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Mary Worth, 9/19/06

While we can’t really tell that Aldo’s car is in motion here as he chugs down his bargain-basement booze, I think you and I both know that it is. And while some square lame-os will tell you all that this makes him a bad person, I think you and I both know that it actually makes him totally awesome. If there’s one thing that can make up for the bowl haircut, the late-70s ‘stache, and the dorky polo shirts all in one deft move, it’s tipping back a bottle of hooch with one hand as you try to navigate Santa Royale traffic with the other. Aldo’s willing to smear himself along the side of a school bus for our amusement, which is more than any of those so-called “responsible drinking” advocates can say. It certainly trumps Gil Thorp’s Marty Moon, who just drank himself into a stupor in a parked car like a little wussy.

Garfield, 9/19/06

I haven’t really changed my opinion about the slightly retooled Garfield of recent weeks: yes, it suddenly has other characters, and yes, it’s slightly funnier, but it still pretty much blows. Today’s strip actually supplies something of a metaphor for this, visually. When you first look at it, it looks like, in typical hack fashion, the same drawing has been photocopied and reused three times. But if you look at the final panel more closely, you can see that Jon’s upper lip is protruding out a bit more than in the previous two, so obviously some redrawing work has gone into it. So, I can appreciate that effort on a theoretical level, but in a larger sense, why bother putting in the work in the service of this gag, which manages to hint at something unspeakably perverted and yet actually just be dull and lame? The difference is noticeable, but ultimately not important. Which is in the end how I feel about the changes to the strip.

Pluggers, 9/19/06

You’re a plugger if nobody in the world would rather be you.

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Once again, picking a comment of the week was really tough this week, and while I couldn’t resist another opportunity to link to that ludicrous bear picture, I wanted to acknowledge some quotes that had me guffawing over the past few days.

“I’d like to see a ‘plugger’s wife’ defending her cubs by mauling some extras from Mark Trail. Now that would be comedy. ‘You know you’re a plugger when … your wife completely dismembers random passers-by who get too close to the kids!’ On second thought, that’s not quite depressing enough for a Pluggers panel.” — Darth Paradox

“What was the idea submitted for today’s TDIET? ‘People with cell phones are annoying’? I’m going to send one in re: sometimes people get in the grocery store express check-out with more then 15 items. That ought to rock his world.” –Summerhouse

“But this, of course, is A3G, where the unending theme is the impossibility of happiness, even fleetingly.” –Craigers

“When you die and go to your judgment, and are let into heaven not because you did good, but because a paranoid conscience was your iron master, then you spent your life in Apartment 3-G.” –tefflan

“Is it possible for three people to say something in unison … anything at all … and have it not be laugh-out-loud funny? Imagine the three most serious and important people you can. Say, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, Henry David Thoreau, and Nelson Mandela. And they all look at you and say, together… YOU BETTER NOT! I have to admit, I’d laugh. A lot.” –Edward

“‘Devil, What do you think?’ Um, I THINK I’M A FREAKING DOG, Ghost-who-apparently-isn’t-the-brains-in-this-operation. And if it were up to me, we’d be back on the dock, warm and dry with snausages all around.” –SmartPeopleOnIce

“Anthony has got to be either gay, or a Methodist youth minister, or both.” –CBrachyrhynchos

“Here’s an informal challenge: Find me a Pluggers strip that can’t be captioned, ‘You’re a plugger if your abject poverty is slowly destroying your body and sapping your very will to live.'” –Christopher

“I hate Spider-Man with all the hatred I can muster, and that’s a lot.” –bootsybooks

“I feel very strongly that Blondie would have appealed to a younger demographic if, instead of ‘pro-pimiento,’ the phrase ‘pimiento-pimping’ had been used.” –saint ruby

On Ian and Toby Cameron’s sex life: “I see her sprawled naked across the bed like a swastika and him upright on the Persian rug beside it so that he can have sex in his most comfortable position: standing and lecturing.” –Dingo

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Apartment 3-G, 9/18/06

OK, look at the swivel lines in panel three, and compare to Margo’s head position in panel two. Either Margo briefly looked away from Lu Ann, then swung her head back to look at her in a classic doubletake that I feel very cheated for being denied (maybe she indignantly sprayed her coffee across the room at the same time?) or her head has spun completely around on its axis, Exorcist-style. Hell hath no fury like a Hat Man lover scorned!

Also: a stripey purple V-neck under a mauve vest is “dressing up” now? I sure didn’t get that memo.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 9/18/06

I love the fact that the patented TDIET-style outrage is being wielded entirely on the side of the couple who shuns personal interaction in favor of the warm, numbing glow of the television set. “Didjaevernotice: People invite you over to spend some quality time with ya … and insist on talking to you while the TV is on! Wha-a-a-a?”

Popeye, 9/18/06

I know I don’t talk about Popeye very much, but you should be kept appraised of the fact that it’s completely demented. There’s been this long, meandering “generation gap” storyline involving Sweetpea insisting that adults don’t understand him (don’t trust anyone over seven, man!), which, other than the fact that Sweetpea can apparently talk, didn’t faze me too much. But then he ran away from home, and Popeye was disconsolate, and Olive Oyl made a fake Sweetpea doll too fool Popeye and it worked. Today’s deranged strip pretty much speaks for itself in terms of how far around the bend this feature has gone, sort of the way a crazy homeless guy who’s constantly raving about OJ and the CIA and killer monkeys speaks for himself.

Hi and Lois, 9/18/06

My wife says that the joke here is that the baby doesn’t understand irony, but I don’t think that’s possible, because Hi and Lois doesn’t understand irony either.