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No. 682: Not the Brightest Bulbs Out There

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Not the Brightest Bulbs Out There

First | Previous | 2023-04-08 | Next | Latest

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/itoons/?comic=682

Strip by: shiningpikablu252

First panel header: Rat's scheme to take out the 'Square Root of Minus Garfield' editor
{Rat is seated at his desk in a chair with a monogrammed "R", wearing sunglasses, on a cell phone}
Rat: Hello?
Guard Duck (on phone): Hello, sir...It's me, Guard Duck...Listen, our plan hit a little snag...
Rat: {having taken off his sunglasses} What kind of snag?
Guard Duck (on phone): Well, sir, we looked for the office of your 'Mezzacotta', but...we took a wrong turn at Albuquerque, and...I think we pummeled the wrong guy.
Rat: Who the @#*@ did you pummel?!?
{cut over to a phone-carrying Guard Duck, a baseball bat-carrying Snuffles, and a conked-out Dilbert}
Guard Duck: You tell him.

The author writes:

The Godfather this certainly isn't...

Nowadays, I'm sure many people would cheer at Snuffles for conking out Dilbert, but that would be assuming that Dilbert as a character shares his views with his own now heavily-controversial cartoonist. I assume there would be a lot of people making that assumption, much like there are a lot of people who see Dr. Cliff Huxtable as heavily tainted in the same fashion as his portrayer who I dare not name (and I'm probably going to catch heavy flak for even mentioning the character's name—yes, the portrayer is indeed that tainted)...

Anyway, nobody in this piece is anywhere close to the brightest bulb in the bunch. Rat's been known to hold grudges over petty noodle incidents (it's probably best we NOT know why he'd want to go after the Square Root of Minus Garfield top dogs; odds are he should be targeting an individual contributor rather than the people who put those things up), and has been known to act before he thinks. As far as the bulk of readers might know, mezzacotta probably doesn't even have an actual office; can you even make a wrong turn at Albuquerque in a situation like that? Guard Duck and Snuffles are not the best enforcers of the bunch, and let's face it, nobody ever thought Dilbert was employee-of-the-month material even when his cartoonist was not heavily-controversial...

Original Pearls Before Swine strip: 2009-10-09.