The OFF You Don't Put On

Witness: the ultimate collusion between Native American culture and American overpriced commercialism. Of course, the whole thing hits its full apex of sublime ghastliness with the sheer nihilism embodied in the idea of obliterating all dreams, incinerating the unconscious ramblings of the mind awash in its nighttime musings. It's precisely the type of sleeping death that you would expect not to find on prominent display in a shop window.

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Ziggy's got to be doing something slightly advanced to have encountered this sort of rebuff from his passive-aggressive computer. His system's quoting old Humphrey Bogart movies at him and all he wants to do is play Taipei. The Americanized tile-matching one - not the real one.


DISCUSSION QUESTION: Will Ziggy's senior citizen target audience understand the technology reference?

Pundit, Pundthat

I won't bother linking once again to the long series of adventures between Ziggy and the guru, but he's been making the trek up Big 'ol Lump Peak for increasingly-trivial trivialities (if you may permit me a brief redundancy). The guru has taken up astrology, celebrity gossip and even set up a Starbucks, but he's showing an uncharacteristic restraint here. As long as he understands his place and he's overcome his previous depression, I'm willing to overlook the fact that our titular character is essentially climbing up a near-vertical slope on a routine basis for single-sentence banalities. Mysticism is all a sham, of course, but so is politics.

Read the Fine Print

Zing! This strip's foray into contemporary economic humor certainly lays the lash to Bear Stearns investors. Ziggy stands by ineptly, like a gorilla with a terrible credit rating.

Judging by the fruity cursive of the word "and", this bespectacled official must have had quite a segue planned between the first and second halves of his sentence, before finally deciding that his operation was already shot to hell and it was time to disclose that his company has been neglecting FDIC regulations. I guess when you're destined for the slammer a bit of gallows humor can't hurt.

The Man in Black

Ziggy's toast is singing.

Ziggy (the strip, never the individual) often deals with topic of oppression, incompetence, and self-loathing, but I think I like it the most when it's just plain weird. And when your morning foodstuffs start crooning Johnny Cash your life is plenty weird. Ziggy seems a little put off by this development, but not necessarily afraid or confused. He's probably worried that his toast will continue its soulful tune through the twin trials of butter and jam, all the way to his linear mouth.

Classism

No doubt this is what you get when you recruit a daffy old Welsh couple to run the local Chuck-e-Cheese. Forcing the guests to make value judgements on their own selves every time they have to do a number one sounds so very, very British. It would turn their dusty little heads to learn that a gentleman's wizz is much the same as that of a mere ruffian.

Convention Cruiser

This farmhand is unusually well-read for an up-at-five harvester - he's quoting Robert Frost to passing motorists in need. This strip is certainly bucking common stereotypes today; it's not unusual to meet such a literate farmhand, but to meet one while driving a stolen pink convertible.