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Pluggers, 10/7/09

Dum de doo, let’s see what folksy bit of lower-middle-class reactionary agitprop Pluggers has for us today AAAHHH TERRIFYING DEMON GOAT FROM THE PIT OF HELL ITSELF! All apologies to faithful reader True Fable and other known goat-a-philes, but this fellow looks a little bit too much like Baphomet for my taste. I believe that’s actually a mummified goat head that “Bernie Lange” wears as a mask for human sacrifices.

Satanism aside, what exactly is today’s Pluggers ostensibly indicating to us? That some pluggers have long, scraggly beards? I find this troubling, but it is true that with the aging of the Baby Boomer generation, the plugger and old hippie demographics will only continue to overlap, a long-term trend that’s much more unsettling that the fleeting dalliance between pluggers and hipsters.

Marmaduke, 10/7/09

Ha ha, the STIMULUS PACKAGE, am I right, folks? It looks like Marmaduke saw what a great job other cartoons did with stimulus package jokes and decided to follow up, on its own inscrutable schedule. Like Shoe’s Roz, Marmaduke appears to have ordered some kind of extra-large vibrator, or perhaps a device that electrically stimulates his victims’ flesh, the better to tenderize it before he devours them.

Marvin, 10/7/09

I know that it’s profoundly not news when Marvin makes jokes about shitting, but this week we’re being treated to an epic multi-day story arc — one that’s really impressive in its scope — about how one of Marvin’s associates has taken a huge dump in his pants and how the entire day care smells like feces, much to everyone’s disgust. The smell of poop is so bad that it’s threatening to blind Marvin, and it’s only Wednesday, so I can’t wait to see what heights of turd-focused drama we’ll see by the end of the week.

Hi and Lois, 10/7/09

Notice all the extra whitespace in Trixie’s thought balloon in panel one; does this indicate that the original dialogue was changed at the last minute? Perhaps Walker-Browne Amalgamated Humor Enterprises LLC tried and failed to get the first ever “infant with a hangover” joke into America’s funny pages.

Ziggy, 10/7/09

The car that Ziggy wants to buy is attempting to commit suicide, for obvious reasons.

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Crock, 10/6/09

Poor uncultured Captain Poulet! He’s throwing around big words like “Platonic,” which means pretty much exactly the opposite of what it’s pretty clear that he thinks it means. Perhaps his only experience with Plato comes from reading The Symposium, and he thinks the evening is going to end in a drunken sodomistic orgy, though even in that case he seems to have seriously misunderstood some genders.

Oh, also, this lady is out on parole! This is “funny,” for some reason.

Apartment 3-G, 10/6/09

See, this is the difference between Ruby and Tommie. Ruby may be beaten down by the big city — she have been thrown over by a man she thought she was getting on well with for some pill-addled floozy — but she still knows that she’s worth something! In panel two, she looks mad about her lonely, unloved state. Screw you, New York! If you’re not good enough to appreciate Ruby, well, she’ll just go back to Texas, and you’ll be all the worse for it!

Tommie, meanwhile, is in the process of melting into a puddle of self-pity. The only thing keeping her standing upright is the fact that her coffee mug is mostly filled with Wellbutrin.

Jumble, 10/6/09

Speaking of pills, these women — one with a heavy-lidded expression, the other with eyes the size of dinner plates — appear to be having some kind of spontaneous little party in the shoe store, in which they’re stumbling around muttering about how “it’s like walking on marshmallows.” They are clearly high, on drugs.

Funky Winkerbean, 10/6/09

Now, Kayla, we know that you weren’t aware that Lisa’s ghost was spying on you when you and Les first made out, because you aren’t gifted with Creepy-o-Vision. But for the record, “Every peanut butter and jelly sandwich is like an edible tombstone for my dead wife and it must be made properly” is the part where you run screaming for the door and never look back.

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Your top comment is coming shortly, but forgive me for first sharing with you the last of the What Would Margo Do? bracelet pics that have come in! First we have faithful reader AeroSquid, he of the lunatic genius comics mashups, with his faithful cat Stormy:

Next up is faithful reader SecretMargo. “I wore my bracelet around my ankle for a day, but it was slightly too tight and threatened to make a permanent groove/brand in the skin. While that may match the impressions my love for Margo has worn into my soul, I decided to relocate it to dangle loosely from my impossibly dainty wrist. I’ve included a photo that crams as much CC merchandise into the frame as is currently allowed under international law.”

(That’s a Cassandra Cat mug and a Molly the Bear shirt, not that you asked.)

And finally, faithful reader Chris wonders, “What would Margo do? If she uses a Nikon 18-200mm zoom lens (notorious for zoom creep, or lens sag), she would use the wristband as depicted. And to think, I used to use a rubber band; now I get to use something that helps with MAJOR life decisions as well.”

Oh, but wait, what was that amazing special item I mentioned in the headline? Well, among those who contributed to the fundraiser by mail was a certain Ms. Margaret Shulock, who you might know as the writer of Apartment 3-G! If you remember this blog post of hers I once linked to, you’ll know that she actually sketches out each strip before sending it to artist Frank Bolle; she was nice enough to send me her original sketch for the now-famous HAT MAN strip:

I love Margo’s dismissive little “I Googled him” wave. This will soon be framed properly, but I thought I would share it with you all here! Since Ms. Shulock’s blog post indicates that she stays up at night wondering what Margo will do next, her WWMD bracelet should help her figure it out.

(And, of course, you can let the world know that you, too, are a hat man, via a hat.)

And now, with that all settled, I give you your comment of the week!

“I think Pluggers is pretty clever today; pluggers don’t know that single speeds are The Cool Thing nowadays. So, pluggers are so excessively unhip that they cycle backwards through the whole spectrum back to fully unrealized hipness. And yet, through all this, they don’t replace toilet paper rolls in the dispenser. Pluggers!” –zamros

And your runners up! Very funny!

“Mark Trail can go camping for days without a razor and not grow any facial hair himself. He claims he punches his stubble off every morning, but rumors of electrolysis treatments persist.” –Les of the Jungle Patrol

“Dick, you’re beginning to sound less like you’re trying to stop the clown from killing Ringo, and more like you’re hurrying him along. ‘Enough to kill him?’ ‘So now you want to kill him?’ ‘This is where we get to the you-killing-him-part, right?’ It’s morbid, and you deserve that cute little gun in your face.” –teddytoad

“In panel two the question-mark thought balloon sinks downward from Adrian’s head, in opposite direction to the normal comics convention, in order to show that this wordless punctuation symbol is an especially ‘heavy’ thought, probably the most deeply contemplated mental response that has ever been formulated by Adrian’s brain. Her total bewilderment and inability to come up with any verbal reply at all is understandable, since the subject ‘something’ and the predicate ‘happened’ have never heretofore been strung together in a sentence within Mary Worth.” –seismic-2

“I only read Family Circus for the captions.” –Red Greenback

“I imagine whatever foul mind spawned Marvin intended for us to view the over-pierced collar-wearing goth girl as something freakish and reprehensible, but it thwarted itself in the third panel by showing she is an astute judge of character and intends to end the threat of Marvin at least temporarily. Each of those piercings must be a medal of courage or something.” –Dr. Novakaine

“I defy you to name anything more super-powery than being able to wield a shillelagh, look like David Niven with a ’70s haircut, and use stevedore lingo all at the same time.” –DaveyK

“‘You, sir, have been trounced by Doctor Orpheus and his QUIZNO’S PARTY SUB!!!’ [overly dramatic music]” –Vince M

“Wait, did Elwood just pull a Scott (from Mary Worth)? ‘Hold on to this ring. When you feel ready, you can wear it!’ Does that mean that Elwood will be gunned down by heroin dealers? PLEASE?” –JP (not Judge Parker)

“Let’s take a moment, though, to remember the dear, departed Detective Colleague. He was a blond man … um … and he wore a uniform … and, well, he’ll be missed. Yeah.” –buckyswife

“A plugger’s bicycle seat longs for the sweet release of death.” –Uncle Lumpy

“Dr. Good’s working on him! Where by ‘working on him’ I mean ‘harvesting any reusable organs.'” –Hogan

“The hipster lifestyle — slow bicycles, cheap beer, closets full of bowling shirts, raggedy flannel, and John Deere caps — basically is the plugger lifestyle. The only difference is that pluggers don’t know they’re supposed to be living it ironically. Because they’re bears.” –BigTed

“I will note that Adrian’s response to horrible news is to frantically lick her fingers. Maybe she forgot to wash her hands after lunch and she’s licking the rib sauce off. ‘Mmmmm, damn shame about Scott, but you can really taste the mesquite!'” –Digger

“I’ve only been skimming MW and reading the commentary, and I thought SantaRoyMart was something some wiseass commenter made up. Boy, is my face salmon-square-colored!” –indrifan

“Rusty, the only thing that’s happened to you is you caught a fish, heard a gunshot, got left alone in the woods for two hours, and met a guy named Bob. What your classmates won’t be able to believe is that you find this to be relatable entertainment.” –MolyBendum

“I love the random grace notes of hillbilly squalor: the crudely sewn patches on the curtains that Loweezy uses like Sally Rand used her ostrich fan. Also, the huge fucking nail in the porch post. Why? Does Snuffy need something to hang Revenooers’ hides from while they cure?” –sugarpie

“I wonder why I find Bobbie so intriguing. I can’t figure out why her parents gave her a boy’s name — like Tommie, except not boring. I can’t imagine why I find Bobbie’s company preferable to an apartment empty save for my bloated interior monologue. I don’t know why my loins are aching at the thought of copulating with a living female of my species. Maybe I should go see a shrink before my hair changes color again.” –hogenmogen

“I remember when bonsai was a treated with the proper reverence due to an ancient, living artform, and not just something you slap on top of your cheapass dollar store television set as if it might serve as some sort of small organic antenna.” –One-eyed Wolfdog

“Dr. P should be glad he’s an Apartment 3-G character and thus has the luxury of thought-ballooning. If he were in Mark Trail, he’d have to say all that stuff out loud, most likely with exclamation points. ‘Bobbie sounds UPSET and ANGRY!’ ‘I sound what now?’ ‘Uh, nothing. Go on with your phone call … Damn, what a sweet ass she has!’ ‘WHAT?!?’ ‘Nothing! Nothing!'” –Joe Blevins

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