Ziggy's secret vices

"This has been a reminder of government omniscience. We can and will find you. Have a nice day."

Ziggy seems to know all-too-well just exactly what this sign is talking about, and has no intention to give up his occasional dabblings in it.

Fill the world with surprise and horror

Ziggy was menaced by an unusually-aggressive lobster the last time he came here. The restaurant always dumps their secret breeding projects off on their most timid, introverted customers, like the time Woody Allen came in and was served a live puppy that could shoot its quills. After awhile you start wondering by Ziggy bothers to tie that napkin except as protection.

For the Mob it Was a Horse's Head

You've been dead all day?

Those mice are gonna kill that cat one of these days, and the placement of his trussed up, unconscious body suggests that this act is a warning to the miserable beast's master. Were this situation to be mirrored in real life, I'd expect Ziggy to arrive home one fine afternoon to find his furry friend drowned in the toilet. Then again, this is the madcap world of Ziggy, where people suffer but never die.

Even OnStar Would Hang Up On You

Odd - usually the "body shop" puns aren't depicted literally. I know the people of the world have pretty much made it their mission to screw with Ziggy, but it seesm a bit wasteful to go to the ends they do, considering that the most extreme reaction they get these days is a vaguely nonplussed, mostly-disinterested glance toward the "camera".

They could be circling around him, dressed in vampire drag, yelling: "Your car is DEAD, Ziggy! DEAD! And you're next! BWAHAHAHA!" And he'd merely keep up that look that says "Oy vey, life. What can you do?"

Scale the Mountains, View the Plain

"Your weight is 87 pounds. Everybody that you have ever known will someday die. Hurry home, for your house is burning."

Life in a Passive-Aggressive World

Hardly the sort of signs you'd expect to see in Oceania, or any other dystopian paradise for that matter, but it's a start. Much better than "Big Brother is Watching You", as it shows the particular brand of frustration and passive aggressive ambition it takes to dominate a world. Ziggy should reserve that special look of repulsed revulsion for special situations, instead of for everything; it'd be scads more effective.

Fire Sauce

"Dave" has built his chili palace of torment, pain and internal hemorrhaging - a proud fact that has not escaped the notice of his menu. The escalated pricing scheme for increasing levels of anguish only proves that Dave is the reigning monarch of this hellish mound of capsaicin and promises of future diarrhea. Even the napkins are laced with habañero extract. Meanwhile, Ziggy awaits his meal like a death row prisoner, keeping company with the sort of gustatory masochists who would frequent a place like this.

Bottles Not Books

Holycrapholycrapholycrap - the door must have been opened for the Apocalypse, because today's Ziggy is everything that I could have ever wanted, and it's a multi-panel endeavor to boot! It makes me forget yesterday's self-plagiarism. Presented, unmodified as always, as originally printed. This wonder requires a panel-by-panel, stream-of-consciousness analysis:

Panel 1 (after the unmodified-as-always throwaway panel in all its hospital-green splendor): Look! Ziggy's buying a sizable stack of books! That book on stress avoidance should come in handy. "Plink! Plink!" the excitable keyboard says as if in agreement.

Panel 2: "Coping With Persecution"! No way! "Plink! Plink!" Don't forget stress!

Panel 3: Anxiety and embarrassment. Pshaw! "Plink!"

Panel 4: Oops! You forgot your bag, Ziggy! Beep. . . beep. . . beep. . . - like some kind of fiendish water torture, it rains upon you.

Panel 5: Ziggy wipes sweat, tears and shirt lint all over the exit doors as he frantically shakes his fanny in a horrific parody of surrender. The Man converges upon him, prepared and eager to do their civic duty by riddling him with lead and anger.

Whoever said that Ziggy wasn't the darkest comic in the papers?

Bow Before the Grease Monkey

Look at that mechanic's bloodshot, sleepless eyes - he's a tweaker. It takes a goodly number of unnecessary repairs to finance such a lavish meth lab as the one brewing in Blueshirt McNametag's basement. The mechanic may be sufficiently confused to get Ziggy's lemon of a gas-guzzler confused with some fancy-schmancy organic car, but he knows what he'll be doing with his unfairly-sizable commission when his shift finally ends. Bubblers, beakers and benders - oh my!

Hellemarketer

What a world, what a world. Ziggy is no friend of the lenders, banks won't accept his hairless hobbit money, and he is occasionally attacked by large aquatic animals in his own bedroom, frequently enough that he is not surprised by it. Routine telephone abuse is hardly a stretch. "CLICK!!!"

Vicarious

This is barely even satire. The worst news stations, particularly local news, try to shield you from bad news, but the national news stations have no such options. That's why most national news stories are about events happening far, far away, or to imaginary people in the future ("is [substance] in your water? Find out at nine!"). If the parents of the major news networks, most of whom manufacture weapons, wanted you to hear the news that applied to you and that would affect your future, they would report it. It's good this is my last post for the day because now my ire is up.

Irate Reprobate Service

Ugh. . . I don't know what's gotten into a young Bob Barker that he's taken up work for the IRS, but I shudder to imagine a future wherein penniless citizens are probed with a "metal detector" (actually a crude torture device hooked up to a car battery) upon announcement of their status.

His grotesque expression shows that he gets his kicks out of this sort of thing.

Divirtimento in Gee

Let it not be said that this strip is anything but wonderful. I'd love to imagine this strip in motion, if only to watch those notes shoot across the room, propelled from Kiltbeard's turkey-like bagpipe. The look in our patient's eyes shows that he appreciates the special attention; not every dentist's office has its own resident Scotsman. Even as Ziggy struggles to keep the saliva from dribbling down the right corner of his benumbed and paralyzed mouth, his arms gripping the armrests in silent desperation, he must appreciate the special effort undertaken by Dr. Drill 'n Gouge to incorporate all of Ziggy's phobias into each and every appointment. We're only a couple of manically-grinning clowns away from a complete Fear Encyclopedia.

Drill 'n Gouge must be in cahoots with Ziggy's shrink. I'm aware that the bagpipes are basically Britain's saxophone, with all the soul implied by such a comparison, but was this the only alternative to generic elevator-style muzak? "So, he doesn't like snakes!? Well, how about a sea of spiders!?!"

Grin (so to speak) and bear it, Ziggy: it could be much worse.

Update: Ziggy Not Necessarily Going To Jail

It seems that Ziggy has managed to escape the IRS cesspool and is now working on his other, less-pressing debts. In retrospect, I think that I neglected one important fact yesterday: Ziggy doesn't seem to make any income on which to pay taxes. He had his "asking for directions" look on while considering those foreboding doors - a look that we've seen before.

So - time to balance your budget, Ziggy. In an effort to distract our attention from that mind-bending mess of calendar confusion coming out of your mouth, let's start by making a list of the ways that you're already saving money:

* Feeding pet parrot, dog and cat diet of peanut butter sandwiches, thus eliminating shopping to one grocery list.

* Not buying sorely-needed antidepressants, reducing medical expenses.

* Buying from underpriced pervert grocers.

* Limiting furniture to that needed on the current day (you might not know it, but peripherally-located furniture costs an arm and a leg for comic strip characters. The Get Fuzzy crew alone is shelling out $25k a year.

Looks like you're doing good, Ziggy. Get a part-time job and pay off those bills, then we'll start working on the antidepressant situation. Oh, how we miss the days before the darkness:

Come back, Ziggy.

The Man in the Machine

Today, Ziggy experiences firsthand the sad abuses of the consumer culture, held hostage in this drab financial institution until such time as he can pony up enough cash to buy his freedom. I'd imagine that what follows plays out a bit like 2004's The Terminal, only without so many gift shops and restaurants to subsist upon. Ziggy, having dropped in to the bank merely for directions, will now finally be forced to resort to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle for which he is entirely unprepared. He will die cold and alone in the corner by the Skittles machine.

Judging by the guard's position, I'd like to imagine that he honks Ziggy's nose immediately after finishing his sentence.

(Possible additional themes: Abuse of authority, What it means to "escape")