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Pluggers, 9/4/17

Pluggers has been around for nearly 25 years, and even taking “Plugger Classics” into account, that means thousands of Pluggers suggestions have been harvested over the years. So I understand that the reserves are probably getting low, what with the ever-increasing plugger mortality rate, but still: “You’re a plugger if your younger brother is phyiscally larger than you?” I genuinely hate to see the plugger brand diluted like this.

Dennis the Menace, 9/4/17

By raising Dennis in a snug white-collar bubble and never letting him encounter anyone required to work on a holiday, his parents are going to ensure that he becomes the worst menace imaginable.

Gil Thorp, 9/4/17

I admit it: I’ve never been a professional athlete. But I have gotten a master’s degree in history, and I want to assure Heather and Jaquan that it is not the nonstop thrill ride that everyone says it is. Chances of concussion: significantly lower than the NFL. Chances of your love of learning and your social life withering away as you spend all your time with passive-aggressive introverts who are all ultimately competing for the same vanishingly small pool of academic jobs: significantly higher.

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Family Circus, 9/3/17

I genuinely think all the facial expressions on the middle panel make this a little masterpiece. Billy is bursting with pride, of course, and so is Mommy, if more subtly. PJ is confused as to why Billy is leaving the house — when will he back? Barfy looks distraught, presumably because Billy is the number one offender when it comes to feeding dogs under the table. Jeffy is mind-bendingly furious that his brother is receiving attention and approbation. And Dolly is like, “Wait a minute, why is he leaving for school and not me? Aren’t I old enough to go to school? I’m pretty sure I’m old enough to go to school.”

Funky Winkerbean, 9/3/17

Aw, isn’t that cute, the promised double wedding at the Starbucks Jones premiere is upon us! The minister that was scraped up at the last minute is cosplaying as a “Xaxian,” apparently the villainous species Starbuck fights against. This is a million times less weird than his use of the phrase “long-haul love” in his wedding sermon, which sounds like the name of a trucker fetish website.

Spider-Man, 9/3/17

Wait, wait, are you telling me that Tyrannus was just another landless aristocrat who only became a subterranean sovereign jus uxoris when he married Kala? That this whole drama is playing out because he feels emasculated by his wife’s political and financial resources? “We’re not so different, you and I,” Spidey chuckles. “I’m also an utter dick on this subject!”

Panel from Hi and Lois, 9/3/17

This is today’s Hi and Lois throwaway panel, and it doesn’t relate at all to the rest of the strip. I assume it’s left over from an earlier version, nixed by the syndicate, where a totalitarian government has taken root in Hi and Thirsty’s suburb, forcing everyone to maintain a visibly cheerful demeanor or face prosecution for sadcrime.

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 9/2/17

Usually Snuffy’s brushes with the law are depicted with the same jocular gloss as the rest of Hootin’ Holler’s dysfunctional culture. The crimes are generally relatively low-impact stuff like bootlegging and chicken thievery, and Snuffy goes to jail for a few days and there’s tongue-lolling hilarity all around. Today … today is different. The Holler’s judge, the only real representative of outside authority in this lawless community, looks genuinely horrified by the case he’s just finished presiding over: has his previous indulgent attitude led to this? Even Snuffy and Loweezy look like they’re suffering true shame. My assumption is that the generations-old Smif-Barlow fued finally escalated to the point where Sheriff Tate stumbled upon a ramshackle cabin on the creek where Barlow corpses were stacked like cordwood.

Spider-Man, 9/2/17

Wait, Kala and Mole-Man were engaged? You know, for a gnomish, homely, nearly blind cave-dweller, he still gets his fair share of attention from the ladies! This makes Kala’s insistence that her husband not disrupt the Mole-Man/Aunt May wedding all the more poignant. Why can’t everyone in this strip be as emotionally advanced as her?

Pluggers, 9/2/17

It’s no “Rhino-Man hocks his TV,” but “pluggers feel overpowering shame over something that’s entirely harmless and increasingly socially normalized” is pretty high up there in the pantheon of Extremely Grim Pluggers Punchlines, in my opinion.

Judge Parker, 9/2/17

“To the CIA! Once we turn in your wife, we can stop worrying about this — and, here’s the best part, probably get a big reward!”