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Friday, April 06, 2012

That damned Signage

What's Mallard raving about today?

Signage

Shorter Mallard Fillmore: I am the world's biggest ass-hat. And, for some reason, proud of it.

18 comments:

Tog said...

I shouldn't be surprised or disgusted by anything a dittohead-slash-Gingrich-worshipper comes up with, but here we are. Tinsley's added a whole new angle to Mallard and Chantel's relationship: she's trying to pass him off onto some other poor sap, like the curse in a horror movie.

WV: "Idhentai." OH COME ON.

Marion Delgado said...

This argues to her never having been an actual girlfriend. The duck was grooming her for a beard ala Limbaugh, while he indulged his Asian preteen boy and dust fetishes.

When she realized that even Wingnut Welfare was not going to make Mallard enough money to support beard duty, she found a friend recovering from meth addiction who said "Sounds like a good deal to me!"

Mallard is still in denial about his beard bracket.

Anonymous said...

Is Mallard making fun of hearing-impaired people who use ASL?
DW

dlauthor said...

Wait, so Mallard and Chantal aren't a couple any more?

1. Good for Chantal. It's amazing how much relief one can feel for an entirely fictional, poorly realized character.

2. Why are they still hanging out, then? I could understand if it was sort of a codependent thing, but clearly not if she's trying to foist some other poor woman on him. Is she a masochist who just enjoys being around utterly toxic people/waterfowl?

3. How much must she hate this other woman she's trying to fix him up with? A lot, I suspect.

4. I wonder if this sheds any inadvertent light upon the state of Tinshley's marriage.

Steve-O said...

I wonder how the word "signage" came up in conversation between Mallard and this mystery girl.

Mallard: Hey, what are you doing in here?
Mystery woman: Oh, I must have stumbled into the wrong area. This must be the place where they keep the irritable assholes. They really should put up better signage.

Kip W said...

It's a perfectly cromulent word.

David in NYC said...

From Merriam-Webster:

"Definition of SIGNAGE
: signs (as of identification, warning, or direction) or a system of such signs"

Is Brewski admitting that he has an exceedingly limited vocabulary, or is he just plain stupid?

rewinn said...

Being not hateful and not filled with lies makes this one of the "best" Mallard Fillmore "comics" ever.

"Best" and "comics" are in quotes because we they are not used here in their ordinary meaning. "Best" usually has the implication of "better than good" but sometimes, as here, it means "not as bad as the worst".

With a little work, today's "comic" could have been decent. It advances the Mallard Fillmore universe by revealing that Chantel is something other than the duck's love-interest. Since she is portrayed as being a smart and able woman, that whole concept made no sense at all, and congratulations to Tinshley for dumping it.

The problem with today's "comic" (other than the lack of artwork) is the script uses FORTY-ONE words to tell a TEN word joke:

SCENE:
The diner in "Shoe" where drunken anthropomorphic bird journalists ineffectually hit on strangely bosomed birds.

TEXT:
Mallard to chick :
"I just can't see myself with someone who says 'signage'"

All it needs is a laugh track!

Anonymous said...

WTF? I'm lost as to what the joke is. Of course I use 'signage' all the time, so I'm not worthy to comment.

Steve-O said...

@Anon,

Apparently "signage" is a pussy word that's only used by gay commie liberals. Therefore, manly man, errrr duck, Mallard can't be caught dead with anyone who uses it. Makes sense, right?

Andrew said...

Full disclosure: I am neither Gay nor a commie, but I am a liberal.

I do not like the word "signage".

It's one of those unnecessary words created to make it sound like the speaker is talking about something important. Give me a sentence, using the word "signage", in which you couldn't just say "sign" or "signs". You can't.

That said, it's no reason not to date a woman.

Anonymous said...

Signage is a more general term that applies not only to individual signs but to their placement and relationship to each other. Merriam-Webster has a decent example:
"Recent airport improvements include more lighting and better signage."
If you say 'better signs', that doesn't quite have the same meaning, as it refers mainly to the details of each sign. You can have excellent signs but horrible placement. Similarly, 'lighting' could not be replace by 'lights', since those additional lights could be placed redundantly. ('Signage' and 'signing' are probably synonymous, but they're both the same length so who cares?)

Anyway, how about baggage (when talking literally about bags)?

Tog said...

@Andrew: "That said, it's no reason not to date a woman."

It is, if you're completely f***ed up in the head!

Frank Stone said...

Yet another strip which apparently made perfect sense when Brucie's brain farted it out. Clearly, we're not nearly savvy enough to appreciate its subtle, cleverly nuanced genius.

CW in LA said...

Is this an east coast thing? Or does it come up if you, like, live next door to people in the sign-making business? I can't think when I've ever heard anyone talking about signage.

Don't tell the Tinsh; I do NOT want him moving here...

Kip W said...

The fault, dear Brewski, lies not in our signage but in our selves.

Anonymous said...

Signage IS a neologism. M/W cites it first in 1976. I don't believe I ever heard it until about a decade ago, and my first reaction (being practically a Plugger, and hating almost everything new) was , yech, is this word really necessary? But, it seems to perform a function which no other word precisely matches, so I'll have to give it, reluctantly, a pass.

Rootbeer said...

Mallard Fillmore, staunch defender of traditional values, refuses to let his girlfriend arrange a threesome for them with another woman.

No, just kidding, the truth is that Chantel's always had Mallard friendzoned, and the entire relationship between the two coworkers has always existed only in the duck's fevered mind.