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Further one-panels for Friday

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Six Chix, 10/19/18

Without any aid or context, what do you think is happening in this cartoon, in which a devil and angel argue over whether an email (?) should be sent, with the “pro” argument being that the potential sender is bad and the “con” argument being that the recipient is good? Would you guess it’s about … cyberbullying? It is, because “Unity Day” is the signature event of National Bullying Prevention Month, and you can sort of work your way backwards to see what’s going on, but I think the whole to-do relies on the idea that bullies do their thing because of some innate sense of worthlessness, and while that may be true at some base level, I don’t think it’s the immediate motivation for individual acts of social cyber-aggression. Anyway, I guess this strip did its job in the sense that it was baffling enough to get me to look up what the hell “Unity Day” is, but that also led me to the sad discovery that nobody updated the Unity Day Wikipedia article with 2017’s events. Is it even happening this year? I’d do more work to find out, but I’m afraid someone might make fun of me.

Pluggers, 10/19/18

This failing car is doing its best to protect this plugger’s failing body. But the heart wants what it wants (specifically in this case, it wants to get clogged up with grease until it stops beating, forever).

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Troubling Friday

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/12/18

A thing that was a big deal about Jordan when he was first introduced was that he was a veteran of one America’s several ongoing wars and had been wounded in action and had two artificial legs, a fact that has been … not necessarily retconned away but not talked about very much! But anyway, it appears that now we’re in store for a very special PTSD plot, which is appropriate and medical but it’s kind of weird that it’s only coming up now. Like, Michelle was an army nurse, so you think she would’ve … like … put two and two together here, rather than just being like, “My man, who lost his legs in an explosion, I hope he doesn’t get stressed out in the restaurant biz like the way he does around explosion sounds, which is a fairly unremarkable reaction and we’re not going to discuss in any way!”

Pluggers, 10/12/18

This could’ve been just another “Ha ha, pluggers’ bodies are falling apart as they age” panel, but, the anxious look on that l’il plugger’s face is truly harrowing. “Gramps, please … please turn down the TV. It’s so loud. None of us can hear each other. You can’t even hear me. And you’re sitting only about three feet away from the set. Do you even know I’m here? Do you even care?”

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Saturday is for old people

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Pluggers, 10/6/18

A good example of the stranglehold Baby Boomers have had on American self-image comes from the weird version of real-life Comic Book Time that defines the life history of people in syndicated newspaper comics: young-to-early-middle-aged adults who still have kids at home somehow went to Woodstock or enjoyed disco fever at its peak, despite the fact that real-life humans who fit that demographic were busy being born during those cultural moments. That’s why I have to give grudging admiration to today’s Pluggers, because however you define a plugger, you have to admit that they’re old. You’re old, Boomers! It’ll happen to me someday — some might argue that it’s already in the process of happening — but I just want to hear you admit it, and I will take this syndicated Pluggers panel as a confession.

Mary Worth, 10/6/18

Ahhhhh, it’s a strange little old man slowly loping down a condo complex hallway, past discount art purchased in bulk at Pier One, grouchily refusing Mary’s plea to engage in some emotional processing. Has a more perfect Mary Worth ever been created?