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The Lockhorns and Pluggers, 1/26/19

Man, here’s a couple of single-panel comics that seem to have gotten their wires crossed today! Normally, The Lockhorns restrains its deep well of misery to the emotional sphere: sure, Loretta constantly trash-talks Leroy’s skimpy paychecks, but that always seems more of a way to belittle him rather than an actual complaint about their finances, as they seem to have no problem paying for Loretta’s shopping sprees, endless and no doubt pricey marriage counseling, and what I assume are their sky-high auto insurance premiums. Have they finally reached the point when Loretta is beginning to secretly pawn their household items in order to buy groceries, or did she do it just to annoy Leroy, “accidentally” bringing him by the window in yet another move in their longstanding chess game of emotional destruction? Pluggers is where we expect to see desperate pawn shop episodes; pluggers have survived true horrors, both foreign and domestic, so don’t try to tell me that the biggest danger they face is on the golf course.

Crankshaft, 1/26/19

It’s true: beloved (?) ancillary Crankshaft character Ralph is having a heart attack! Today we’re getting to the real dramatic heart of this storyline: Ralph is having a heart attack, and it’s going to inconvenience Crankshaft.

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Mary Worth, 1/14/19

Why, what’s this? It seems that the case of the smitten student just got a little more complex. If I’m interpreting that thought balloon correctly, Jannie isn’t overcome by lust for Professor Cameron at all, but is rather just buttering him up for her own inscrutable purposes. Is she planning on kidnapping him for ransom? On stealing his organs? On … getting a better grade than her work alone would merit, exactly as Toby suspected all along? Ha ha, isn’t everyone going to feel silly when that turns out to be the case! Anyway, this dude is probably her actual boyfriend. You can tell he’s more desirable to a young woman than Ian, because he knows about hip new bands like the Rolling Stones.

Gil Thorp, 1/14/19

Oh, man, this Gil Thorp storyline appears to be about how the tyranny of student confidentiality laws are shackling honest adults who need the right to humiliate children in public, to protect their reputation, and I for one am I here for it! In the meantime, please enjoy Kaz aggressively pointing at Gil to drive home his “point” that B/Robby Howry’s youthful transgressions are fair game in this PR battle.

Pluggers, 1/14/19

Obviously the joke here is that pluggers have grandchildren who don’t have a firm grip on typical human lifespans and/or the dates of major historic events, but I’m choosing to believe that this panel takes place after a future bloody civil war in which pluggers were on the losing side. They believed they’d have an inherent advantage over the big-city types, but it quickly became clear that their ramshackle automobiles and sedentary lifestyles were not the military assets they assumed them to be.

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Pluggers, 12/18/18

This is something you don’t usually hear me say, but I like the cut of this elder she-plugger’s jib! I particularly like that you can tell that her grandchildren left literally minutes ago and she’s already wining out. Is she going to bother picking up any of their junk before getting blotto? She sure isn’t! Is she worried about drinking red wine while wearing white pants? She gives not a single solitary shit! This ecstatically drunk grandma is definitely one of my top ten pluggers of the year!

Mary Worth, 12/18/18

It’s going to be fun seeing how close Mary can get to the question she actually wants an answer to — “So, are you guys still fucking on the regular or what?” — without coming out and saying it. In the meantime, I’m just going to enjoy the incredibly tiny plate that muffin is sitting on in panel two. You don’t expect Mary to just hand over a muffin without a plate, do you? She’s not an animal.

Crankshaft, 12/18/18

They say consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, but I’ve never claimed to be anything other than petty and small, so I’ll say this: it drives me crazy that the Funkyverse contains both weirdly named psuedobrands like “McArnold’s” but also actual brands like Amazon. It forces me to conclude that Amazon paid to be mentioned in the strip, or, more likely, that McDonald’s paid not to be mentioned.