I’m on Mary’s side here, that stuff’s nasty
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Luann, 2/24/25
It’s been fun (“fun”) revisiting Luann for the first time in years and figuring out what’s changed (there are some new characters I guess) and what’s stayed the same (literally all the vibes and various plot cycles). Like, Luann is still falling for bland guys named “Phil” or whatever and losing her shit over performing basic social interactions. I do enjoy that Bernice is also still in her typical role, as the one to say “YES LUANN NOW THAT YOU’RE CHANGING THE NATURE OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THIS GUY NAMED ‘PHIL’ OR WHATEVER THE STAKES ARE HIGHER AND THAT’S CAUSING HEIGHTENED ANXIETY, JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, IS THIS NOT OBVIOUS TO YOU????” I find it soothing in the way that comics are quite frankly supposed to be.
Hi and Lois, 2/24/25
You know what’s not soothing? The way Dot’s head remains fixed facing the exact same direction between these two panels but her body turns completely around. This unnatural range of neck rotation plus her weird awkward embrace of the digitization of human souls tells me that she’s been replaced by some kind of advanced robot, or perhaps has been one all along.
Mary Worth, 2/24/25
I feel like the “your” in “How’s your vegan ice cream, Dawn?” is pretty key to understanding the dynamic here. “How’s your vegan ice cream, Dawn? The stuff that I went out of my way to obtain for you, to prove I’m better than your meat-pushing boyfriend? No, I won’t be eating it, of course. Ho ho ho. Me eating vegan ice cream. The very idea.”
86 replies to “I’m on Mary’s side here, that stuff’s nasty”
MW-My god. The way this is being treated like Dirk broke up with Dawn instead of her getting out of an abusive relationship.
MW-Dawn was lucky to end the breakup before it entered the physical abuse stage.
RMMD-He won’t go just like this story won’t end.
FC-And yet sadly Grandma is unable to retain a thought in her head.
MW:
“How’s your vegan ice cream, you $*#(* loser Nerdgirl?”
The writer of “Hi & Lois” watched “Altered Carbon” so he appreciates the clever concept, but he also knows no one else watched it, so he cannot name-check it. I know the pain!
How was that breakup “difficult”? The guy was a complete turd from beginning to end — any normal gal would’ve kicked him to the curb in the first 24 hours. How needy IS Dawn? Oh, right. Her father. The apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree…
RMMD: have we ever been given a name for Douchebag? BTW he’s interfering with their work. That seems like enough reason to make him leave.
MW: “Dawne, did you know that meal that we just ate was made entirely from houseplants and shrubs? Did you enjoy nibbling on my ficus?”
With just a few strokes, (glazed crossed eyes, stiff body, bent neck, fork hold) June Brigman has turned Dawn from a more or less human character into one of the defective mannequins Mary Worth keeps in her closet & rolls out now & then to provide her needed praise.
MW:
“Dawn, you look as if you’re about to channel Peter Pan, or possibly Rocky from Rocky and Bullwinkle!”
“Look at me! I’m flying!”
Luann – Contrary to questions being asked in my DMs, I am not the “Phil” dating Luann.
Hi and Lois – The abrupt change in the wall colors suggests both panels are parallel universes, where the pain color decision impacted the current issues.
In the first, the green is the original lead-based paint the house came with, hence the negative effects on Hi and Lois’ cognitive functions. That also explains Dot’s birth defect where her neck is at such an awkward angle.
In the blue version, the non-lead based paint didn’t impact society’s intelligence, and we’re instead in a future where brain clouds are a service allowing people to backup memories and take over certain routine brain functions (to do lists, keeping grocery lists, making adjustments to the automated chores robots) allowing the human mind freedom for higher functions.
Mary Worth – Dawn doesn’t have to worry about brain freeze. She has nothing to get frozen.
H&L — Dot is going to pull out all the current research on psilocybin and how the consciousness possibly transcends our physical bodies. She’s been worried about her science fair project but that mushroom grow in her closet is looking pretty good and here are two lab rats who just need a little push to bring in.
MW:
With that look on her face in the first panel, Dawn appears to be ready for her next relationship to be with Zonker Harris from Doonesbury.
Who was Luann’s last relationship? Was that Quill (seriously? I think it was) and that didn’t end badly so much as it ended in the hand of an anti-sex Evansi-god-pair transporting him to Australia before they could even discuss such things. I haven’t followed closely because it is so very bad, but honestly, was there some poor soul forced to consider time alone with Luann more recently?
Hang on, how did Dawn spin “I went on a date with a controlling asshole who spent the whole time angrily insulting me and telling me how I did everything wrong in front of my friends until all my insignificant little screw-ups got too much for him and he walked away in the middle of bowling” to “It was a difficult decision, but I broke up with my boyfriend?” Is she secretly more devious and manipulative than Phoebe in Friends or did she really badly misunderstand everything about her date? I’m guessing the latter.
MW: To all of us who thought we’d be moving on to another story today: We never learn, do we?
JP: Sophie and Reena tune in to Cavelton Action News for their daily dose of dish from the sticks and are stunned at what they hear: “The Cavelton district attorney woke up really really early this morning to drop all charges against Ann Parker, daughter of prominent retired judge Alan Parker. Newly found drone footage shows it was the judge himself who killed his son-in-law during a pistols-at-dawn duel. New charges are pending.”
Shoe: “Turns out the Riviera he was talking about wasn’t in France, it was in Gaza!”
MW – Yes, nothing like no-meat ice cream to cool down the ol’ hoo-haw.
MW: Since Dawn’s never told Mary what a bastard Dirk truly is, Mary doesn’t offer Dawn any useful advice, or make this a learning experience, leaving Dawn to repeat her mistakes over and over and what do I think this is- the Anti Mary Worth?
Luann – Sack cloth and ashes….
H&L – Hi needs a newvhard drive, too – huh, Lois….
MW – The MW code – vegan ice cream good does better regret the best. True dat….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
RMMD: “By the way, how do you like my dirty-orange suit? I made it myself.”
Dustin: Dustin is as successful at cracking one-liners as he is at everything else.
GT: Silver simply says the word “Neigh” because it’s easier than actually neighing, which puts a strain on his upper respiratory tract.
Luann: I have no idea what ‘Slippy Creek’ is so I’m choosing to take it literally, and am imaging a muddy ravine running through town that people sometimes fall into, so often that it’s actually a common meeting spot. Yeah, I think this whole strip will be a lot more tolerable if I imagine that it takes place in Hootin’ Holler.
H&L: It’s not your memory, Lois, it’s the fact that you live in some kind of constantly changing hellscape that makes reality itself impossible to grasp onto. Look: the walls changed colours and your teacup shrunk between those two panels! What even is ‘memory’ in that kind of a space?
MW: So the lesson behind this sad tale is…ice cream? Do I have that right?
BG&SS: That would explains Snuffy’s potbelly.
GT: “Hi, I’m Brittney. Welcome to Equine Therapy. Here’s your shovel.”
MW: Looking for a point in this whole store is probably a bad idea, but I gotta admit they’re dragging the “lesson” here out a lot longer than I would have thought. We’ve basically said the same thing every strip since Dawn saw Mary…
Hi and Lois: The changing background colors here imply an extended break in comics time. Hi and Lois have had time to shift their kitchen’s color scheme from a deep summer mode to an icy, but refreshing, winter palette and reconvene for hot beverages, all while Dot awaits an excruciatingly delayed packet exchange from an overburdened AI server rapidly depleting its local water table as it strains to bring you a joke, any joke, for your morning comics. Three Mile Island melted down again to power Luann!
H&L: Dumb punchline, but good reminder that I need to watch “Joe vs. the Volcano” again. Underrated classic.
RMMD: I think Leisure Suit Larry can take this stickboy rent-a-cop better than he could Bearded Bouncer. This is about to develop into another hostage situation, a la the Street Sweeper, isn’t it?
JP: Dammit, Ces! I was prepared this morning to say I stood corrected and we’d finally learn what the stupid #$%&*@ drone actually captured, but nope! We’re already at the ‘aaaaannndd so…..’ wrapup! Serves me right…
MW: why didn’t Dawn tell Mary that Dirk’s parents were successful pharmacists?
Mary Worth: “Ice cream does make everything better after a breakup”? I feel like we’ve reached a new level of platitudinous, a seventh heaven as it were, a perfect tesseract of triteness not to be exceeded until Mary lets Dawn in on the secret of chocolate when you have your — wait, is Dawn related to Mr. Bribery or something?
BF: Yeah, no, that would be a pretty awful idea. How do you say “The boss’s side piece” in French?
Curtis: Fried eggs, bacon, and buttered grits. You won’t be having to worry about your heart for too much longer, buddy.
DT: . “I wept because I had no shoes; then I met a dead man who had no shoes.”
H&L: “Who are you?”
By giving Silver actual human-style word balloons GT makes a play for that sweet, sweet anthro-domesticated animal money. Watch out, Otto and Snert.
I’d say “Watch out, Mary Worth pets”, but those creepy abominations have no competition.
Pluggers: When Henrietta gets her first “Grim Reaper birthday card” from her MD she will mistake it for a diagnosis, and immediately put her affairs in order.
BG&SS live in fear of getting caught with edibles. “If it’s legal, how fun can it be?” is a transferable sentiment from moonshine to marijuana.
RMMD: Goatee McSexpest catches a break! The security guard is a lowlife friend of his (like he has any others) who flunked out of the police academy in a week.
FC: “You have a lot of thoughts on your wall, Grandma. You should have given a little more thought before buying that lamp.”
@ValdVin: if it’s legal, how fun can it be?
As someone who never smoked pot, but started using legal edibles in his 50s: honestly, pretty fun.
Breakup? Didn’t they go on, what, two dates? If Dawn is this distraught over a relationship that didn’t even really start, I’d had to see how she’d handle herself if she washed ashore some island…
***
Quick, Lois, what colour are your kitchen walls? No peaking!
@Everything is Better with Monkeys:
On Luann : Yes, Luann’s last boyfriend Bernice is referring to is Quill.
Which means :
a) That was back in 2015, TEN YEARS AGO. That’s how glacial Luann DeGroot’s love life is.
b) One of the understated reasons Luann broke up with Quill is that Bernice advised her to. Luann is taking relationship advice to avoid another nasty breakup from the person whose shitty advice LEAD to that very same breakup!
MW: “Don’t REGRET your decision to BREAK UP, dear. You’ll suffer ENOUGH regret, as it is, once that VEGAN ICE CREAM hits your INTESTINAL TRACT.”
@LTJpezcore1: I’m with you! I haven’t been able to check out the comics or this site very much in the last couple of weeks, and it looks like I didn’t miss anything in my absence.
Slylock Fox: Duck farts.
MW: Unlike Dirk who orders her a steak right in front of her, Mary serves Dawn regular ice cream but tells her it’s vegan.
“This tastes just like real ice cream, Mary. It reminds me of that tofu ham you served Rabbi Shmuley”
Mary Worth – We all remember that Dirk was the one who broke up the relationship. He swore a blue streak at Dawn and then left the bowling alley in a huff. I guess in Mary’s mind Dawn not groveling to get back together = Dawn breaking up with Dirk.
I think that Mary’s “advice” should include an examination of Dawn’s behavior. Dawn said that she “tried to make it work,” which meant that she put up with his verbal abuse. I’m sure there are some platitudes that Mary could throw at Dawn.
FC – Speaking of platitudes: Mary Worth has the Big Book O’ Platitudes, but look at the shelf on that table. Holier than thou Grandma has the Encyclopedia of Platitudes.
Frazz – Yeah, random kid. Stare at your phone instead of looking at everything around you in Yellowstone (something I saw frequently when we were there).
Where’s Caulfield? This is the kind of inane observation he usually makes.
Laughing Redhead Comics – It looks like she’s trying out for 6Chix. She has the incomprehensible lack of humor down, but the drawing is almost competent.
Speed Bump – Yuck.
@Hibbleton: Lampey has really come down in the world.
@Kirkout: In any other strip, ‘Did you enjoy nibbling on my ficus?’ would be code for a private act between two lusty botanists. In the Worthiverse, however, it means, “Was my tidbit of advice as good for you as it was for me?”
Gotta say, as someone who would be in agony from the lactose, the latest formulation of Ben and Jerry’s non-dairy is pretty damned good. Mary, however, is likely serving that vanilla Oatly sludge.
MW: Mary is soft pedaling Dirk’s abuse because her meddling broke up his parent’s marriage.
@pugfuggly:Danity, it’s ‘sleepy creek’, isn’t it? Well, my point stands
Luann: “…because your last relationship ended badly. And if I were you, I’d lose that old maternity top.”
@I speak Jive:
Where’s Caulfield? This is the kind of inane observation he usually makes.
It’s my theory that if the inane observation is TOO blatantly wrong, Mallet has a non-Caufield kid say it to “protect” the characterVariety’s sake! Frazz can’t be talking to the same exact kid ALL the time, right?
“I’m finding it harder to remember things”. AHAHAAHAHA, it’s funny because Lois has young onset dementia!
I find it creepy to refer to actual human beings as “NPCs”, but I suspect that Dawn doesn’t have a personality, just a fixed set of dialogue options, in which “Mary, you’re right” is the most frequently recalled
@Liam: @Tabby Lavalamp: Yeah, it’s like Mary and Dawn are talking about two completely different relationships, neither of which is the one we saw depicted. They’re both talking about Dirk like he was a long-term boyfriend, not a guy she went on two days with who quickly revealed himself as an abusive jerk. Or more precisely, an incompetent pickup artist. Dirk read the “negging” chapter of a 2008 PUA guide, and skipped the rest of the book. A better writer could have had some fun with this idea.
@pugfuggly: You were confusing it with Slippery Rock College, which was Luann’s “reach” application. They never bothered to respond to her.
Flylock Socks:
Ten seconds later, the working class hero R Rat jumped out of the police car through the open door on the other side, successfully escaping to begin his legendary Robin Hood crime spree/insurgency against the red jackal and his minions the white waterfowl and the yellow rodent. Soon he will be joined by his fellow dissidents Cassandra Cat, Slick Smitty, Harry Ape, Shady Shrew, and Count Weirdly, making up the famous resistance movement known as the Merrie Manimals. ¡Venceremos!
MW: Did Brigman never draw Dawn sitting at a dinner table before the Jared breakup arc when Dawn had a bad case of Alice in Wonderland snake neck? Does she really have no other asset she can recycle beyond the ones that make it look like Dawn decided to displace her collarbones like some women do in Myanmar? Are her hands so tiny because they’re morphing into giraffe hooves?
Questionablecontent:
Hey, Jacques.
How about a suggestion? Fetch some of your actually likeable old characters out of the memory hole – Padma, Emily, Cosette, Penelope, Dale, Winslow, Brun, Millefeuille, Elliott, or bloody Renee or Corpse Witch for that matter – and make story arcs with them, instead of infesting your strip with yet more incredibly despicable one note new characters. For example, today’s strip could have been actually interesting if that were Corpse Witch standing there, fresh out of Robot Jail and demanding that Faye give her a job.
Does that sound good to you?
No?
GT: Has anyone seen Sid? I’m curious if Silver spoke in violation of his contract or is just following the script.
“You need a brain cloud. It involves trepanation, a blender, and a diffuser. When it’s done, your brain will be floating around the room as a fine mist. You’ll feel much better. I have a drill if you want to get started.”
MW: “I like a girl with tiny hands and a loooong neck” – Best song CAKE never recorded.
Luann: Luann is in such a state of arrested development that she can’t go for drinks or coffee on her dates; it has to be something family-friendly like ice cream.
MW: Karen Moy doesn’t have any idea how people heal after leaving an abusive relationship, so she just falls back on traditional romcom breakup tropes.
@Tabby Lavalamp: How quickly we forget (because it’s boring and trite, most likely). But Dawn was already distraught when this plotline began because she “broke up with” he boyfriend of like 2 weeks (note that we’ve never met him, so for all we know, he might have been proto-Dirk.)
The point is the ending of that little offscreen fling is coloring this entire storyline.
MW Vegan ice cream? Looks more like plain yogurt Mary mashed up, tossed in some white sugar, and stuck in her freezer for a few minutes.
“I think our brains get so full of information they run out of room…” he said. He watched the walls change colors. He watched Dot’s head turned at 180 degrees. Her body swiveled to meet the head. She spoke nonsense. “Or… maybe it’s the mushrooms, Lois.”
Hi and Lois – She’s right. You gotta have a brain cloud before you can have a brainstorm.
C’shaft: So that makes Crankshaft what, ninety-five?
Dustin: Oh for God’s sake, Parker and Kelly, if you don’t like vegan options don’t eat them! Christ, the Divalings have known how to prepare basic foods they like for years; I’m sure if those awful young people you hate so much can learn it it shouldn’t be to hard for you to pick up.
GT: Is equine therapy normally the first thing that would be recommended for eating disorder recovery? Sounds like Keri’s therapist is getting a kickback from the stables.
JP: Why does Reena look so shocked? She was there when they found the footage!
Pluggers are lonely, lonely people.
SH: Why would it be extraordinary for a magician to have studied the most famous practitioner of their craft? It’s ike a paleontologist saying they had a “T-rex phase.”
MW – “It’s good, Mary. There’s nothing like the, um, simplicity of plain vanilla nondairy ice cream with no toppings of any kind. Just out of curiosity, have you tried any of the other flavors?” “Other flavors?”
Don Abundio, translated:
“You should see Don Abundio’s art collection!”
“He’s a philistine!”
“Yes, but this is legitimate art!”
“It’s a modern style called Cheesecakeism!”
I thought Josh had established years ago that since Beetle was a military Killbot built by Hi and Foofram Industries, so is by extension his “sister” “niece” and “nephew” ! Am I the only one keeping track of this stuff??!??
@2+2=7: Indeed, Dawn does seem to handling her “break-up” (snicker) relatively well. I’d half-expect her to spend the remaining season at Despondent Lanes looking at a pin-styled trophy surrounded by 16lbs bowling balls and sullenly muttering “Reminds me of Dirk.”
Mary bought Ben&Jerky’s™ brand Cottonball Cream from the Dollar Store.
Dear Friends, the correct spellings today are “peeking” and “soft-peddling.” Thank you.
I was going to let the first one go, but the second pushed me over the edge. Sorry
@Professor Well Actually: It’s Les Knox from “Luann.” He got tired of his role as “Gunther’s Foil/Secret Lover,” so he snuck out to RMMD after the last time Gunther put on the worm costume. There’s only so many games of “human centipede” a guy can take.
Zits: It’s not like you have access to the internet and AI technology that can summarize the book for you and turn it into an original report instantly. That would be crazy.
Curtis: I’m eating a bowl of my favorite cereal “Rapper Puffs” and hoping there’s nothing currently happening in the news with a rapper that used the word “Puff” in their name that would make this very awkward.
H & L: third panel: Hi turns around and asks, “And who are you, little girl and what are you doing in our house?”
@Ukranazi Stepan: re: QC: Yes, a lot of the noob characters are irritating and unlikeable (I wouldn’t mind Willow dying in a fire, the simp), but I’m pleased to see Anh back. She’s rich and nasty and horny, and I very much enjoyed meeting her at the wedding.
I DO miss Emily.
@Anonymous: Your crossed out observation is the real reason. Caulfield is insufferable; we can’t have him looking stupid and insufferable. He stars in the strips in which he can quote Henry Ford, an ancient Roman philosopher, or a runner that no one other than Frazz has ever heard of
The variety explanation is true, too. Introducing other random kids allows Mallett to vary his ripoff of Bill Watterson’s drawing style.
MW: Dawn’s wild-eyed loopy expression makes me want to ask what exactly is *in* that “vegan ice cream”…’shrooms?? Or is that just Dawn’s default presentation? Being raised by Wilbur since adolescence, I’m guessing the latter. BTW – what *has* happened to poor Willa…did Dawn – no – I refuse to believe that Dawn made a fish filet sandwich out of her dad’s second-favorite pet…
Pluggers is a cautionary tale for the boomers and their fancy-free lifestyles. Sure it might seem fun now with all the drug fueled orgies but eventually you’ll find yourself completely ostracized from polite society and the only social interaction you’ll have is from AI generated mail scams.
I think Dot may be part owl. Lois got some ‘splaining to do!
@Cleveland Mocks: #14
“MW: To all of us who thought we’d be moving on to another story today: We never learn, do we?”
Isn’t that the classic definition of insanity…doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? Are we therefore insane?
GT: Wait…I thought “Silver” was a grey horse (hence the aptness of his name “Silver”…) but now he’s a bay? What the hay???
@Banana Jr. 6000: this would have worked better if they were new characters, a woman trapped in a long-term relationship with her abusive boyfriend. But since they wanted to use Dawn, they had to fit her in an unnatural role and rush the relationship in a way that makes no sense
@The Quiet Man: #26
“RMMD: I think Leisure Suit Larry can take this stickboy rent-a-cop better than he could Bearded Bouncer. This is about to develop into another hostage situation, a la the Street Sweeper, isn’t it?”
I’m actually hoping to see Michelle leap into action – literally – as the Army vet she is. Oh, yeah!
“Meat-pushing boyfriend” just got this blog flagged as “adult” by my workplace, thanks.
@Cleveland Mocks: GT: Silver simply says the word “Neigh” because it’s easier than actually neighing, which puts a strain on his upper respiratory tract
_______________
The equine version of “sigh”
MW: Based on Dawn’s expression, I would surmise that “vegan ice cream” is in fact “frozen cannabis”.
@Friendly, Kind, but Easily Irritated Former Editor (69): Dear Friends, the correct spellings today are “peeking” and “soft-peddling.” Thank you.
Professor Well Actually must be otherwise occupied, so I’ll take this one up. I put it to you that “soft-pedaling” is the correct idiom. The reference is to the soft pedal (una corda) on a piano. Your dictionary will bear me out.
@White Rabbit: Thanks. I KNEW “soft-pedaling” was the proper term, but thought it had something to do with bicycles. Also nervous that “soft-peddling” could be correct because of the connection to “soft sell.” So I just kept my mouth shut.
Also, “peaking” is correct when you’re referring to the “speedy” stage of an acid trip.