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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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Gil Thorp, 10/23/17

THE GIL THORP FOOTBALL SEASON STORY SO FAR: The football team is not great, and quarterback “can do some things well,” so Gil’s gonna resort to some classic Milford trickeration, like “the veer,” which I assume is some dumb weirdo formation from the leather helmet era like the wing-T, and which they’ll practice for weeks only to see it work for exactly three plays until their opponents figure out how to stop it, and also it’ll result in the whole offensive line getting concussed, somehow. Anyhoo, I’m a little in love with panel two here, in which Gil attempts to wow his mediocre quarterback with an expansive gesture in the direction of a 2009-vintage netbook where he’s managed to figure out how to make the file folders on his desktop different colors.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/23/17

Oh, right, that’s what happened to Buck’s abusive ex: she went to jail! Briefly, and none of the safeguards that were supposedly put in place actually worked. This continues to be a depressingly accurate depiction of how domestic abusers operate.

Mary Worth, 10/23/17

I think it’s a fantastic touch that Iris imagines Wilbur’s girlfriend as being the same height as him, and with greying hair. Like she’s hung up on on him and even she can’t get her head around this.

Crankshaft, 10/23/17

OH YEAH IT’S FALL AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS: CRANKSHAFT IS MAKING JOKES ABOUT PUMPKIN SPICE COFFEE! Anyway, anything that makes Ed Crankshaft so furious can’t possibly be bad, so it’s official: pumpkin spice is extremely good now.

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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.