One-liner Thursday

". . . Is the person who let you ducks in and filled up the tub inside the house? Am I in danger?"


I think these people have been told in advance to taunt our flippered friend and send him away. "Sorry! All of the planet's women have rejected you! We'll let you know if one of them suffers head trauma or something and changes her mind!"


"Uh-oh! If Ziggy's refreshed then he might realize how ridiculous it is to keep me around!"


Withholdings: One (1) torso


Is this "standards week" on Ziggy or something? I'm noticing a theme here. I think Ziggy asked that flying starfish to relinquish its spot as the "Carl's Jr." mascot and live with him on this hairy mountain.

Ziggy wanders into El Beth-el, which has changed

Interpretation #1: Passing through an empty field one day, Ziggy is confronted by the god who has filled his life with so much surrealism and pain, who has torn the "For Sale" sign off of his lawn just to taunt him and now shows it to him before casting it into the sea, knowing that nobody will ever believe him, and he never talks to anybody else anyway.)

Interpretation #2: God is selling the entirety of the Heavens and the Earth. Presumably he's going to buy a nice cottage somewhere in omnidimensional space with the earnings and take a nice break from running the entirety of everything.

Supplementary Comment: If neither of these interpretations hold I want some of whatever Ziggy's on. It sounds nice.

A behatted friend

The discovery of this image obliterated any commentary that I might have had in mind:



It's nice to see that somebody else finds Ziggy worthy of incomprehensible derivation.

Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise.

No kidding. Possession of a huge, toothless walrus overbite hasn't kept this guy out of medicine.

"Now turn your head and SCREAM!"

Vāyu, on refulgent car come to the drinking of the juice

Two contemplative travelers meet in the night. Torchlight leaves epic shadow.


Selections from Bodanga, an apocryphal Vedic writing

1. GURU, the bearded one, is led forward in a search for glory.
A sandaled one pursuing a God rejected.
2. Resplendent, his beard represents a funny geographical
formation, a scion bedecked in false robes, yet sincere.
3. Oh Rebus, give us riches, feed us with wisdom and with
the unbearable presence of the King.
4. And ask him if he will perform "Blue Suede Shoes" for us.




My apologies to ethnic Indians, orthodox Hindus, and anybody else who respects ancient scripture sufficiently not to parody it for a lark.

Everything comes to a head

NOTE: The following analysis does not reflect Ziggy canon:


This looks like one of the climactic scenes from an Imaginary Character movie (Drop Dead Fred, Donnie Darko, etc.). The "psychologist" represents Ziggy's repression, his desire for sanity and stability, but the trail of bodies in his gruesome wake* show that an attempt at murder-free living is merely a temporary state, a brief pause before the continuing slide to moral and psychological oblivion.

Ziggy has finally stopped yelling "Shut up shut up SHUT UP!" in public while debating this mental construct, and has finally decided to take his frightening advice. "But if I take responsibility for my actions. . ." he thinks aloud, finally realizing that an attempt at requital, however impossible for such great crimes, would leave his illusory bearded, flamboyantly disco Willy Wonka of a doctor no further function to fulfill. By becoming "whole" he will lose his greatest and only friend, will look at his hands and, for the first time, see the blood thereupon.

Will weep but feel free.


* But far be it from me to suggest that Ziggy is a killer:

"I wanna stwangle wu!"

The time-limiting nature of single-panel features aside, those birds never speak. Does Ziggy even see the orange bird, or is the parrot itself mad? There's an odd chain of madness going on here. I think Ziggy's house is more like Stephen King's apartment 1408, driving lesser beings to hallucinations, encroaching madness and eventual suicide. Ziggy, of course, is right at home.

One-Liner Thursday

Can I assume that minors have a viable suicide point elsewhere on the peak?


The DEA tracks and controls illicit substances, so "this stuff" is probably pretty dang potent.


Sloooowly the camera pans down, to the dozens of D.E.A.-approved bottles lining Ziggy's feet. He's actually watching the Weather Channel, but we view the scene only through his eyes.


I think it's been a few months since I pointed out that Ziggy's life is a Boschian (as in Hieronymus) nightmare. I'm sure he has fleas quietly chastening him for his blood-glucose level.


Maybe they could start by shattering the public perception of mouseholes, which look more like scraggly holes in obscure corners and less like aesthetically-pleasing Hobbit entryways.

What is the "blue corn moon" anyway?

Apparently, this bird never learned to paint with all the colors of the wind. He's getting too hung up about ownership, man, avian or hominid. He needs to keep in mind that Ziggy's house is less an ownable estate and more an all-species commune, where everybody just pretty much hangs out and lives, man, lives! No pot, though.

Shrink shrank shrunk

Ziggy positively dwarfs this shrink. Maybe it's a visual pun. Either that or widespread bodily swelling on Ziggy's part.

Hot, desperate schlubs at $3.99/min

Ziggy calls a special hotline just to talk to people who are more desperate than he is.

Out, dadburned spot!

The body language here is important: Ziggy stares purposefully forward, in a frantic hope that the frightening hallucinations he is constantly subjected to are just that, and that the perpetual demons at the periphery will leave him be. If our titular hero was to continue driving for a few more panels I have no doubt we'd see a woman sharpening a baby on a grindstone, a bird made of knives carving up a cactus and Dane Cook trying out some new "jokes."

Purple pills...

You'll notice that this funky machine has no payout slot, implying whatever sad moral you'd like to insert. Still, it's worth noting that you don't need to pay fifty cents to salvage a terrible situation.

A Piping Hot One-Liner Monday - Incomprehensibilities Galore

A Christmas color-bedecked Elmer Fudd pauses to notice the clever inversions of typical holiday displays.


Does the fact that I don't get this in the slightest reflect negatively on my intelligence? I understand the concept of being served a literal tomato, but the "surprise a tomato" part of the joke may be a little too obtuse for me.


This strip further cements Ziggy as a surreal thinking individual's strip, or at least an incomprehensible one. Where is the mainstream description of wine as "amusing"? I thought we stopped this sort of thing at "tannic."


Case in point. Ziggy has gone positively Zen in a "one hand clapping" sort of way, wherein shopping is a spiritual, transcendent experience rather than an attempt at capitalistic exchange.


MENSA Question #117: This cartoon depicts an unlikely situation. Why would this not work?

Guru Bureau

I'm not surprised to see this guru engaging in rampant acts of blatant commerciality - the juxtaposition of the holy and the profane is what we call humor around these parts. Still, we've dealt with the fact that one would have to climb down the first mountain and up the other to get access to that sweet, sweet air.

Santa Problems

Santa snapped his share of necks in 'Nam and later on the streets of Detroid. He's shed enough hoodlum blood that he considers his current vocation a sort of insufficient atonement. But he doesn't need no punk bodyguard.


Someone taught this kid to hide behind the Constitution in private matters. As neither an agent of the government nor a member of congress, but a semi-creepy reverse burglar, it's plain that Santa is not bound by the Bill of Rights.

And why is Ziggy hanging around these kids?