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Pluggers, 10/30/12

You know, before I read the caption, I thought I had this one figured out — “pluggers are friendly and helpful, and also spend so much time at their local home improvement big box store that they know where everything is,” or something along those lines. So you can imagine that I was surprised and delighted to discover that it was actually about how pluggers are just stone cold constantly doing their business in public restrooms to the extent that they have elaborate mental maps of where they can go do it. Do pluggers have lower GI or urinary continence problems that cause them to routinely be on the prowl for a publicly accessible toilet? Are their home bathrooms so gross that they actually prefer to go in a facility that they can be reasonably sure is mopped once a day? Or do they get a sick transgressive thrill out of it? Whatever the case, this is sadly one of the most interesting plugger quirks showcased to date.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/30/12

Oh, hey, Rex Morgan sex worker update: the fun gals at Junior’s apartment building are strippers, not prostitutes. Strippers with hearts of gold, though, tending to and raising money for one of their number who (we learned yesterday) is suffering from breast cancer. Actually presenting a breast cancer storyline seems like a much more natural and organic way for the comics to acknowledge Breast Cancer Awareness Month than, say, just putting pink on everything, though it says a lot about the pacing of soap opera strips that this only became clear on October 29th. Will Rex do an emergency breast-cancer-ectomy, being a scowling dick about the whole thing all the while?

Mark Trail, 10/30/12

Speaking of strippers, check out Mark easing out of shirt in panel three as he prepares to cleanse himself in this pirate island’s beautiful lagoon, all under Pop’s watchful eye! This would definitely be the sexiest Mark Trail yet, were it not for the known scientific fact that Mark Trail is where erotic feelings go to die.

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Hagar the Horrible, 10/15/12

“Maybe I shouldn’t have spent the night before I led my men into a brutal, hand-to-hand combat, during which they must either kill or be killed, filling their heads with tales of damned souls, wandering the earth as dim spectres, mere shadows of their former selves. Which thought do you think is more likely to jump into their heads unbidden it the midst of this violent melee: that they themselves will be felled in battle and their shade will live on, with the wounds and terror they feel now continuing for eternity? Or that, for the rest of their lives, every time they feel a prickling on the back of their neck or an unseasonably icy wind across their face, they’ll suspect that it’s the vengeful spirit of a man they cut down, haunting them until they succumb to madness and terror?”

Hi and Lois, 10/15/12

Ha, and if Hi’s face is any indication, he sure has earned the right to use the word “boring”! If Hi’s face is any indication, today was the day when his capacity to feel joy or pain or anything at all really was finally snuffed out by the intense ennui of mindless, soulless corporate dronery. Get used to that face, kids, it’s the only one he can make now!

Slylock Fox, 10/15/12

In order for the Slylockian world anthropomorphic animals to exist, there must be some kind of apocalyptic event in our future and their past, during which the lower beasts achieved sentience and most of the human population was wiped out, presumably violently. Normally I don’t take this personally, but something about today’s strip, in which we learn that these horror-monsters are riding our subway to our Brooklyn, makes me angry. You didn’t build that, hippo-thing! Neither did you, shirt-wearing cat! The thought of the Museum of Natural History, presumably now retooled and dedicated to the animals’ triumph over the now exterminated human race, particularly sickens me.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/15/12

Oh my goodness, I sure hope that “the party business” is the euphemism for prostitution that the writer of Rex Morgan and King Features Syndicate agreed on after several tortuous weeks of negotiations! Junior knows, and so does that cheery looking couple sitting on the bench. “That Junior, he runs the best brothel in San Diego County, doesn’t he, Martha?” “You can say that again, dear!”

B.C., 10/15/12

Hey! I just flew Southwest yesterday, and as usual the flight and service were excellent, and not once did anyone attempt to feed me something that they barfed and/or shat out (sorry, I’ve already grossed myself out enough just thinking about this, not going to look up how gizzards actually work, I’m afraid there’ll be pictures).

Spider-Man, 10/15/12

You know, the modern, Internet-savvy newsroom is a high-pressure, 24/7 operation, so it’s nice to see that J. Jonah Jameson still takes time to humiliate his employees with elaborate, improvised, and extremely sarcastic little skits.

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Mark Trail, 10/5/12

Sorry I haven’t been keeping you up to date on Mark Trail, in which a heavily armed Cherry resolved the whole Rusty-napping situation without Mark ever needing to show up! Given the level of real danger that was involved with Rusty being kidnapped by criminals and threatened with death, I’m a bit puzzled as to what “exaggeration” she thinks Rusty will resort to in recounting the story to Mark. “Mark, I saw these men killing sheep from a plane, and then they kidnapped me, and they were going to turn me into a sheep and then shoot me from a plane, so they taught me sheep language, but I summoned all the other sheep, who ate the men! Plus there were aliens!”

Family Circus, 10/5/12

The Billy (age 7) Family Circuses are usually mostly interesting to me because of the layers of family-narrative artifice involved (Jeff Keane continuing his father’s tradition of pretending to draw as his brother), but today’s family psychodrama is much more straightforward: remember, if you don’t like your mother, your kids will notice.

Spider-Man, 10/5/12

Looks like all’s well that’s ended will in Spider-Man! And now you get to contemplate whether you’d rather make sex to a snake or a spider, yuck.

Shoe, 10/5/12

Ha ha, it’s funny because Shoe is emotionally dead, unable to feel either joy or pain!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/5/12

Meanwhile, in Rex Morgan, the thingy came off and there’s water everywhere and June is pissed.