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Plugger, 7/28/22

I’m just a little too young to have fully participated in Tab Culture, not to brag, but … Tab Culture was all about sophisticated women who kept “tabs” on their figures, right? Gotta look good, for the sophisticated fellas you’re trying to attract? That’s sure the vibe I’m getting from this ad! Anyway, far be it for me to play a gatekeeper on Andy Bear’s inner life, but I don’t think that’s what he’s in it for. His relationship with the can he’s holding up with a grin seems to be nothing more than “Hey, it’s Tab! Remember Tab! From before?” And I feel strongly that pluggers are part of a specific cultural and socioeconomic milieu! They’re not just people born before a certain date! Sorry to be a snob about Pluggers of all things, but I know pluggers and pluggers don’t put Tab diet soda at the heart of their identities! They just don’t!!!

Mary Worth, 7/28/22

Aw man, that Mary’s still got it, if by “it” you mean the ability to craft the perfectly passive-aggressive response to the damn fools she has to deal with on a daily basis. “Hmm…” she says to Jared, ever so delicately. “And that’s something you’ve already done? Without consulting me, or perhaps someone else who could’ve advised you not to? Did you talk to your cat about it perhaps, and pretend your cat could understand you and give helpful feedback, but then you pretended your cat’s feedback just reaffirmed your desire to do this? Interesting. Interesting.”

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Mary Worth, 7/4/22

Happy Fourth of July, everyone! Did you bake a cake for America’s birthday, like Mary did? No? Well, I guess you don’t love America enough, do you? (This sentiment still stands if Mary bought a sheet cake for America’s birthday at the supermarket, which at second glance she probably did. It’s the thought that counts!)

Dick Tracy, 7/4/22

For America’s birthday, Dick Tracy is reminding us that only AMERICA has sent manned spacecraft to the moon, where they discovered that the moon was inhabited by Moon People, one of whom, in this classic storyline, eloped with his son and Dick chased them there and then he did the extremely American thing where he’s shocked, shocked to learn that other countries (or planets) also have immigration laws and they apply to Americans. If I were in prison on the moon, I personally would want it to be an electric prison, because I’m pretty sure you need electricity to generate the oxygen I need to live, but that’s just me.

Pluggers, 7/4/22

Sorry to get political on here on the Fourth of July, everybody! Don’t get too mad at me! Reed Hoover also got political by claiming that hip-hop, an American-born art form that is one of the U.S.’s most popular cultural exports, isn’t welcome at a plugger’s Independence Day celebration. You can get mad at him all you want, but sadly it won’t do you any good.

Beetle Bailey, 7/4/22

Beetle Bailey is here to remind us that like any ideology, patriotism and nationalism are shaped by material conditions. When urging the U.S. to ease starvation in post-WWII Germany, General Lucius Clay, head of the occupying forces, famously said, “There is no choice between being a communist on 1,500 calories a day and a believer in democracy on a thousand.” The quantities here have shifted somewhat, but the point stands.

The Lockhorns, 7/4/22

The Lockhorns, meanwhile, invert the classic aphorism and make the political personal, every day. There’s no room for ideology in Leroy and Loretta’s world: everything gets crushed into interpersonal misery by the intense gravitational field of their mutual loathing.

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Dennis the menace, 6/29/22

There are so many questions this panel raises — like where are any of these people and why is Henry wearing a suit jacket in the same … room? area? zone? … where a guy is lifting weights and is Dennis talking about his dad’s heart or his esophageal sphincter or what — but the one that truly pushes me over the edge is that Dennis is standing on what appears to be an ottoman. And why? The answer appears to be “so the various bits of clip art can all be in the frame together” but there’s already no real sense of where any of these people are in physical space so that seems wildly unnecessary. Just move Henry up a few inches. Or down! It doesn’t matter! Nothing matters!

Pluggers, 6/29/22

You know what does matter, though? Working so that America’s infrastructure becomes ADA compliant as our population ages unstoppably into pluggerdom. It’s good for pluggers and frankly good for all of us if physical mobility becomes easier. No notes on this one!