Post Content

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 2/13/07

For reasons I can’t explain I find the hillbilly library in panel one of this strip incredibly charming. It’s not just a thatched-roof, ill-built wooden shanty — it’s a thatched-roof, ill-built wooden shanty with a wooden monumental neoclassical entrance, complete with columns, which are presumably the trunks of local trees. It’s like the cargo cults of New Guinea: these poor mountain folks, having once been exposed to book-learnin’ during the heyday of the Tennessee Valley Authority but unable to produce any themselves, built this shell of a library and filled it with fake books in hope of recapturing the city slickers’ magic.

For Better Or For Worse, 2/13/07

In the interest of keeping foobish vitriol to a minimum, I am only going to discuss Weed’s dialogue in the second panel here; frankly, it arouses quite enough vitriol to go around. Mainly it strikes me as a particularly egregious example of Things Nobody Actually Says, to wit:

• “B.Y.O.B., right?” As the lead-off to his party description, this makes it sound like “B.Y.O.B.” is shorthand for something awesome rather than something tight-fisted that 22-year-olds do. It’s possible that it means something else in Canada, though. Like, since everyone drinks domestic beer all the time up there, this is going to be an all-import party, featuring Budweiser, Yeungling, Old Milwaukee, and a variety of beers from Belgium.
• “We line up a food trough…” Dear God, if these party-goers arrive at this party to discover to their horror that the only food available is a six-foot long, three-foot deep box of Chex Mix, I will be very, very happy.
• “…score some seats…” It’s true that Weed’s bizarrely spacious loft seems to remarkably free of sitting surfaces, other than some uncomfortable-looking ultramodern couches. However, the verb “score” conjures up a pleasing image of Weed and Mike driving in to the seedy side of Toronto, looking for this guy a friend of a friend of guy they work with knows … “Yo, I got Eames, I got Barcoloungers, I got Aeron, check it out … hey, you guys aren’t narcs, are you?”
• “…wind up the tunes…” Yes, we’ll gather ‘round the Victrola! We have the latest Dixieland platters! It will be delightful!
• “…an’ ta-daah!” I’m willing to accept dropped “d”s as a fundamental aspect of the Patterson patois, but somehow I expected better from you, Weeder.

Mary Worth, 2/13/07

Take a good look at Jeff’s facial expressions in these two panels. In the first, he’s actually grinning a little, as if he’s pleased that Mary, to the extent that she’s capable of expressing human need, is begging him to come home with her. Then she reaches out to touch his face, and he recoils in anger and disgust.

Pluggers, 2/13/07

Generally speaking, a plugger will barricade himself in his bedroom, shrieking about how he’s not going to turn his motherfucking back on you for one God-damned second, you cocksucker, on the sixth day of his meth binge.

Post Content

For Better Or For Worse, 2/7/07

Who among us — particularly, who among those of us who have had the misfortune to read his loathsome monthly letters — hasn’t wanted to say “*#@[star][Saturn]!!” to Michael Patterson? At last Grandpa Jim, who certainly didn’t leave his farm to stoically fight the Nazis just so his whiny ingrate of grandson could make mad bank with a book about an innocent Irish girl and the stoic Canadian who left his farm to fight the Nazis who abused her, says what everyone else is feeling. My only concern is that the final thought balloon undermines the joy at seeing the eldest Patterspawn obscenely insulted, that maybe Jim thought he was saying “Good for you, m’boy! I always knew you’d make it!” instead of “*#@[star][Saturn]!!”. However, I choose to believe that he’s wondering about the construction of the book because he’s hoping, once next fall comes around and his strength has returned, that he can beat Michael to death with it. *#@[star][Saturn]!! you, Michael.

Hi and Lois, 2/7/07

“Because once the two of them die of pneumonia, I’m another step closer to 100 percent of the inheritance. Then all I have to do is rig Chip’s guitar to electrocute him, and … MOO HA HA!”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/7/07

Rex Morgan, M.D., is trying to worm its way back into my affections with the whole “June throws herself at a thirteen-year-old boy” gambit again; I have to admit that it’s kind of working. I’m interested to see what strategy she uses to distract Niki from his simmering class resentment. “No, it’s not really so big … uh-oh, I just splashed water all over my white t-shirt!” You don’t want to know what the carrot is for.

Mark Trail, 2/7/07

Wait, Mark Trail was in the army? Maybe his obsessive love of nature is some kind of attempt to make up for the massive Agent Orange deforestation program he ran back in ‘Nam. He does seem to have received extensive training in righteous-fist-to-face combat.

I am a little unnerved by Mark’s shit-eating grin in panel two. It’s too easy to assume that Mark and Dan were all not asking and not telling when they were in the service, and anyway, it’s well known that Mark finds sex with anyone to be abhorrent. I’m guessing Dan was Mark’s connection to sweet, sweet heroin. The reason Mark so angrily beats up drug dealers on his turf nowadays is that none of them offer product as satisfying as the horse he got back when he was in the army, and Mark demands high-quality goods, dammit.

Pluggers, 2/7/07

When it comes to food science, gerontology, and/or chemistry, pluggers are terribly misinformed.

Post Content

Hey kids! Do you know where mom hides the good scissors? Are you waiting for the day when you’ll graduate from adorable malapropisms and overactive imaginary scenarios into full-on murder? Why not announce it to the world — in t-shirt form?

Yes, merchandise displaying the excellent graphic above, which was created by faithful reader Wille Thompson, is available for purchase at CafePress. As usual, I’ve put a few starter shirts in the store, but if you’d like to see this logo on some other product — shirts, hoodies, mugs, what have you — just e-mail me and let me know.

Also! Another fab blog for your delectation! Plugwatch 200X is another in the ever-growing roster of Blogs That Focus On One Comic Every Day. Blogger JLR takes every day’s Pluggers and transforms it into a little mini-short-story that brings the longing and loss of the cartoon out of the subtext and into the forefront. It’s as if you crossed Pluggers and Funky Winkerbean and put the result into textual form. I just discovered this blog this week, but it hasn’t been updated since November; however, there was a brief notice posted earlier this month that the blogger was struck by personal tragedy. Still, said blogger says that more are coming soon, and even if not, the archives are great.