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Pluggers, 10/31/17

Today’s Pluggers is another look into the sad world of the young plugger bear-man. I’m not saying he’s sad so much because he’s eating ice cream out of its container — who amongst us hasn’t done the same? — so much as because of the location where he’s chosen to do so. This is a man(imal) whose car routinely serves as his dining room and who “cuts out the middleman” by just straight-up letting food scraps from his poorly constructed sandwiches accumulate in the sink, so I suppose part of the point is that he’s not held back by society’s rules about where one should feed, but still, something about the way he’s carefully leaned the lid to the ice cream against the … bread box? toaster oven? Whatever, it’s just some random and probably largely unused piece of kitchen equipment that our bear-man hero mostly employs to hold up the disposable packaging of whatever it is he’s consuming whole while standing in the middle of the kitchen floor, alone.

The Phantom, 10/31/17

The current weekly Phantom plot involves a journey to Walker’s Table, a mesa in the American Southwest that at some point came under the control of our Africa-based hero-lineage, where the Ghost-Who-Doesn’t-Check-In-With-His-Far-Flung-Real-Estate-Holdings tried to land a plane last week only to be driven off by gunfire. I’m mostly just amused by this long list of social malcontents who may or may not be lurking up there. If the ideological base of the occupying force really is so diverse, the smart bet would probably just be to leave them holed up there until they turn on each other and see who comes out on top. And don’t count out the Trekkies, man! The whole thing where they have to pay $10 a month for the new CBS streaming app in order to watch Discovery has ’em pissed.

Funky Winkerbean, 10/31/17

Ha ha! It’s funny because this guy has married a number of women, and he wants to give them all a book about a husband who watches his wife die of cancer, as a “gift”!

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Pluggers, 10/28/17

One of my favorite Pluggers attributions is “Lots of Pluggers Everywhere.” I just love the image of it, you know? Pluggers all over America encountering the phrase “online streaming,” in dribs and drabs, years after most people understood it. Maybe they’re asking their adult kids how they watch TV shows on they days they aren’t broadcast. Maybe their husbands got talked into signing up for the fancy new cable package and they’re trying to figure it out. They hear the phrase, and then they think — well, that just sounds like … you know! Hey, you know who would love this? They tap “pluggermail@aol.com” into their Windows XP PC. And at Pluggers HQ, the messages start coming. First a few, then more and more. Eventually it’s a mighty flood. Eventually, it cannot be ignored.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/28/17

Oh, hey, it looks like the art forgery plot and the domestic violence plot are gonna be the same plot! The whole thing hinged on Buck’s kid having a keen memory of the specific cruel putdown his abusive ex liked to use for him. This story is is grim as shit.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/22/17

Faithful readers! Do you remember the backstory on Rex’s hapless pal Buck, introduced to the strip more than four years ago? Well, he came into Rex’s practiced because his — wife? girlfriend? — Doris “accidentally” shot him in the head with a nail gun, and then Rex and June went over to have dinner with him, and it turned out that during his cheerleading past Rex and Doris hooked up, and then later in the dinner Doris got real blotto and passed out at the dinner table, and then … I never covered how this plotline ended? Clearly she and Buck broke up before she managed to successfully murder him, though. Anyway, it’s definitely true that violet domestic abusers often escalate after a relationship is over, so, uh, kudos for realism, I guess?

Pluggers, 10/22/17

Pretty sure “in a collision after your husband gets distracted because he’s horny for another car” is in the top ten Most Plugger Ways To Die.