Mary Worth, 2/7/10
Uh oh — it looks like Dawn isn’t going to sit back just acquiesce to losing her father’s affections to some scam artist! It seems that she is going to try shock therapy by finding the one person who can be guaranteed to terrify Wilbur back to his senses: erstwhile romantic rival Martin Clark. Sure, he’s been dead for years, but that will make the ultimate confrontation all the more harrowing, as Dawn rigs up the rich man’s corpse to move and speak like a marionette. “Look at me, Wilbur!” Martin will say, thanks to the ventriloquist lessons Dawn’s been taking on the sly. “I’m a charred, reassembled cadaver, and yet Abby would still choose me over you!”
Blondie, 2/7/10
This right here is seven panels of Superbowl Sunday inanity punctuated by one glorious moment of complete madness. I suppose that longtime readers of Blondie are supposed to know that spinning around on one’s head is an indicator of extreme, uncontrollable emotion of some kind, but to the casual viewer, it would just appear that Dagwood, Herb, and Daisy have chosen to express their football-related outrage with a stunning display of eerily synchronized breakdancing. Which I for one am totally in favor of.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/7/10
You know who I just realized that I totally don’t get at all? Berna! She’s Rex and June’s receptionist and she runs a successful salon of some sort and she uses Yugoslav generalissimo Tito’s recipes to dominate the local restaurant scene? Why would such a power broker need a relatively menial job behind a clinic’s front desk? Perhaps she uses it to drum up business for her salon. “Honey, trust me, Western medicine can’t do a thing about those split ends. Here’s my number.”
Meanwhile, I look forward to seeing how this strip attempts to make a guy named “Toots” who has a stripey rugby shirt, a goofy little beard, and a lot of hair gel into some kind of threat against Rex and June’s carefully constructed bourgeois order.
Marvin, 2/7/10
Since we only get a single glimpse of Marvin’s dad in this strip, in which he appears to be a good 15 or 20 feet away from his terrible little son and not getting any closer, I’m guessing this is less “father/son bonding” and more “let’s bring the hateful monster outside and leave him there until he ‘accidentally’ freezes to death.”
Mark Trail, 1/29/10
I’m hoping that this Mark Trail storyline might be about to turn into Brokeback Mountain meets The Larry Craig Story. “An ‘old friend,’ Ben Harris, has a camp up ahead … I don’t think he’s going to be too happy with me, bringing a handsome young man like yourself along with me!” “It has been a long time, Senator … you’re looking good … so good … and you’re bringing someone else here … to our special place …” *sob*
Mary Worth, 1/29/10
Now, this is the point where all you cynics are going to say, “Ha ha, see, Kurt was lying all along!” That’s nonsense. If a scam artist were confronted with a request for a paternity test, they’d probably sputter and prevaricate. They certainly would not unleash a clipped “I don’t believe in their accuracy.” Thus, I am forced to conclude that Kurt is not a con man; he is a cyborg.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/29/10
Rex and June begin to suspect that Sarah is on to their plan to drop her off at a farm upstate and never come back.
Family Circus, 1/24/10
I’m pretty sure that the panels here have been both mislabelled and put in the wrong order. Our story begins in panel two, which is the moment when Mommy realizes that she needs to leave her kiddie-vomit-smeared life behind her, forever. In panel one, she wakes up alone in a single bed in some fleabag hotel, grateful to be forever free of her suffocating family. Among the responsibilities she’s left behind is hygeine, and in panel three her fellow elevator passengers take disapproving note of her noticable body odor. To her, that funk smells like freedom, sweet freedom.
Beetle Bailey, 1/24/10
The reasons why the soldiers of Camp Swampy would want to stand by and cheer as their seargant suffers physical pain should be obvious. But what’s with the rigamarole with his being ordered into the dentist chair? Does it serve any purpose other than to turn the perfectly servicable daily strip represented by the bottom row of panels into a Sunday strip? My guess is that odor of Sarge’s decaying teeth and putrefying gums was becoming so noticeable and distracting that his dental health had to be improved in the interest of maintaining unit cohesion.
Funky Winkerbean, 1/24/10
“Yeah, you kids today and your moral ambiguity! In our days, heroes were heroic, like Speedball, who’s named after an awesome combination of heroin and cocaine!”
Panels from Dennis the Menace, 1/24/10
Sorry, Dennis, the only way these lines might qualify as “menacing” would be if afterwards you headed down to the graveyard to find some well preserved corpse bits to piece together.
Panels from Rex Morgan, M.D., and Judge Parker, 1/24/10
Fun fact that newcomers to the soap opera comic scene might not know: Judge Parker and Rex Morgan have different artists, but are both written by the same guy, Woody Wilson. I’m assuming that his scripts for both strips today included prominent use of the phrase “ass crack.”
Family Circus, 1/17/10
Jeffy still exists in that blissful childhood state where everything centers around him. Thus, to him the most noteworthy aspect of his outing was when all the other kids shouted out his name and he had to jump out of their way. The fact that the three of them are currently lying in a wailing heap of shattered limbs and sled-blade-slashed flesh, begging for someone to come help them but too terribly injured to move, is uninteresting to him, and will not be relayed to any adults until next spring, when the bodies are found.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/17/10
Yes, Sarah; mommy’s almost finished feeling actual human emotions. Then she’s going to go and relentlessly destroy her cousin because of something her aunt did. Then we’ll get around to walking the dog!
Your top comments are coming shortly, everyone, but there are some ITEMS to enjoy first! We begin with an EXCITING NEW BLOG PROJECT brought to you by Rifftrax writer Conor Lastowka and yours truly. It’s called “[Citation Needed]” and it consists of hilariously bad prose culled from Wikipedia and other wikis. It’s updated when we feel like it, more or less daily, sometimes several times a day (depending on how much time either or both of us spending “doing research”) and you’ll read it and you’ll love it. Check it out!
Also! Faithful reader Mr.??? has pointed me in the direction of the University of Nebraska’s Government Comics Collection. Find out what foul propaganda Big Government has forced your favorite comics characters to spout! Highlights include Rex Morgan talking to you about your unborn child, Dennis the Menace learning how to kill with poison, Mark Trail fighting to save America’s waters, and Dagwood taking out his workplace frustrations on his family. Don’t miss ‘em!
And now, ladies and gentlemen … your COMMENT OF THE WEEK!
“If you look carefully at Zig’s triangle, it’s clear he’s wearing a thong. He is taking baby steps towards pants-wearing — sexy, tiny baby steps.” –Crankenstank
And the runners up! Very funny!
“I remember when I first laid eyes on her. I had been traveling with the Ringling Brothers Side Show as the World’s Most Boring College Student to make a few bucks. The previous Woman with the World’s Longest Neck had just met an untimely and somewhat grisly end in what would become known throughout the circus world as the Ceiling Fan Incident of 1973. Try as we might, we could never make it work. When it ended I actually thought about taking my own life. Sometimes even now I think back and get despondent. But then, I pick myself up, look around and see that I am with you Dawn, here at Charterstone and realize that suicide would just be redundant.” –Uncle Ritzy Fritz
“Is it just me, or is Wilbur actually attempting to retreat into his sweater as if it were a shell?” –Dragon of Life
“OK, I caught the anachronistic phone, desk lamp, and semi-anachronistic file cabinets, but somehow I totally missed that the desk has no computer! This is like a game, really. ‘Spot the 6 differences between this panel and the present.’ Can I count the haircut?” –MaryAnnTheRest
“The presence of the suit can only mean that this ‘Tim Moore’ fellow has a puppy to give away.” –Drew Funk
“I find myself tickled when strip pretends we care about anything than Mark punching things, especially make-believe things like Mark’s popularity.” –Josharella
“I’m curious just how lax the traffic officers or insane the drivers are in order for a pile-up, multiple cars full of commuters slamming end-on-end in one huge orgy of terror and steel, to occur in what sounds like an intersection downtown, where in most cities its impossible to crawl through at 20 miles an hour on a good day. Or why the carpoolers care, as they are currently miles away on a nearly abandoned suburb road heading away from the city. It can’t be because they give a damn about the heartbreak and loss of life. These are the same people who regularly watch goofy-hair there regularly collide with his postman, and presumably laugh and laugh.” –Taquelli
“Is the angle and placement of Leroy’s fork indicative that this encounter is a prelude to another angry session of Lockhorn lovemaking, with Loretta marching off to the bedroom part of the foreplay? Or is sometimes a fork just a fork?” –R and CT
“I just don’t want to share you with anyone else, which is why I’ve taken a firm hold of your face with my teeth.” –TruthOfAngels
“I’m enjoying an audio fantasy of what those 20 words of Mark Trail-ian dialogue sound like through those grimly mashed lips: ‘Iwowaneyemwowwy, wubiswubahdoo!’ ‘Awuswonwannashwahoowihannywonelsh!’” –Mighty Max King
“Well, of course, Wilbur’s schedule for the remainder of this week is completely booked with sandwich + computer + lustful nostalgic daydreaming. Next week is the earliest possible available time for fishing.” –Fountain Mountain Dew
“No, I hate both of you. I mean, ‘fishing.’” –One-eyed Wolfdog
“It’s as if, by pointing to his own eye, Odie hopes to say, ‘Guess what’s even less subtle than winking.’” –JohnsonDelegate
“Is the wife even in a dressing room? The shocked look on that plugger’s face makes me think it is a very, very public place, or that she has mistaken the sitting area near the dressing room as the dressing room. ‘Hurry … Please! The Mall Security is coming!’” –Jackuul
“Oh, come now, we all know lady pluggers don’t have their own credit cards! That’s why Mr. Plugger has to be there, to pay for whatever his wife decides to purchase (with a heavy sigh and a comical roll of the eyes toward heaven, no doubt). There’s nothing in that purse but crumpled-up tissues, a lipstick and a compact, and the latest issue of Women’s Day.” –Mollie
“And let’s not forget the General’s red, irritated, inflamed anus.” –Calico
“I think it says something profound about comics that crazy Bobbie from A3G is holding up a whole page full of swatches of colors and they’re all the exact same shade of yellow.” –Andy L
“You can learn a lot about a man based on the hat he chooses to wear fishing. However, in Kurt’s case, the bridesmaid white pumps tell me that all is not right here.” –Dingo, the Essence of Purity and Virtue Incarnate™
“The desert in Crock is bright yellow because it’s pure sulfur, as they are in Hell.” –DeGroot of All Evil
“I swear to God, if Kurt’s next line is something about how sometimes he doesn’t feel ‘fresh,’ I’m punching this strip in the face.” –Ringo Beaumont III
“‘An uneasy restlessness’ = ‘No matter how well I hide the bodies, someone eventually finds them.’” –TheDiva
Big thanks to everyone who put cash in my tip jar! And we must of course give thanks to our advertisers:
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Like most of you, I have some New Year’s traditions. Of course, yours probably involve some kind of self-improvement resolutions, which would be unnecessary for me because of my extreme awesomeness. Instead, I generally take the first post of the year to catch up on the action in my beloved continuity strips.
Panel from Dick Tracy, 12/24/09
Let’s start with Dick Tracy, which appears to be as unfamiliar with the social and economic realities of early 21st century classical music as it is with pretty much any other kind of realities you could name.
Panel from Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/26/09
Over in Rex Morgan, the visit of June’s slobbish thieving white-trash cousin has driven this upper-middle-class family to the breaking point. Rex can absorb a lot of punishment, but for God’s sake don’t interfere with his precious, precious breakfast!
Panels from Apartment 3-G, 12/27/09
Against all expectations, Margo managed to enter a church without bursting into flame and crumbling into dust. This can only mean that, while we were wasting our time with the Professor’s boring love life, Margo beat God in a fight off panel.
Funky Winkerbean, 1/3/10
In Funky Winkerbean, the reformed alcoholic title character gazed at a bottle of champagne with more tenderness and affection than he’s ever shown any of his family or friends.
Judge Parker, 1/3/10
Just hours after acting as an unlicensed private investigator, Sam is ready to act as an unlicensed marriage therapist to violent rage maniac Rocky Ledge. One of Rocky’s employees, familiar with the man’s temperament, suggests that Sam will need protective gear before beginning the session.
Mark Trail, 12/28/09
In Mark Trail, Mark and Rusty managed to survive only because this gentle small-town sheriff was too much of a wimp to shoot an unarmed man in the back. I was all excited when it seemed like only Rusty’s head would be saved, leaving him a malformed skull in a jar that Mark would have to tote from place to place…
Mark Trail, 12/31/09
…but instead he just hobbled out of the doctor’s office Tiny Tim-style. His extreme cheerfulness in the face of his crippling is a testament to the powerful painkillers this rural medico has prescribed him.
Oh, and hey, what’s up with Gil Thorp? The Thorps typically celebrate Christmas Day by posing in a family tableau for our entertainment — see for example the entries from 2006, 2007, and 2008. But there’s a little something missing from this year’s installment, isn’t there?
Gil Thorp, 12/25/09
Yes, the holidays do come early when you somehow do away with your children, don’t they, Mimi? Presumably one of the pictures on the mantle there in panel two is of the two young Thorplings, off in their faraway boarding school or Bangladeshi garment factory or shallow grave or wherever they’ve been sent to give the Thorps senior more time to give each other presents and get romantical.
And speaking of presents, the strip give me a little gift last week; as it occasionally does, it brought back a wacky character from the past who only true obsessives like me will remember.
Gil Thorp, 12/28/09 and 12/30/09
In this case, it’s Steve Luhm, who was the protagonist in one of the very first Gil Thorp storylines I read, which was probably the one that got me to fall in love with the strip. Steve was assigned to romance women’s rights agitator Hadley V. Baxendale to keep her from disrupting the Milford patriarchy with her feminism; but instead, he ended up joining Hadley in her political activism, fighting for equal treatment for the girl’s basketball team. As you can see from that old strip, his hair used to be the most beautifully awful thing you’ve ever seen. Steve would later pop up with some hilariously misguided attempts to talk “street”. He got a better haircut and glasses after he went to college, but has not apparently improved his socioeconomic standing. Will this storyline be a biting commentary on the usefulness of a Women’s Studies degree in the post-collegiate world?
Spider-Man, 12/25/09 and 12/30/09
Spider-Man also celebrated Christmas, by having a fat, sweaty man stick a gun in our face. It’s like being robbed by Santa! Later, in keeping with the strip’s traditions, the storyline’s villain was defeated by one of his henchmen while Spider-Man stood by and watched.
But the crown the jewel of the past week or so has been the hot, hot illegitimate son action in Mary Worth.
Mary Worth, 12/25/09
On Christmas Day, Wilbur paused to look back to the past: when he had hair, a flat belly, and the same terrible taste in clothes, and his beloved became the first person in history to pair a belly shirt and an Easter bonnet.
Mary Worth, 12/28/09
But wait! It looks like the fruit of Wilbur’s youthful indiscretion has arrived! And he’s some sort of disheveled hobo!
Mary Worth, 12/29/09
Don’t worry, though: Wilbur can see the beautiful lady beneath the grime and stubble.
Mary Worth, 12/31/09 and 1/1/10
These two strips on either side of the transition to 2010 promise that we’ll be seeing father and son teaming up to become a pair of demon hunters, purging the earth of sinister supernatural forces once and for all.
Mary Worth, 1/3/10
Dawn, meanwhile, keeps her eye on the prize, the prize being Wilbur’s money. “Dad, the last thing you should be doing now is taking responsibility for your actions, especially when it could affect me! We can afford two hideous purple shirts a month for me now. I won’t settle for less than that! I won’t!” Wilbur’s so agitated that he appears to be attempting to chew off his own lower lip.
Yesterday I sent an email to my mother (who has become quite the Mary Worth reader, thanks to my site) asking if she thought this Kurt Evans character was really Wilbur’s son, and this is what she said:
It’s kind of hard to imagine anyone (especially that pretty blond) wanting to have sex with Wilbur!! Maybe he looked better back then. But what are these “demons” that he needs to lay to rest??!! And when does Mary pop in again?? It’s a puzzlement!
It is a puzzlement! A glorious puzzlement that we’ll all enjoy in the coming weeks, which makes me glad to be back in the blogging saddle. PLUS: When will the Curtis Kwanzaa story finally go completely bonkers, as we know it eventually will? We’ll find out as 2010 unfolds!