Nonsense and Insensibility

See it here.

I know what you're thinking: "What the hell is Joy trying to ask that poor salesman? Is she even speaking English?"

As a service to readers, I will attempt to convert the first sentence into English as recognized by, well, the English-speaking world.

I think what Joy is trying to ask is:

Why are you telling us we should buy an American car, with the reason being that foreign car parts are more expensive, when it says right here that this Chevy was made in Korea?

Unfortunately, figuring that out doesn't do much to help with the rest of the panel because none of the remaining dialog seems to follow logically from that starting point.

For example, the salesman immediately contradicts whatever it was he told Joy to set this disaster in motion by saying that the parts are American-made, and so not foreign car parts after all.

Then, Burl chimes in to claim that something in the preceding dialog proves that American-made car parts are cheap, when in fact everything preceding it has indicated that the car parts in question, wherever they are manufactured, are expensive.

To sum up...this panel expertly informs us that Chevy parts are either made in Korea or made in the United States and the parts are either expensive or cheap.

At this point I'm exhausted from making my way through this semantic mess. Almost too exhausted to even contemplate what the panel might be about, especially since the artwork further confuses matters by introducing the red herring issue of gas mileage into the fray.

However, we were offered two panels this week in which The Dinnette Set pussy-footed around the question of foreign manufacturing yet and refused to cross the line into overt jingoism. As such it's impossible not to notice that it suddenly veers over the line, though it has cleverly erected a semantic and visual maze the reader must navigate before coming to this realization.

Korean-made marginalia:

• Burl's shirt isn't quite accurate, of course. Burl would have to hear something which basically agrees with his pre-existing world view, no matter how ridiculous or far-fetched, in order for him to agree with it.
• What exactly does the salesman's tenure add to the panel? How is this panel helped in any way by informoing the reader that the salesman is "new here."
• It's too late, of course, to keep Burl and Joy from procreating. As such, there is no defensible reason to plant the image of their coupling into our heads by having Joy wear a Cialis shirt.