3-1-08: Folk legend Woody Guthrie used to carry around a guitar which bore the label "This weapon fights fascists".

This cartoon, on the other hand, is old Hicky-Pants' attempt at scathing, socio-political commentary.

From the sublime to the insignificant.

3-3-08: For those of you completely mystified by this cartoon it's in reference to a scene from the movie "There Will Be Blood" where, during a court scene, one of the characters describes the process of stealing a competitor's oil reserves. In essence, you use a really long "straw" to reach over and "drink his milkshake". The entire passage, charged with high emotion, is as follows:

"I drink... your... MILKshake! I DRINK IT UP!!".

It is not only a startlingly idiosyncratic line delivered in spectacular fashion by a talented actor but it is also 100% true, having been borrowed from the transcript of a 1930's lawsuit involving such theft.

There is little doubt that we'll continue to hear clever variations on the statement from comedians and editorial cartoonists for quite some time as it is a powerful metaphorical short-hand for the unvarnished greed of evil men.

Naturally, old Hicky-pants sees only a joke about milkshakes.

The Quigmans... where good memes come to die.

3-4-08: Oh, Angela, you wacky co-gag-writer. I'm so glad you're back. How I've missed your stunted attempts at humor, especially when your gags are crammed screaming in misery through Buddy's misaligned comedy filters.

Of course, it's not entirely your fault, my dear. It must be frustrating for you to have a casual, off-the-cuff remark concerning lunch being unexpectedly hijacked into a ghastly tableau drenched in blood and gore, as today's Quigmans cartoon implies. Even worse, poor thing, to find yourself credited with the result as though the tattered remnants of your decency alone summoned such visions of abomination from deep within the stygian recesses of your tortured soul. By any measure, that's quite a hefty price to pay for a quip about the calamari.

And am I wrong or should the waiter's reply in this cartoon have been "I'm sorry, sir, nothing but this rip-off of a vintage Charles Addams gag."

Let's do lunch sometime, Szyzzy, just you and me. No third-rate cartoonists or their tacky little spiral notebooks allowed. Have your shrink call my parole officer.

Ciao!

Sloth Alert: Originally syndicated 4-18-2000.

3-5-08: If you randomly string together a disconnected sequence of phrases the result would quite closely resemble either a frothing tirade by a paranoid schizophrenic, a statement about U.S. education by Miss South Carolina or a speech by George "Hussein" Bush.

Orrrrr... this Quigmans gag by Buddy Hickerson.

Banana threshold monkey invert file-drawer.

Oh, god! It's catching!!!

3-6-08: Funny how a comic about curing headaches somehow manages to make my head hurt.

I see old Hicky-pants has himself another little friend as this joke is accredited to someone named "Tyler". This brings to mind a useful bromide I often share: "The sign of a true professional is one who knows when to hire other professionals."

Buddy's version of this is evidently: "If I'm going to supply sub-par product, might as well share the blame.

Welcome, Tyler. Keep up the bad work.

3-8-08: Placebos, though actually consisting of inert substances, have a modestly positive health benefit mostly derived from wishful thinking.

Diet patches actually work, but only to the level of their placebo effect as their list of ingredients comes direct from Marketing, not Research.

Not unexpectedly, recent research reveals that expensive placebos work decisively better than inexpensive placebos. What this means is that people dumb enough to buy diet patches will probably pay too much for them. Sadly, if it weren't for the FCC and their stupid "scientific data" the profits derived from the irrational beliefs of the obese could single-handledly pull America out of recession.

The Quigmans also fit the definition of a placebo as they're inert and rely on cognitive bias to show a measurable effect. In other words, thinking that the Quigmans are funny means that you're fat and stuipd.

3-10-08: Faster than reality TV burnout. More powerful than a Garfield joke about lasagna. Able to leap to sophomoric conclusions with a single bound! It's Super Lame... artist.

When I was a kid, a really little kid, I was amused by such word play as "barn dance" and "house fly" and "rubber band". I'd laugh for awhile at the bizarre visual metaphors they conjured, then I'd go off in a corner and pick my nose for three hours.

It's clear that old Hicky-pants thinks this sort of word play is still amusing but I suppose almost anything's funny when you draw with one thumb up your bum.

On second thought, make that two. Thumbs, that is.

Sloth Alert: Did you ever see the movie "Singin In the Rain"? Remember how demeaning it was for Debbie Reynolds to have to provide the voice for Jean Hagen? Now imagine how the movie would sound if Debbie Reynolds sang like Arnold Schwarzenner. Well, today's Quigmans joke was accredited to someone named "Respess". Though this is just his second Quig gag he is today's Governator to Buddy's Lina Lamont, though the comparison ends there. Lina Lamont was a really terrible actress played by a really terrific actress, while Buddy... IS Lina Lamont.

3-11-08: Whenever I see a political cartoon by Buddy Hickerson I always get this mental image of a car mechanic performing liposuction on a rat. The mechanic's not good at it, the results are minimal, the process is painful for all involved, and the whole thing generally sucks.

Aside from that playful image, this is two days in a row that Buddy's made Hillary Clinton look like a chump in comparison to Obama. I'm all for a good jape but these two last Quigmans comics haven't really been political statements, they're definitely not funny in any discernible way, so what we're left with a big old bag of misogyny.

That, I know from experience, Buddy understands.

3-12-08: Frogger? Really?

The past two Quigmans have been about the presidential race... well, actually, they've been an opportunity for Buddy to congress with his misogynstic demons, but the less said about that the better.

So now it's Frogger getting the acerbic yet urbane Hicky-Pants Treatment, a nearly 30-year-old video game. A NEARLY 30-YEAR-OLD VIDEO GAME. It was a such a simplistic moron-magnet back in 1981 that nose-picking offered more fertile humorous prospects.

As long as he was determined to embarrass himself at least old Bud went to the trouble of drawing a frog with club feet, dressed like Mickey Mouse, with a prominent "F" on his chest so that we'd know it was the original Frogger instead of just something he pulled out of his butt again.

Oh, wait....

3-13-08: Buddy often tends to pull puzzling concepts for gags out of thin air but this little beauty has the definite reek of pure ass to it.

I did me some plain and fancy Googling to see if I could find anything close to this "society's tryin' to sneak up on me" jazz and discovered hot doodly squat. Since it's not pop culture-related (or is that "poop culture") one has to assume it's a meme he encountered while loafing with crackhead transients down by the piers. I'm sure this hobo bon mot was a riot over cold beans and a bottle of Thunderbird but why, for the love of Crom and Mithra, inflict this retched, random jape on people expecting more with their corn flakes?

Sloth Alert: And inflict them a second time he does as this tepid turd of a cartoon originally smeared the porcelain on 8-2-02.

3-14-08: Something just occurred to me that has left me slightly discomfited, and it has entirely to do with Buddy's re-use of his old Quigmans cartoons... like this one, from 2-4-03.

What should I do five years from now when Buddy inevitably re-uses this very same cartoon? Am I honor-bound to write an entirely new snarky discourse on its wretchedness or can I, in the spirit of Hickersonesque ineptitude, simply slap this very commentary in place and get back to knitting humorous cummerbunds?

For those paying attention the question might be moot as I have yet to critique this cartoon apart from the "wretchedness" remark, above. So without further ado:

"Yech!"

Thank you.

3-15-08: Irony (Yes, that's a clickable link) is probably the most abused form of humor today because most people who use the term, like the writer of this "joke", don't bother to learn what it really means.

For example, for the above situation to be ironic the man on the right should have once been rich but only wore the costume to fit in with his buddies, though some contrivance of fate stripped him of his riches and doomed him to the lower-middle-class. Then, and only then, would that make his wearing of this costume ironic.

However, it would be double-ironic if the expensive clothes he used to wear, but gave to the poor, held the winning ticket to the state lottery in one of its pockets. Triple-ironic if the poor people who received the donated clothes, and who discovered the winning ticket, used the money to lobby against gambling, drinking, fishing and the wearing of totally gay, insulated vests.

The ultimate irony would be if a comic strip which tried to tell a joke about irony was replaced because it was clear the writer didn't know irony from Adam's off-ox. (Click it. You know you want to.)

And so on.

To simply say "I can't be with you anymore" doesn't actually mean anything other than the creator of this "joke" is a really lazy writer.

This is, thus, a joke with neither a premise nor a conclusion.

So congratulations, Hicky-Pants! You've done it again.

Sloth Alert: Again AND again as this comic intially annoyed creative writing teachers everywhere on 3-29-04.

3-17-08: "PUT DOWN THE PEN AND GET OUT OF MY NEWSPAPER!"

If it were only that easy.

I'm sorely tempted to change the name of this web site to "The Cartoonist Screamer" but that would be really stupid. Really, really stupid. I don't  know WHERE I got such a stupid idea.

3-18-08: I would have thought that the Complete-Denial-of-Basic-Civil-Liberties Bell would be located in the eye of Sauron or next to Dick Cheney's slave quarters rather than in some pleasant urban environment, but I guess what better way to inure our children to the awesome spectacle of torture than to strap dead babies to its clapper out in the open where everyone can see it.

Dead babies?

Yeah, you see, the real Liberty Bell, on which this one's obviously based, is only about three feet tall from lip to crown, and the only humanoid small enough to hang from its feet like that is about a 24-week-old fetus.

Nice going, Buddy.

However, it could be that creative license is at work here and the Bell has been enlarged for satiric effect. That doesn't make torturing what is, presumably, a Democratic ex-attorney general any funnier. He's somebody's baby, too.

3-19-08: Unlike you more fortunate bastards I have to read the Quigmans daily in order to create these semi-popular little post mortems. As you might guess, it's not a pleasant task, not too dissimilar to the guy who stands at the head of the line at the abatoir and rakes a knife across the throats of suicidal cows who have donated their bodies for medical research. (I hear the McDonald's Medical Institute has broken new ground in restoring burned tissues with the liberal application of catsup.)

Being the head man at the slaughterohuse is fun for awhile but then you begin having recurring nightmares featuring your father with a steer's head, shaving himself with a straight razor while standing in a vat of 90% isopropyl alcohol.

The Quigmans are like that. They're like a bad dream where everything almost, but not quite, makes sense.

How do I stand it? Simple. I make believe the Quigmans were originally developed for a foreign audience, one of those indecipherable central European ones which have no known etymological relation to the romance languages. To make this fantasy complete I also pretend the punchline was transposed into English, or "Quiglish", using an online service developed by MicroSoft. This doesn't make the Quigmans any funnier, but it does mean that I sleep a little better.

Sloth Alert: This objectionable Quigmans comic was originally delivered straight from Transylvania on 7-6-02

3-20-08: Today's Quigmans cartoon presents a straw man argument, essentially building a case based on a fallacy, as this lizard does not have a great face. In fact, if you look closely, you'll notice that it has the face of a lizard.

You would not buy a used car from a man with this face. You would not go to the prom with a girl who has a face like this. You would not read a comic drawn by a person with skin like.... oh, yeah, you've probably never seen Buddy Hickerson. Let's just say that the term "microdermabrasion", not to mention "Celebrity Rehab", means a lot more to some people than others.

<cough "Buddy" cough>

Too bad there's no treatment to erode the tough, fibrous capsule which surrounds the area of the brain that perceives humor, especially with that certain minority of the population that unnecessarily burdens the comics pages with lousy cartoons. If you find such a treatment, let me know. It's clear that Buddy and Ms. Szyszka, the writer of this joke, should consider going in on a package deal.



Sloth Alert: Originally syndicated 1-25-01.

3-21-08: Call me "Mr. Stupid", but WTFF?

According to Google there's no such thing as "Febreze masking cat spray" so this is has to be just another case of Buddy relying on the Microsoft "Joke-A-Matic 9000 " to come up with a gag and then running it through the Microsoft "Language-O-Lyzer" to translate it into passable English. (As was discussed earlier. Please check your notes.)

I hesitate to say this but I could re- use that very description every day as it neatly describes every single Quigmans joke written since 1995, excluding those coughed up by Buddy's little band of sycophants of course. Although it would immeasurably simplify my life the visitors to this site would instantly lapse into a coma and dog knows the Quigmans cause enough drowsiness as it is.

3-22-08: The trouble with Buddy is that he thinks too small.

Consider: If two men plunging to their deaths is funny, then three men plunging to their deaths would be 33% more amusing. Four men would be even funnier, as would five men.

Now suppose that a pair of commercial jet aircraft, each filled with 300 pregnant nuns, crashed into two different 90-story office buildings, each of which was filled to legal capacity with members of the RNC. That would be hilarity close to 90% of outside probablity.

For really boffo laughs imagine a planet whose climate changes so drastically that eight billion people die within a generation.

The last man laughing would mean 100% humor saturation had occurred for the first time in history.

And that, Buddy, is what you call REAL comedy.

3-24-08: "Who the hell are you and how did you get in my office?"

"It's funny you should only NOW be concerned about how I got here, Mr. Johnson. My name is Walter Smith. I'm your son."

"Walter, I hate to tell you his, but you're a snail."

"That is true, but think back to a warm spring evening in Paris about 24 years ago. Just you, a plate of stale beer, and a bucket of fresh escargot..."

"Oh my god! AnnMarie!"

"Yes, that's right, you bastard! AnnMarie! My mother! The snail whose shell you defiled and left to die in a tray of fleur de sel! The doctors reached her just in time but she was never the same. She managed to hang on until a few months ago, no thanks to you!"

"All right! Enough! What... what do you want?"

"When I came in here I wanted your head on a stick, but now I'll just settle for a job."

"A job? What do you mean by a job?"

"Look, Mr. Johnson... Dad. It's not easy being a human-mollusk hybrid. I'm slow, I'm slimy, and I have no arms or legs. Having a penis the length of your own body is some compensation but let's face it, I can't live on love anymore. I have responsibilities now. Heather and Jason, my little ones.... C'mon, man. You owe me this. You owe AnnMarie."

"Whew! Wow. A son. Grandchildren. All before lunch. My horoscope didn't predict this. Heh."

"Heh-heh."

"Of course I want to help you out, son, but the problem is I don't have any openings right now. I suppose I could get rid of Kludson in shipping but I'd have to come up with a good reason to fire him."

"How about if you, I mean, you could tell him you need someone faster."

"That's about the dumbest idea I've ever heard, but it'll probably work as Kludson's hardly the brightest penny in the collection box. Welcome aboard, Richard."

"Walter."

"Walter. Uhhh, what-what's that?"

"That's my penis."

"Very impressive, but what am I suppose to do with it?"

"Shake it. Like I said, I have no hands. How the hell do you think I put on this tie?"

"That's disgusting."

"Said the man smoking the cigar."

"Smart-ass. You got that penis from my side of the family, you know."

3-25-08: A Buffalo chicken wing consist of the cheapest, coarsest part of the bird, mainly bone and cartilage, offering very little actual nourishment. It teems with e. coli and salmonella and must be coated with spices and heavy sauces to mask its blandness.

The same could also be said of a Quigmans cartoon.

Sloth alert: Sorry, but it's leftovers again, kids, as this one's dated 5-13-04. There may be a little salmonella on the edges so just eat around it.

3-26-08: Mask. Check. Stocking cap. Check. Bag of loot. Check.

Yep, it's a thief.

Gun. Check. Badge. Uh, no. Policeman's uniform. Nope. Squad car. Sorry.

So this is just an ordinary citizen, stopping a random, though peculiarly dressed, person at gunpoint and demanding they admire the fruit of his loins or face utter annihilation.

That's not a joke. In America we call that "Wednesday".

If this was a real constable the perp would have already been reduced to a writhing knot of pain after having been tased about twenty or thirty times.

3-27-08: Although this gag didn't elicit anything resembling mirth from these snarky yet sensuous lips I have to let it pass uncriticized as it, surprisingly, almost resembles a real joke. Plus, the art doesn't have its usual "retarded chimp" appearance.

This makes approximately two Quigmans in about the past 3000 I've let slide. Good percentage there, Hick.

Oh! Wait!

Two people sitting at a bar sharing a drink? It's the Quigmans scenario most analogous to Charlie Brown attempting to kick that damned football... except if Chuck worked for Buddy he'd be getting emasculated five or six times a month, at least.

And that wouldn't get old real quick, would it?

Thanks, Hick for renewing my lack of confidence in you.

3-28-08: It's hard to believe that an entire country could have once obsessed over the consumption of bread.

BREAD!

But that country is America, the same assemblage of simps that happily pay $1 per liter for the same water they can get out of their taps at home. The self-same aggregation of loons that faithfully emptied the shelves of duct tape when the Neocons went "boo!". The same assortment of twits who miss not a second of American Idol because of its long-lasting historical importance. And the same collective of knot-heads currently in a feverish race to see who can accumulate the ugliest collection of tattoos. They may not be able to afford the mortgage but, by god, their tramp stamps will peek endearingly over the collars of their duct-tape wedding gowns as they knock back a Dasani while Sanjayah struts his stuff.

Similarly, who'd-a thunk a gag writer would stoop so low as to make a joke about an obsession with bread? Why not just make a joke about how much your mother preferred your older brother and be done with it?

BTW, I say "joke" when referring to this Quigmans comic in the same way I say "president" when referring to George Bush. It doesn't necessarily imply a connection but constantly referring to Buddy's jokes as "colorful clods of colorectal cancer" tends to confuse the uninitiated.

Sloth Thingy: This comic originally appeared on 4-20-04. Will the pain never end?

Technical addendum: The fear of bread is actually "sitiophobia" as the "carb" in "carbohydrate" literally means "coal" or "carbon" in Latin. Carbohydrates are generally composed of sugar and starch, so the name is a bit inexact, coming as it does from the stoichiometric formula for an unmodified monosaccharide, C-H20, a hydrate of carbon or "carbon-hydrate".

We now return you to Celebrity Rehab, which is already in progress.

3-29-08: By some miracle it appears that "agro" is a real word meaning (according to the Urban Dictionary) "to be angry and hostile for no reason".

So that's two points to Buddy for accuracy but minus several million for forgetting to write a joke while he was at it.

And, yes, I realize he's playing off the word "agriculture" but that and a cup of coffee will get you a dime.

Sloth Alert: Not only is it lame, but old, first rearing its ugly head on 11-8-04.

3-31-08: I love "Being John Malkovich". I rather dislike the Quigmans.