1-1-10: "A book about serial losers? Why, certainly, sir! It's called 'Shooting Blanks: How to Write gags for Syndicated Cartoons' by Buddy Hickerson. We use it to prop up table legs."



Regurgitation Report: And so Buddy begins 2010 with a sickening thud and this sucker is almost ten years old.

I think Buddy chose this particular cartoon because the original copy had lots of ones and zeroes in the date. It couldn't possibly have been because he gave a shit.

1-2-10: Okayyyyy, so he's going to move the other side of the desk but he's not officially fired?

What did I miss? Wasn't there supposed to be a punchline around here somewhere?



Regurgitation Report: The original cartoon on the left, the one from 1999, elicited waves of nostalgia from yours truly, not because it features the long-lost Bob Quigmans but because in the lower right-hand corner  it bears the legend "http://quigmans.com".

Yes, Buddy Hickerson, cartoon geeeee-nyuss, used to own quigmans.com, one at which he ran a site offering nothing much more than his half-assed, overpriced clip-art CD. I'm guessing that, after some time, Buddy couldn't find anyone willing to work on his site for free and so he simply let the domain name lapse, at which point I happily snapped it up in March of 2000. I haven't stopped sniggering since.

1-4-10: Really, Buddy?

Thinly veiled masturbation jokes?

In the funny pages?

Whatever.



Regurgitation Report: So far Buddy's batting 0-for-2010 as he's yet to create a single new comic this year. He's not hitting his weight but he's certainly flirting with his IQ.

1-5-10: When you go to your local fast food joint you're generally presented with three sizes of soft drink containers.... large, medium and small.

Curiously enough, if you remove any one of the three from the choice of selections you're left with just "large" and "small".

So when you remove the middleman from business, what do you get?

Nothing. Sort of like this gag. A whollllle lotta nothing.



Regurgitation Report: The four Quigmans comics used so far in 2010 have seen the light of print a total of ten times over the years.

The complex mathematics of such sloth makes Buddy Hickerson the Stephen Hawking of lazy-ass cartoonists.

1-6-10: Uh.... why?

Sloth alert: NOW I know why.... this is another Angela "Master of All Animation" Szyszka joke.



Regurgitation Report: Holy moly.

Evidently Buddy's taking 2010 off. This is the fifth straight day of re-run Quigs this year and the total number of days they've seen the light of newsprint over the years is now up to thirteen... in just five days.

Technical note: In the first iteration of this jape the lump's name was Steve. In 2005 it changed to Lumpy, now it's back to Steve. Why? Who but Buddy Hickerson, comic geeee-nyuss, knows.

1-7-10: Most people think that the surname of every horse is actually "Horse"?

Well, they're wrong.

I happen to know for a fact that this horse's cognomen is Eisenhower. So what, might I ask, is so funny about "Charlie Eisenhower"?

Would you think it amusing if everyone assumed YOUR last name was "Human"?

Sounds kinda stupid when you put it that way.

It is.



Regurgitation Report: Buddy, are you dead?

Again?

This is the sixth recycled Quigmans cartoon in a row for 2010-yadda-yadda-yadda. These six comics have now been used/re-used a total of 16 times over the decades.

You don't get much for your money from a Quigmans cartoon, but you never really expected much, either.

1-8-10: That's funny... the applicant doesn't LOOK like a Filipino mail-order bride.

Baddum-shhhh.

But seriously, ladies and germs, humor is most effective when it cooks with the grain of truth. Unless Buddy's in the kitchen, then it's just something that makes you envy the lobotomized.


Sloth Alert: Angela "Hey! Look at me! I used to sleep with a third-rate cartoonist!" Szyszka wrote this now-decade-old gag.



Regurgitation Report: Buddy Hickerson. Still dead.

His estate is still issuing old Quigmans in an attempt to keep the dream alive.

Saints preserve us.

1-9-10: I've never, ever heard of anyone being jealous of another person for thinking of someTHING else rather than someONE else.

Three guesses what I'm thinking. (Hint: it involves Buddy's head, a large mallet and a bottle of red dye #2.)



Regurgitation Report: And, so, Buddy Hickerson still refuses to give a fuck about his comic or you the reader as he hasn't created a new cartoon since the 28th of December.

I'm just guessing that his job as Chief Cheese Shredder at the West Pamona Taco Bell is requiring so much overtime that he doesn't have time to address his comic strip properly. If that's the case then, Buddy, you have my apology.

No you don't.

1-11-10: Luckily for the kids involved they weigh next to nothing, else the weight of their bodies would tear through those piercings like a hot knife through a pound of raw
hickory-smoked bacon.

When you think of the torn flesh and the plethora of blood and the inevitable trauma that's about to ensue when they flop unceremoniously against the hard floor, it's just so terribly hard to stop from laughing.

Why, I'm chortling now. Chortle-chortle-chortle.


Sloth Alert : This cruddy gag was written by Buddy's pal "Wolfe". Unfortunately, it was the only gag he wrote that Buddy ever credited him for. Just think of the odds of seeing it again today.



Regurgitation Report: The little barrels you see just above the thumbnails to your left originally indicated how easy it is to skewer the dumb joke Buddy or a collaborator created.

However, for the past week I've been adding one for each day that Buddy has recycled an old cartoon, and I'll continue adding them until Buddy creates a new one.  This could get interesting.

Currently, Buddy is a lazy twerp times seven.

1-12-10: Termites with only four appendages living in a human-type home
I can accept, but when you start drawing them wearing dickies THAT'S where I draw the line. I don't mean to sound picky but dickie's are icky!

Who's with me on this?



Regurgitation Report: The coroner's report is in. Buddy Hickerson has apparently overdosed on apostrophe's and lapsed into a comma. Updates as they happen.

BTW, look at the larger image above. See all that grey smudgy stuff in the middle? That's what happens when a ninny can't figure out how to use a scanner properly.

Hi Buddy, you ninny.

1-13-10: That's funny... I can think of about a zillion other reasons this relationship has a zero chance in Hell, and it has nothing to do with a lousy play on words.


Sloth Alert: Angela "24 frames per second" Szyszka wrote this gag, although more likely she used the word "user" in conversation and Buddy glommed on to it like he was the first comic artist ever to think about it in this fashion.



Regurgitation Report: Lawd hab mercy, Buddy be daid. Buddy he done gwine up ta Hebben on cahtoon wings. Dis am de 14th day in a row dat he done used a recycledated cahtune.

Buddy daid. He done daid and gone.

BTW, look at that quality scanning. And I swear that's the ghost of Elvis in the background.

1-14-10: When this cartoon last appeared in March of '09, a mere ten months ago, I wrote the following:

"Bucky Hinkteron, comic genius, misunderstands how humor works... again.

The guy on the right should have been normal-looking, even handsome which, when juxtaposed against the giant skin blemish, would have made him understandably self-conscious. But with a huge, horsey overbite, early-onset baldness (emphasized by an uneven military buzz-cut) and a head the size and shape of a twenty-dollar watermelon the freckle is almost the last thing anyone would notice.

Or, alternatively, the ugly mug could have had one small freckle and his complaint would be that it was the first thing that people noticed. See? Funny.

And, as if to put a moldering cherry on this rancid confection, grammatically the man is really saying "I see you have got freckles", thus the Lebanese Fry-Cook Syndrome strikes again."


Sloth Alert: Angela Szyszka, former Buddy cock-holster, is on heavy rotation lately. I don't mind if people engage in their pathetic nostalgia's but keep it in your pants, Buddy. Okay?





Regurgitation Report: Yup, this is the fourth iteration of this cartoon in ten years, the last occurring just ten months ago, further proof that Buddy just pulls a Quig out of the pile, slaps a new date on it before returning to jerking-off into the guacamole at his job at Taco Bell #137.



At least in 2009 Buddy put a tiny bit of effort in his work in shading the mole by hand but today's version is simply the original 2000 one with a new date on it, which you can tell by the use of shading film.

Worst of all, it isn't even a decent joke. To all of you living in Los Angeles, if you happen to meet Buddy, tell him what a great job he's doing. Thanks!

1-15-10: Yes, we should all remember that if we have an experience that results in pain and suffering, possibly even moral degradation, then we should never do that particular thing again.

Like reading the Quigmans.

Thanks for the tip, Buddy.



Regurgitation Report: Back in 2004, when this last appeared, it occurred to that I'd seen it before, so I made note of it on this web site. So now it's back again so you'll have to take my word that this is a three-time loser. Although, isn't being only a two-time loser bad enough?

1-16-10: This cartoon is a huge disservice to all those women who've actually dealt with the problem of birds living in their hair. All none of them.

Regurgitation Report: Let's try something different.

From here on instead of showing the entire, though miniscule, version of previous incarnation(s) of the day's Quig I think I'll show just the important part. The date.

After all, why take MY word that these are old strips. Let's let Buddy's own handwriting tell the tale. The rest is pure crappola anyway.

BTW, the 1999 version also bore the legend "http://quigmans.com". Isn't that just too precious?

1-18-10: Though I'm personally for the decriminalization of drugs THIS is what happens when you start abusing your PCP priviliges.

I'm of course referring to seeing giant cartoon animal heads on other people's bodies. The Quigmans cartoons, on the other hand, just normally appear to resemble a Nyquil overdose.

1-19-10: A fourth-rate cartoonist paying tribute to a third-rate cartoonist. I believe that's the classic definition of "who give's a rat's ass?"

1-20-10: "Hey, kids! Get in here and look it this. It says Smokey the bear is dead!

Awww, is widdle momma's baby cwying 'cause the sweet widdle bear is deaddy-weddums? Well, tough beans, ya little brats! Now get dressed and get to work! Those shoes aren't going to shine themselves!"

Sloth Alert: This gag was written by "McKinley", who was credited with four total Quig gags back in 2004-05 before mercifully wandering off into the welcoming arms of oblivion.

1-21-10: Sharleeen was a child from a family of modest means. Birthdays for her inevitably meant something hand-made, like a sock monkey, or the kind of trinket you'd find in Happy Meals.

One Christmas her parents, by cutting back slightly on their spray-paint huffing, managed to scrape together enough money to buy her a Barbie knock-off from the dollar store. Sharleen cherished this doll, taking it with her everywhere she went, even though her friends knew it was just cheap trash. "Like Sharleen," they'd laugh.

One day the doll began to talk. At first it was just silly gibberish but eventually she began to turn vicious, complaining about why someone as glamorous as herself had to live in such a tawdry dump. Eventually she began heaping abuse upon poor Sharleen, making fun of her plain looks and her threadbare thrift-store clothes.

Sharleen  knew that if her parents heard the doll talking like this it would break their hearts, so she cut its head off and buried it in the back yard. She told he mother that she left it on the bus.

On cold winter evenings, when the wind is right, Sharleen can still hear her doll continuing its shrill, heartless harangue from its morgue beside the compost heap. That's when Sharleen hugs her sock monkey even tighter and rocks mindlessly back-and-forth atop her dingy sheets until fatigue overtakes her and she at last falls into a dreamless, though fitful, sleep.



NOTE: The crappy texture comingling witht the caption of the cartoon is something Buddy did. God knows what.

1-22-10: Imagine coming upon a man whose body has been stabbed with 8-10 knives. Chances are, only an idiot would say "Cool piercings."

Or, in this case, only an idiot would write it.

1-23-10: I wonder if Buddy "Cartoon Gee-nyuss" Hickerson's mother knows what a lazy so-and-so her son is. He's definitely not filled with angst or remorse for constantly recycling old gags, that's for goddamn sure.

1-25-10: So she's going to carbon-date him and then date him. Yeah, that's hilarious. My sides are splitting with mirth.

1-26-10: "Homes"?

Did Buddy "What? Me racist?" Hickerson REALLY just draw a cartoon featuring a filthy, disheveled, slobbering, crazed, snaggle-toothed, violent criminal using black street slang?

Yeah, he did.

If you're interested you may contact his syndicate at info@creators.com.

1-27-10: Jerry actually likes the toxic aroma of burning plastic and rubber, but Buddy was never one to let logic get in the way of a really lame gag.

1-28-10: Here's the thing... the marriage would have been just as kaput had the other woman been named Mary or Josephine. Right?

Even so, why stop at Ginger? How about Pepper, Paprika, Rosemary, Saffron... I mean if you're going to blow the marriage in a self-indulgent orgy, go whole hog, baby!

It's pretty safe to say that Buddy has the most boring sex fantasies in the comics biz.

1-29-10: Shouldn't the chicken with no feathers actually look like a chicken with no feathers instead of like a regular chicken with peculiarly hairy feathers?

Well, yeah, but that would require an artist who wasn't a plucking moron.

1-30-10: Get it? Bull gone mad. Mad bull. Huh? Huh?

I showed this cartoon to my kid. He shrugged his shoulders and went back to playing with his poo. He's a 27-year-old lawyer. Yes, even lawyer poo is more interesting than this cartoon.

(The characterization of the lawyer was used merely for entertainment purposes only. No actual lawyers were harmed in this making of this critique, although we wished to God they'd all been licked to death by rabid dingos.)