10-6-07: If only old Hicky-pants had better understood the second law of thermodynamics, as applied to entropy, then he would have known that there's no such thing as too late or too early.

I'm just sayin'.

Sloth Alert: Speaking of objects slowly degrading over time, this gag hails originally from 8-7-03.

10-7-07: Doesn't old Hicky-pants know that the Bush administration has redefined "dinner" to mean "soup, salad, two vegetables, a dollop of ketchup, a portion of meat and a paranoid, delusional, psychopath"?

So if these cheese-eating, pinky-lifters think they can substitute a consomme for a hearty vichyssoise then they can just eat lead.

10-9-07: I want to go on record encouraging old Hicky-pants to write more gags like this one. I mean, why waste time writing effective and possibly amusing punchlines when you can just let the premise sail into the rhetorical void free of resolution? This has the double benefit of reducing Hick's strenuous workload and sparing the general public the time and effort of deciphering his generally confusing intent. It's win-win, everybody!

That having been said, a sad clown ensemble seems an odd choice to gain sympathy from a judge. You'd think that a puppy costume or some whimsical pirate regalia might have more beneficial regarding the court's decision but, as is so often the case, old Hick plays the "glass-half-empty" card again, dragging the gag from dismal to dreadful to, well, just sad.

Sloth Alert: This clown has been on appeal for a a very long time as this gag originally appeared  on10-16-02.

10-10-07: Quigmans motto #237 - "When in doubt, whip out another fat joke."

How can you lampoon a people about their weight in a country that basically treats high-fructose corn syrup as a defacto food group? It's like making viagra jokes to an audience of eunuchs.

On a more serious note, and setting aside for the moment the beef industry's infernal meddling in its development, the food pyramid was created to help us better understand the relationship between the foods we eat and its effect on our health. To even tangentially connect it with obesity would require a Code Red level of mutton-headedness.

Secondarily, either the cartoonist is a mutton-head or those ancient Egyptians were way ahead of their time. The image above is pretty small (click here for a close-up) but there's definitely a milk carton, a plastic yogurt container, plus a Happy Meal pictured on that structure. Even more impressive/puzzling is the pineapple on the second tier as it originated in Brazil and wasn't even cultivated until the 1300s, which means the ancient Egyptians were time-travelers, too.

Whoooooooooooo, scary.

10-11-07: One of the things I like about Star Wars is the efficient way Yoda uses English. By employing fewer words he actually enhances and clarifies his message. For example, this is how Yoda might have narrated the above punchline: "New template I have. Fail-safe it is. Redesigned you are."

You see the problem, right?

Thanks to the magic of Jedi puppetry it's clear old Hicky-pants was so focused on his 'punch-line' about the redesign of Mr. Disposable Male Character he's mutton-headedly made the template the subject of the adjective, 'fail-safe', rather than the relationship itself. A more logical Standard Terran edit of the above dialogue would have been: "I had trouble templating our relationship but I succeeded in making it fail-safe once I totally redesigned you."

Yeah, I know. It's not very amusing, but neither is Hick's original joke, such as it is. But believe me, nothing was lost in translation. Right, Yoda?

"It is me you are biting."

One final thing... note how Hick's original caption couches the subject of relationships in a passive voice, quite unlike my edit which is definitely active-voice. I may be no Dr. Phil, but perhaps the problem, in this particular instance, is not a certain someone's general inabilty to formulate a gag but this certain someone's general inabilty to deal with relationships.

10-12-07: I see the Quigs have finally found their audience... dogs. Why else write a color-based joke and then print it in B&W? In addition, this cartoon emits a high-pitched sound, almost as though the souls of a million dead Catskill comics were crying out in agony, something only dogs and Jedi masters can hear. Or so I'm told.

Sloth Alert: The caterwauling has been going on for quite some time now, as this gag originally appeared on 5-23-02.

10-13-07: I wonder if she'll also think it cute when a band of Lilliputian lumberjack's arrive to cut the tree down and sell it to a minuscule paper mill which will supply the raw material for a pint-sized porn mag which her boyfriend will use to masturbate to with his diminutive dink.

Sloth Alert: And the laughs continue to diminish since the last time this gag was used on 7-15-02.

10-15-07: While exposing children to toxic substances has always been quite an amusing pasttime among the minimum wage set I really don't think this guy should really take so much pride in the store's lethal capabilities. It makes him seem like a snotty know-it-all.

(Quick note: I apologize in advance for the following unpleasant visions of children in peril but it's hard to write about the flowers when you're up to your eyeballs in fertilizer.)

After all, the day care center next door may sexually abuse their charges rather than water-board them, but you don't hear them bragging about it.

And the Happy Burger Place across the street? They'll gladly serve your kids extra-fine ground glass instead of rusty carpet tacks in their Chicky Nuggets but it all comes pre-made from the factory so it's impossible for them to take pride in their work.

Seriously, the only thing that would improve this charming scene, besides a shred of decency or the most neglible smidgen of humor, would be a torch-wielding mob.

10-16-07: This gag says a lot about old Hicky-pants' infamous love of detail that he noodged the car stage right so that he wouldn't have to draw the whole thing which, considering it's the focal point of the gag, would seem to be a pretty mutton-headed thing to do.

And, look! There's Bob, the hapless schlumph this strip is named after, making another rare, semi-accidental appearance. It's getting to the point that his presence has an almost jarring effect, as though Farley the dog had somehow managed to claw his way out of the For Better or For Worse graveyard and was discovered licking his cadaverous castanets out behind the caboose in John's back yard.

Sloth Alert: <Sniff> Ahhh! Smell that Zip-A-Tone! It takes me all the way back to the good old days of May, 2002 when this very same cartoon was unceremoniously plopped into the breakfasting lap of an unsuspecting public.

10-17-07: Turning off that special little mental filter, which prevents a person from blurting out the first thing that comes to mind, and then proceeding to blurt out the first thing that comes to mind is not considered conversation. It's a Bush press conference.

This Quigmans 'joke' sounds a lot like the kind that Woody Allen would write... if he lacked a sense of humor. That's not exactly a profound observation but, just for fun, let's replace old Hicky-pants' punchline with any of the Allen quips, below, and then compare and contrast. It's the most fun you'll ever have with a Quigmans cartoon. Trust me.

BTW, for those who find 'Warren Beatty' beyond your frame of cultural reference simply replace his name with any current Hollywood horndog like, for instance, 'Orlando Bloom', and you'll do fine.

"If there is reincarnation, I'd like to come back as Warren Beatty's fingertips."

"The only time my wife and I had a simultaneous orgasm was when the judge signed the divorce papers."

And...

“To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love. But then, one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be happy, one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness.”

10-18-07: Hmmm. He didn't opt for the blond or the painting, he just wanted control of the media.

Yeah, I'd say old Bilgie's a Republican.

Now, just for the record, let me check my calendar....yup, it's 2007. So what's with the circa 1965 TV?

Rabbit ears?

Manual tuner?

Atomic design, replete with novel yet unstable pedestal?

If old Hicky-pants is suggesting that today's television sets are boring, black plastic slabs, then we're on the same aesthetic page. But if he's truly choosing form over function, rather than simply resorting to tired cliches, then I expect to see fins on all the cars from now on. Capiche?

Sloth alert: Hicky-pants gets an "A" for marksmanship as this Quigmans cartoon originally appeared five years ago almost to the day. 10-20-02, to be exact. 

10-19-07: Does it bother anyone else to read a stretch of dialogue, especially a punchline as lengthy as this one, that's so painfully devoid of polysyllabic content? Cumulatively, the words look like nothing so much as the result of a rubber of Scrabble Jr., as contested by George Bush, the incredible Hulk and Bizarro Superman. (If you're counting along, that's two cartoon characters and one atomic scientist.)

Aside from that, I'm curious as to this mysterious 'it' to which the young lady refers. I'm guessing either the embarrassment of erectile dysfunction, the annoyance of middle-age eyebrow droop, or the sad spectacle of a plaid pants addict.

10-20-07: After what seemed an unreasonably long time of staring at this comic it began to dawn on me that there was nothing particularly stupid, insulting or appalling about it. I almost began to believe that this wasn't a real Quigman until I noticed that it was neither funny nor well crafted and thus my anxiety was mollified.

I guess I should count my blessings.

Sloth Alert: This cartoon originally appeared on 8-5-02. Enough with the blessing already.

10-22-07: If there was any justice in this world, this would be a portrait of George Bush, circa 2013.

But it's just another typically insensitive example of Quigman sport at the expense of the disenfranchised. Personally, when it comes to the less fortunate, I prefer the kind of humor that acts as an indictment against a system which perpetuates their suffering, not the kind that points and laughs at the adversity of the luckless. Call me old-fashioned.

10-23-07: Another Giant Doorknob joke, in case you couldn't tell. (You see, it's just darned big.)

As for our hirsute intruder, unless this is the little-known "smuckers domestica" flies are more generally attracted to dung rather than jelly. Which means this barbed bugger has hit the guano jackpot as the Quigmans teem with rich, turd-like goodness. Always have, always swill.

Sloth Alert: This one's been getting riper ever since it debuted on 9-5-03.

10-24-07: If you think this joke has a certain wry wisdom to it, try this: Replace Frank and his buxom companion with Tom Arnold and Roseanne Barr and tell me again how 'superior' it is.

Yeah. Didn't think so.

Sloth Alert: And speaking of digging up useless relics, this comic is originally from 3-13-03.

10-25-07: The technique of force-quitting a program, while hardly a complex maneuver, is not usually understood by every person who uses a computer, but those who have even the most passing of familiarity with the method would never attempt to apply it to a toaster or a salad shooter, much less another human being. Not even in sad jest.

No, more likely this disturbing chronicle is simply a fantasy contrived by the husband to somehow rationalize his zombie wife's feverish desire to rip out and devour his heart with her bare hands.

Sloth Alert: While we're on the subject of the undead, this Quigman originally debuted on 12-1-03.

10-26-07: This is not your typical, lousy Quigmans gag...it's one written by one of Old Hicky-pants' succubi, the sporadically fecund Hordin, so it's lousy in an entirely different way.

By that I mean, the first half of the gag offers a slice of life we're all too painfully familiar with, but the second half paints a dismal picture of one man, or one writer's, feeble grasp of economics.

Essentially, should we have sympathy for anyone dumb enough to keep pit bulls in the back yard of a day care center? Or drives a Pinto in a demolition derby? Or, in this mutton-headed example, keeps their money in a checking account which charges unexpectedly high fees? Wanna bet this guy has a sub-prime mortgage, leases his cars, and has a house full of Rent-a-Center furniture, too? (I realize I just insulted about half of you who read this but tough beans, Pancho.)

10-27-07: Awww, how sweet. The nice COO is giving his CEO a lovely burping after his meal of...of...

Wait a minute. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Man teats?

Male lactation?

Ewwwwwwwww.

Of course, there IS the matter of the superfluous Freudian cigar  image and the seemingly unfastened pants of the junior partner to consider but even old Hicky-pants isn't THAT sick.

Is he?

Oh, dear lord.

Finally, I'd like a take a moment to open to floor to suggestions as to why any comic artist would conceive of such a ridiculous situation as this? It's not parody, it's not satire, it's just freaking random. This is, sad to say, laziness above and beyond old Hicky-pants' usual spew.

10-29-07: Here's a tip for all you future cartoonists....when you want to make the central character appear abnormal, make sure the other characters don't look even more grotesque by comparison.

Admit it... if you were forced to choose, you'd take the 'Elevated Eyebrows' over the 'Melted Easter Island Profile' every time, right?

Sloth Alert: Just when you think you've seen it all, old Hicky-pants drags it out and shows it to you again. Yes, this comic originally appeared on 6-20-03.

10-30-07: As far as jarring visual spectacles go, SpongeBob LittleBlackCocktailDress would have been a LotMoreAmusing.

But, seriously, how the hell does it take two people to come up with one lame gag? I can only envision Gygli and Rocco, the two credited collaborators, sitting together in front of their TV one Saturday morning, comfortably attired in their Aquaman jammies, gobbling away at their ersatz-dollar-store-Koko-Krispy's from their official "Li'l Commodore's" food-trough, when suddenly their mother careens through the front door from a hard night at the docks with a Haitian refugee in tow, sputtering through her few remaining teeth how he "cleaned up real nice" before tottering towards the bedroom where, moments later, the sounds of a possible homicide ensues, leavened with a sound similar to the ecstatic ululations of a hundred intoxicated house cats being gutted by a dozen rusty chainsaws.

Having witnessed this spectacle every day of their lives the two little waifs hardly glance in her direction as they're both transfixed by the idealistic fantasy world offered them by the incessant U.S. Army commercials. When the program featuring Mr. Squarepants finally resumes their trance is broken by its hideous banality and they simultaneously cast for suitable means of unleashing their accumulated, sugar-heightened aggression. As fate would have it, the local paper is open to the comic section, and the acrid stench of the Quigmans comic draws them like flies to an open sewer. Intoxicated by its sparkling wit the two tots realize it is their civic duty to share their small slice of life with the rest of America. Turning over a beer-stained eviction notice, they tortuously begin to compose their comic opus: "Dear Mistur Hikkerson; Hears a joak for you to use...."

But I'm just guessing.

10-31-07: While all the other good little syndicated comic artists were entertaining the public with their personal, humorous spins on Halloween old Hicky-pants presumably yawned, dredged up another moldy-oldie, and then returned to his urgent appointment with Judge Judy.

This classic Quigmans cartoon originated in the late 80's, which is when I wrote this gag. The exact same art has been syndicated at least four times now, the most recent dates being 2-15-96 and 11-17-05.

DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING!!!!

This month, October of '07, old Hicky-pants set a new record for sloth as he submitted 15 old Quigmans of his required 27. I take great glee in also pointing out that two of the new gags were written by collaborators, which means old Hicky-pants created only ten new gags this month. So far for this year he's submitted almost 90 old Quigmans. Would that we could all take 3-month vacations, especially from a job that requires an hour's time a day, tops.

This is not just half-assing, this is Full... Metal... Ass.

The only comic artist re-using more old material than Buddy Hickerson these days is Charles Schultz, and Sparky has a really good reason for taking eternity off.