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Ziggy, 12/20/10

Today Ziggy has gone to see Santa for what’s at least the third year in a row, and we really have to start asking ourselves why he’s doing it. The easy answer is that he’s there for unspeakable reasons involving children, but if there were easy answers to anything involving Ziggy, the strip would have been purged from newspapers, and our collective pop-cultural consciousness, years ago. Here’s my theory: do you notice that the children in all these panels are particularly loathsome and cruel? I think Ziggy has sought out the worst children he can find — perhaps he’s managed to find out when Santa is going to visit the Home For Very Young Delinquents And Sass-Talkers — just to see them insult the jolly old elf. This is Ziggy’s way of pulling himself out of his bottomless pit of low self-esteem. “At least I’m better than these brats,” he thinks to himself. “At least I’m not calling poor Santa fat. I mean, I’m thinking it, but I’m not saying it aloud. That’s the difference between me and them. That counts for something, right?”

Herb and Jamaal, 12/20/10

Note that Herb is drinking out of his “Herb” coffee mug, while Jamaal is drinking out of a mug featuring the elaborate monogram logo of the soul food restaurant he and Herb co-own, which combines an H and a J. In other words, Jamaal is honoring their friendship and business partnership, while Herb thinks only of himself. This has much more troubling long-term implications for the duo than the personnel changes at the local high school.

Pluggers, 12/20/10

It sure is hard for pluggers to deny the same-sex attractions that shame them so, but somehow the compulsive eating helps them push it all deep down inside, where it can’t get out.

Update: Uh, as faithful reader Ned Ryerson pointed out, I made basically the inverse of this joke the first time this panel ran this year. In my defense, it’s actually a sign of good mental health that I don’t keep an infinite mental file of all the Pluggers panels I mock. I’m still working on the infinite mental file of Mary Worth strips with a team of trained psychiatrists.

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Ziggy, 11/20/10

Congratulations, comics reader! You’ve managed to wait patiently through 40-odd years of Ziggy to arrive at this, the ultimate Ziggy panel: the title character stares dumbly at a window carved out of the blank nothingness that is his universe, from which a customer service professional cheerfully insults him, for no reason anyone can fathom. Having expressed its inner purpose in its purest form, the strip ought at any moment to simply disappear in a puff of smoke, giving us all a long-awaited chance to move on with our new, Ziggy-free lives.

Herb and Jamaal, 11/20/10

Expecting to see her husband and his friend drooling over other women — or, perhaps in her heart of hearts, to see the two of them expressing the deep affection for each other she had always suspected — she instead found them engaged in something so much more harrowing: chicken necrophilia.

Mark Trail, 11/20/10

“No, seriously, my wife is dangerous and violent! You’ve got to get help, fast, before she finds out I’ve been talking to you!”

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Apartment 3-G, 11/19/10

This is something like day six of Tommie’s new concert piano being the source of Apartment 3-G’s drama without said piano actually appearing, and I’m beginning to think that the strip’s artist (who, remember, is not the same person at the strip’s writer) is unwilling or unable to draw one and desperately hoping that the story’s focus will shift to something more up his alley. “The doorbell’s ringing! Maybe it’ll be a handsome sandy-haired man wearing a suit jacket and no tie!”

Blondie, 11/19/10

I think we all pretty much assumed that Dagwood’s porn preferences would include something delicious and edible, but even I didn’t anticipate anything quite this unsettlingly depraved.

Gil Thorp, 11/19/10

“Hey, don’t worry, beardy third-string coach nobody cares about! Coach Kaz’ll keep ’em focused! With my windswept hairdo and totally rad and extreme Ray-Ban sunglasses, these kids know I’m cool — and they’ll respect me because of it!”

Ziggy, 11/19/10

Wow, Ziggy sure is on a tear of stiffing waiters on tips. I’m not sure what ethnicity this guy is supposed to be so that we can make a culturally specific joke about how he’s going to assault Ziggy for his cheapness. Is he French? Do they serve meatloaf at French restaurants?

Shoe, 11/19/10

OH GOD DON’T THINK ABOUT WHY THE MORTICIAN IS A VULTURE DON’T THINK ABOUT IT