WRONG! Is 2010 the year pluggers finally get with the times? What’s next? “Pluggers will suffer a witch to live”? MADNESS!

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/4/10

This strip would be funny (well, OK, not funny per se, but at least not so unsettling) if Ol’ Lukey were laffin’ it up with his fellow rustics in the second panel, rather than just sort of staring off into space looking befuddled and a little frightened. As it is, it appears that this elderly hillbilly is falling into corn likker-accelerated dementia, unable to remember where he’s going and why at any given moment. Soon he’ll be receiving Hootin’ Holler’s version of elder care (e.g., abandonment on a rocky hillside to be eaten by grizzlies).

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Mary Worth, 12/12/09

As predicted, Mary Worth has made what should by all rights be a spectacular storyline boring in near-record time, mostly by showing us endless shots of Wilbur typing instead of treating us to mid-70s college flashbacks. Still, there are some moments of visual interest in today’s strip, mostly centering around Wilbur’s crimes against ergonomics. In panel one, he’s somehow managed to get his chest all the way up the keyboard, forcing his elbows behind his back as he types the phrase every young man wants to hear — “I’m probably not your dad, but your mom was an amazing lay back in college.” In panel two, the desk seems to have miraculously dropped by two or three inches, which explains why Wilbur’s fingers are just flailing about in the air two inches above the keyboard.

Ziggy, 12/12/09

Last year around this time, I pointed out how creepy it was for a man with no pants to wait in line to see Santa. Today we learn what’s even creepier: a man with no pants standing off to the side and silently watching kids sit on Santa’s lap. Just the thought of it is apparently making Santa weep in disgust.

Mark Trail, 12/12/09

While I suppose it’s swell that Mark is going to great lengths to save Rusty’s life and all, don’t you think he’s a little too excited about all this breaking and entering and smashing windows and what not? I mean, look at that face in the second panel: drenched with sweat, eyes wide and crazed — Mark hasn’t had this much fun in his life! In fact, it was wholly unnecessary for him to dramatically throw that old barrel though the store’s front window, as Mark is more than capable of kicking any door down. One begins to wonder if the whole “jacking the car up on sand as a playful dog scampers about” scenario was a set-up to allow Mark to go on this vandalistic rampage.

Pluggers, 12/12/09

Pluggers are so scandalized by extremely mild swear words that they bowdlerize classic movie quotes, even in their own minds.