Ziggy: So what if everyone laughs at you? You're making the world a happier place!

This is perhaps the saddest cartoon I've ever seen. Mostly because Ziggy's therapist is clearly lying to him, trying desperately to make him feel better about himself. Because Ziggy, quite obviously, does not make the world a better place.

Ziggy: Oh ... a peeping Tom, eh?

And so, in addition to fish and breakfast cereal, Ziggy also masturbates to bathing birds.

Ziggy: You are here.

And so it turns out that Ziggy is not only stupid, but also egocentric.

This is not surprising.

Ziggy: I'd like to help, sir, but my union won't allow it!

Given Ziggy's political philosophy, it's hardly a surprise to see a bit of good, old-fashioned union bashing. In fairness though, it is a well known fact even among liberals, socialists and other communists that unions really are the primary cause of most lobster attacks. These communists just think that the benefits of unions outweigh the occasional claw to the face. When the lobster apocalypse comes, though, everyone will know who to blame.

Ziggy: The businessman's lunch is just like the regular lunch, sir ... except that the government eats half of it!

Ziggy's evidently getting an early start on the tax humor this year.

In fairness, though, this cartoon raises an important point. Given his druthers, a businessman would obviously share half of his meal with other people. This is called "trickle-down nutrition." But because the government steals that half of his meal, he's forced to keep all of his remaining food for himself. And so we see, because of this confiscatory socialist action, everybody but the businessman starves. Until eventually there's nobody left to prepare the businessman's food. And so then the businessman starves too. And so then everybody's dead.

This is a perfect metaphor for economics.

Ziggy: I've never known a hard drive to crash out of boredom before!

"Except for, you know, that time it happened to you four months ago."

Ziggy: Simplify you're life.

Leave it to Ziggy to remind us that tax season is fast approaching. A couple of last year's greatest tax humor hits included references to laxatives and anal rape. What do the anti-tax crusaders of the comics section have in store for us this year? Only time will tell!

Ziggy: It looks like an environmentalist hacked into its computer system!

This is not the first time Ziggy has warned us of the great environmentalist threat, and it will not be the last. And thank God for that. The comics section truly is the only thing standing between the eco-terrorists and our liberty.

Ziggy: RELAX ... the Somali pirates aren't anywhere NEAR here!

This Ziggy is pretty funny when it's situated directly next to the above installment of The Phantom, as it is here and in my local paper.

Otherwise, of course, not so much.

Ziggy: Velveeta, Velveeta, Velvetta ... Haven't you ever heard of camambert?

And so Ziggy apparently eats nothing but large blocks of processed cheese product.

I think this more or less explains his physical appearance.

Ziggy: ...You bought an off-brand, didn't you?

While Ziggy will probably let his bird continue thinking that out of shame, the reality is most likely far more disturbing.

Ziggy: ...I don't know what you've been doing with it, ...but it's bored stiff!

This is what happens when you masturbate mainly to images of bran flakes.

Ziggy: We had to send your car to the compactor, sir! EPA regulations!

This cartoon is hilarious because environmental regulation is a liberal government plot to destroy your freedom.

Ziggy and Pearls Before Swine: Ziggy, it seems we've been recieving complaints from the other comic strips about your lack of pants!

I mock Ziggy a lot here, largely because it's terrible in almost every conceivable way. On the other hand, my taste runs more toward Pearls Before Swine, with its caustic, cynical satire. So I'm really not at all in Ziggy's target demographic, which I presume is composed almost entirely of greeting card executives and old ladies who collect fairy figurines. And, you know, they have different standards than me. That said, I still think Ziggy sucks as a piece of art, but it is undeniably a very successful product, and I blame Tom Wilson not one whit for making the most of it.

The other point I want to make is that even though cartoonists like Wilson make crappy comics, they're still probably pretty funny people. I base this on the theory that you can't make it in a funny business without being a funny person, even if the product you end up producing turns out to be not all that funny. This is to say, I'm pretty sure that if I went out to lunch with Tom Wilson or Jeff Keane, they would prove to be pretty witty conversationalists.* So it never surprises me to see the sort of thing we find in today's comics section, in which Wilson appears to take all of Stephan Pastis' ribbing in good fun.***

*Until they murdered me in cold blood, of course.**

**Ha ha! I'm just kidding! They have wonderful senses of humor! They would find my blog delightful!

***Pastis actually writes about this here and here.

Ziggy: ...Do you mind? I can't spawn with people watching!

This cartoon is hilarious because Ziggy is attempting to masturbate to fish porn, but he's so pathetic that the fish pornographers won't let him.

At least he'll always have his cereal.

Ziggy: ...You'd think they'd start in ENGLISH!

This cartoon is hilarious because Ziggy is stoking nativist fears.*

*Considering his other political proclivities, this is not surprising.

Ziggy: Adult Cereal

In the Ziggyverse, people apparently masturbate to bran flakes.

This is not surprising.

Ziggy: ...These cell phone companies are really getting competetive...

Here we see Ziggy once again championing the incredible virtues of The Free Market^TM.

I was mostly kidding when I claimed that Ziggy was a disciple of Ayn Rand, but the more I learn about him, the more sense it seems to make.

Ziggy: Expiration Valley

This cartoon is hilarious because Ziggy is finally going to kill himself.

Ziggy: Sorry, full.

This cartoon is hilarious because the signs in the Ziggyverse are now not only distressingly menacing, but also bizarrely incoherent.