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Family Circus, 10/28/19

Definitely what makes this panel worthwhile is the slight smile, right on the cusp between smugness and cruelty, on Big Daddy Keane’s face. “That’s right,” he’s thinking, as he looks knowingly out of the panel straight at us. “Thel’s out for the night and I’m getting these little shits all hepped up on ice cream and you know what? They fuckin’ love me for it. When they can’t fall asleep tonight because of all the sugar coursing through their veins? That’s Thel’s problem. When they demand ice cream for dinner for the rest of the week? That’s Thel’s problem. Serves her right for leaving the house for two hours!”

Sam and Silo, 10/28/19

Big news, everyone! I’ve been reading Sam and Silo for nearly a year, and I’ve finally learned that the guy with the mustache and the hat and the robe (?) and the bible (???) has a name, and that name is “Funny Floyd.” Still don’t really have a handle on literally anything else about his whole deal but with this piece of the puzzle in place maybe we’re on our way to finally cracking the case!

Pluggers, 10/28/19

GOD DAMN IT PLUGGERS

THESE ARE LITERALLY THE ONLY THREE OPTIONS AVAILABLE TO ANYONE, PLUGGER OR NON-PLUGGER ALIKE, WHEN THEY GET TOO BIG FOR A BELT

THERE IS NO PLUGGER-SPECIFIC CONTENT IN THIS PANEL AT ALL

YOU OUGHT TO BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF

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Pluggers, 10/26/19

They say the plugger and the hipster are mortal enemies, but here is evidence that they are both part of the same majestic web of life: assuming it wasn’t too stained or malodorous, I would absolutely, 100% buy an “I survived Y2K” t-shirt from a vintage clothing store, probably for more than this dog-man paid for it. Plugger hoarding tendencies ensure that these bits of pop culture flotsam don’t reenter the marketplace until enough time has passed to ensure that their cultural signifiers have gone from just out of date to ironically funny. Truly, nature is wonderful.

Crankshaft, 10/26/19

I’m not sure what kind of diktat came down from King Features Central Command about making Crankshaft cute ‘n’ cuddly to set up the line of Crankshaft The Friendly Old Man Christmas ornaments and cocoa mugs they’re cooking up, but it’s gonna take more than him gazing contentedly at some marshmallows to make up for literally 32 years of a strip where the central joke, hammered home over and over again, was “good lord, Ed Crankshaft is a tremendous asshole.”

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Pluggers, 10/18/19

The point of Pluggers, it seems to me, is that it’s meant to draw a distinction between pluggers and … the rest of the world, defined however you want (liberal elitists? big city folk? the young and the hip?). We might disagree on what exactly those distinctions are, on what communities the plugger community defines itself as not being, but I think we can all agree that today’s panel — “A plugger uses an extremely common slang term in an everyday situation” — is terrible, just terrible, carrying almost no semantic content to speak of. The good news: this means we’ve run out of meaningful things to say about pluggers, and can shut down this strip forever.

Dennis the Menace, 10/18/19

Wow, this is the Dennis the Menace that’s going to be haunting my nightmares! “What if he was your son, George?” asks Martha — his wife with whom, of course, he has no children — while George looks down at Dennis with a sort of detached contemplation. I have so many questions about this! Is this some weird little game they’re playing? Is Dennis already a participant in this fantasy, or do they hope he’ll catch on and play along? Why does she say “your” son instead of “our” son??? I guess the “punchline” is supposed to be turning that back on her — he’s not my son, I just married into him when I married you — but it’s such a weird way of doing it! What the hell, man? Seriously, what the hell?

The Lockhorns, 10/18/19

Honest to God, the first time I read this, I thought Leroy was talking to Loretta, and that he really had missed his trial and was going to jail soon. Which would be good, honestly! He should go to jail, for his crimes!