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Pluggers, 8/7/08

Far be it for me as an elitist non-plugger to point out when Pluggers loses the thread, but, well, it appears that someone has to. Hey, Pluggers! The primary reaction of a plugger upon encountering modern-day movie theater concession stands should be goggle-eyed horror at the high prices. Suggested joke: “A plugger remembers when the most expensive thing at the movies was the ticket to the movies.”

On the other hand, having the plugger devour the entire bucket of popcorn while still standing at the concession counter is pretty much spot on.

Popeye, 8/7/08

Generally speaking, I only bring Popeye to your attention when it crosses the border into completely deranged, like when Olive Oyl cheerfully threatens suicide or the strip makes genocide jokes. The current storyline, in which Sweet Pea is bonked on the head and gains puppet-master-like power over the of others, is somewhat derivative of that terrifying Twilight Zone episode with the little kid who can kill with his mind; still, it clearly is going to go down the road of pleasing perversity, as you can see here.

Mary Worth, 8/7/08

Phishing, everybody! Phishing! That’s what the build-up is all about. Mary Worth is going to advise its perhaps not-so-tech-savvy audience (median age: 68) about the dangers that lurk in fake spam emails from online merchants; so as not to anger the oldsters, it’s Charterstone’s resident thirtysomething trophy wife who will be defrauded and humiliated for the edification of others.

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Mary Worth, 8/6/08

Most scientists agree that today’s Mary Worth — in which Toby completes an e-commerce transaction with a click of the F10 button, then contemplates checking her e-mail — contains the least amount of action that can possibly sustain two panels. However, based on observations from the past few installments of this strip, tomorrow’s Mary Worth will almost certainly contain even less of interest, causing the local time continuum to ground to a halt. Friday’s strip will then take place on Wednesday, as the timeflow begins to unspool in reverse. It’s unclear what the cosmic consequences for this violation of the rules of nature will be, but it can’t be good.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/6/08

The second and third panels of this strip contain a delightful study in contrasts. In panel two, June’s manic grin is wholly inappropriate for someone proposing to spend a painful week alone with her surly, disinterested husband; in panel three, Rex reacts to the suggestion with a stone-faced mask that barely conceals mounting panic, as if — oh, I don’t know, his wife had walked in on him having sex with another guy in the laundry room, to pick a random example out of thin air for no reason.

It’s worth noting that this blog’s murky opening days covered the tail end of a Rex Morgan, M.D., storyline that involved our medical couple going on a disastrous white-water rafting trip. I’m pretty sure that this was for fun (meeting my definition of a “vacation,” anyway) and Sarah was very much alive at that point, as Rex and June decided to fire their nanny during the drive home.

Curtis, 8/6/08

Good Lord! It’s so hot that Ms. Honeystump has been emblackened!

Mother Goose and Grimm, 8/6/08

dear God WHERE ARE THEY GOING TO PUT THAT TRANSMITTER

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Gil Thorp, 8/5/08

Could Gil Thorp’s summer insanity at last be belatedly getting underway? That crazed look in Jimmy Hughes’s eyes in panel two is strangely reminiscent of what you’d see in the origin story of every supervillain ever. Are we about to learn that the cult hero status that comes with being on an extremely minor league baseball team is too much power for any man with legal permanent U.S. residence to handle? Will the prospect of toiling in the Tigers’ farm system for the next six years instead of getting a college education and a job with a 401K drive young Mr. Hughes mad with glory-lust? Will Gil step in to set Jimmy on the straight and narrow path back to humdrum normalcy, or does the five-minute walk to “Java Jive” represent the limit of how much he’s willing to care about his students during the off-season? Hopefully we’ll get answers, before football practice starts!

Gasoline Alley, 8/5/08

I’m quite proud of myself for successfully ignoring the Gasoline Alley storyline that just wrapped up, which featured painful hillbilly stereotype Rufus tangling with a painful French stereotype during the filming of a cat food commercial. I’m looking forward to the upcoming plot, though, as it appears to be ripped right from today’s headlines. Four dollar gas has driven our rustic protagonists to desperate measures! Perhaps Rover will be able to tweak his Eisenhower-era pickup so that it gets an incredible eight miles per gallon.

For Better Or For Worse, 8/5/08

John has obviously been spending way, way too much time hanging around his teenage daughter. For one thing, he’s slipping into adolescent Canadianisms like “hafta”. For another, he’s squirming and whining about putting on nice clothes like a fucking twelve-year-old.