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Pluggers, 1/14/16

I’m not sure what the context would be for anyone, even this plugger, to buy a new DVD player in the year 2016 — maybe he finally put in a disc into the old one when there was already one in there one too many times — but I do like the way the letters seems wobbly in his word balloon, really conveying his sense of desperation. “Please, son, you gotta tell me how to hook this thing up. I got all these old westerns and All In The Family episodes, I already switched from VCR tapes to these discs, I’m not switching to iTunes or whatever they have now. I don’t even know what an iTunes looks like! That neighbor kid who used to do my computer stuff won’t talk to me because I put too many politics memes on his Facebook wall! You gotta help me!”

Mark Trail, 1/14/16

Haha, is it a good idea, Gabe? Is it an idea you in fact suggested to him literally two sentences earlier in this very conversation? How dumb do you think we are exactly, Gabe?

Wizard of Id, 1/14/16

Oh, hey, let’s check in with the Wizard of Id! What’s going on over there? Oh, they’ve introduced a new character? And he’s a muscular, hornèd demon from the depths of hell? And the human ladies want to have sex with him? Let’s never check in with the Wizard of Id again.

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Crankshaft, 12/23/15

YESSSSSS, CRANKSHAFT IS REALIZING THAT NOBODY LIKES HIM AND EVERYONE WANTS HIM DEAD

ENHANCE

ENHANCE

YESSSS THAT’S THE STUFF

Slylock Fox, 12/23/15

Hmm, I wonder what the answer to these fox-trivia questions are? Let’s take a look and OH MY GOD, INVERT AND ENHANCE

OH MY GOD

OH MY GOD

Mary Worth, 12/23/15

Haha, while Olive’s parents are off having animalistic sex, Mary will be busy turning Olive into a good Christian! It’s the perfect crime!

Wizard of Id, 12/23/15

Ha ha, it’s funny because those held captive in Id’s dungeons are forced to eat the dismembered remains of their fellow prisoners, like something out of the most nightmarish of horror movies, except this is a comic strip that runs in newspapers that aren’t allowed to print swear words or pictures of women’s nipples!

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Hagar the Horrible and Wizard of Id, 12/15/15

Most comic strips begin their existence as the singular creation of an artist or artist-writer pair; but once it runs for long enough, it becomes an institution, and often hired hands are brought in to do the actual day-to-day work on the strip. The personnel decisions that happen behind the scenes — at Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Industries LLC, say, or the lesser known Parker Hart & Associated Anachronistic Whimsy Professionals responsible for the unholy B.C.-Wizard of Id-Crock trinity — are opaque to us, and all we’re left with, if we’re regular comics readers, is the occasional disquieting realization that “the strip looks different.” Which is a long way of saying that Hagar the Horrible and Wizard of Id look different to me this week. Is this true for anyone else? Anyone? At least we can take solace in the evidence that the writing of the strips is staying true to their original vision: to put references to contemporary issues in imagined versions of our brutish past, in order to show that our present remains just as violent beneath its thin veneer of civilization.

Dennis the Menace, 12/15/15

Dennis is self-aware enough to know that he’s constitutionally incapable of pleasing a monotheistic God who judges humans against some absolute morality, or even of currying favor with a watered-down version like Santa. He’ll be happy to make a deal with a much older form of folk spirit, one with an agenda at once more opaque and easier to accommodate. The tooth fairy doesn’t care if you’ve been bad or good; the tooth fairy operates on a plane entirely removed from whatever ethical system you use to define those terms. The tooth fairy just wants your teeth.