Tomato sauce is vegan, Mary, c’mon
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Mary Worth, 5/8/25
Say what you will about Mary, but she is the master of manners, and one of the keys to having good manners is that if you can’t say something nice, you shouldn’t say anything at all. When taken to its extreme, this can create a sort of negative semantic space that becomes obvious enough to be insulting in its own right. Like, what is Belle to Wilbur, exactly? Are they friends? Hard to say. Boyfriend and girlfriend? Mary isn’t privy but seems unlikely. Lovers? A lady never enquires about bedroom matters. So Mary’s settled on “guest,” which is inarguably true. Belle certainly is someone who is staying in Wilbur’s apartment with his consent, that’s for sure! Whatever else you say about her, and there’s a long list of things that you could say about her but Mary won’t, she definitely fits the dictionary definition of a “guest,” so that’s what she’s going with. Anyway, Dawn, I think dinner is going to be plenty long, because I don’t think you’ll be able to chew your way through that gray slab of vegan lasagna particularly quickly.
Wizard of Id, 5/8/25
The sociologist Max Weber talks about “disenchantment” (entzauberung, in German) as the process by which a medieval society founded on religion and magical thinking gave way to enlightened, rational modernity. That’s why it’s disappointing to see the Wizard of Id, who lives in a literally magical faux-medieval past, treat his body as a mere mechanical contrivance that could be repaired by a skilled tradesman, rather than a vessel of luminous spirit.
83 replies to “Tomato sauce is vegan, Mary, c’mon”
MW:
“Dawn, has it occurred to anyone to inquire why Belle has such an unusual name, suggesting, as it does, some sort of derangement?”
“Nope.”
“Has anyone bothered to dust in your living room over the past few weeks to be able to observe that someone scratched your eyes out in the family photo?”
“Negatory.”
“Has anyone ever remotely thought about or discussed (a) why she isn’t back at work instead of still hanging out at your dad’s place, three weeks into the visit, (b) where she’s from, or anything about her family or (c) when your father intends to take back the reins on writing the advice column which is his source of income?”
“Nah.”
“Well, everything sounds perfectly normal to me!”
What are you even implying about the tomato sauce? Is your blog that desperate for a joke lately?
“Hine’s auto is anachronistic!”
“I know, cars…”
“No! Auto comes form Greek, whose knowledge was lost in Western Europe during the Middle Ages!”
RMMD:
“Can you believe the headroom in the cab of this car, Travis? — I mean, look at the large amount of space between the top of my head and the ceiling of the cab, and there’s even mucho space in between that megacephalic poofy-coiffed cranium of yours and the ceiling! It sure was smart of you to get them to let you rent the Popemobile for our trip!”
I’m sure that Mary’s “vegan lasagna” is foul.
Used to be that if you felt the ravages of age unbearable, you would sell your soul to Mephistopheles who would turn you young again. But maybe Wiz already sold his soul for magic decades ago, so he has to make the best of the situation.
Wizard of ID-“Walk with me to the back,” the owner says cocking a shotgun.
MW-Wilbur is so repellent that even Mary can’t stomach the idea of Wilbur physically copulating so she settles on “guest” instead of “lover”.
MW-And unlike the characters in ‘Luann’ Mary made lasagna for two people.
MW-“I made the tofu ricotta in the lasagna myself.” Of course you did. Do you want a medal?
FC-Darn these darn socks!
MW: The gray lasagna with tofu ricotta might be nasty, but at least Mary has provided tall glasses of refreshing chocolate milk with lemon slices to help wash it down—assuming the lemon doesn’t curdle the milk first.
MW: But who eats lasagna with a spoon…?
Wizard of Id:
“At first I was too embarrassed to admit that I might need some help for these creaky old bones, but then I conjured an image of a pack of lions strolling in front of the British post-punk group that brought us such offerings as ‘Hit the North,’ ‘Kicker Conspiracy’ and ‘Wired’ !”
“No. Don’t say it, Wiz.”
“Yep — pride goeth before The Fall!”
Mary Worth‘s grey vegan lasagna or Belle Batsfry’ s colorful, poisoned lasagna: which would you eat?
WoI: The “auto” part of Hines’ sign looks awfully temporary, like he changes it whenever he decides on a different line of work. The Wizard should have just waited a few days until the sign read “chiropractor.”
MW: “Ahem, I made the tofu ricotta myself. It wasn’t easy. Took me three days. So you better like it.”
WizofId: I’ve never paid much attention to the Wizard’s environs, just kind of assuming he lives in a medieval castle or somesuch. But does he really live in a modern-day subdivision in the Upper Midwest?
MW: Has Mary gone woke? She’s of an age to call tofu “Chinese Cheese.”
MW: Poor Dawn. She’s right, but no one is ever going to believe her. Personally, I’d pre-order a headstone that reads “I Told You She Was Crazy.”
RMMD: Take note, Travis. When Queen Kelly dumps you, you’d better display some serious AGONY, or you’ll ruin the whole experience for her.
WIZARD OF ID: If Wiz can conjure up a mechanic in a horse-based culture, can’t he just invent the auto? Is he restricted by some sort of Prime Directive?
MW: She claims to have a job in Orlando, but just showed up here with no advance notice, moved herself in, and shows no sign of ever leaving. She has a permanent maniacal grin and huge, crazy, unblinking eyes. She threw soy sauce on me. She sharpens knives like Jason on meth and cuts vegetables with a foot-long saber while cackling insanely to herself. She has three different hair-don’ts fighting a cage match to the death on top of her head, and they’re all losing. And her alleged name is Belle freakin’ Battsfrey.
I think that about covers it. See, that didn’t take too long. Dawn can’t tell Mary about the tea that reeked of Clog-B-Gone or the defaced picture in the living room because she’s too much of a dullard to have noticed.
Luann: Did they give Ms. Horner uppers?
MW: How long does it take to say “she’s tried to kill me twice?”
With that tiny shriveled claw that’s holding on to her fork, I’m impressed that Mary is able to prepare such a nice table setting. Sure, she may have accidentally put out two shakers of salt and no pepper, but nobody’s perfect.
Luann: Has this lasagna been poisoned too? Why are Bernice and this guy being so hostile to each other?
9CL: Apparently Amos has no parents of his own (nor any male friends}, but at least Edda’s mom is right there at the school and available to provide a bon mot when Amos locks himself in the bathroom over a puberty crisis.
MW – They should have gone to Olive Garden…you know…cuz of the endless salad bowls….
WoI – Medieval mechanic – let’s get you on the rack….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
DtM: Alice solidifies her reputation as a terrible housekeeper by serving Chinese takeout on slices of white bread without dishes.
RMMD: Is it me, or does Kelly seem *disappointed* that Niki took the breakup so well. It’s almost as if Kelly deliberately went to his workplace to break up with him in *hopes* he would have an embarassing meltdown in front of his co-workers. Kelly is being a Grade A b!&#$ is what I’m saying. Young Lyle Lovett seems to agree.
WoI: “Get a horse!”
Luann – Phil begins to realize that he has stumbled into a giant pit of “failure to launch.” But they have tasty Lasagna.”
MW -Will threat of murder by maniac help Dawn to launch? I don’t know, but she is being fed sad lasagna.
Lio – Did Tatulli just draw a guy wanking off in his swim trunks?
JP: Sneak off where? What, is the plane to Norway just sitting on the tarmac, gassed up and engine running, waiting for you two to dash up the airstairs still wearing your academic robes?
Luann: Geez, forget Nil. This Phil guy sounds like a match made in heaven for Bernice. They could be the new Lockhorns!
RMMD: Guess who’s getting stalked next!
Not to mention wondering about what color the waitress’s panties are.
WoI: So we have three strips originated by Hart and Parker that deceived us about their time periods. B.C. showed itself to be not prehistoric but postapocalyptic. Crock’s Legionnaires have access to technology that had only been imagined before WW1. The Wizard is in a Harry Potter universe where magical people maintain a pre-Galilean existence except when convenient.
Rex Morgan, MILF Diver:
“So how did he take it?”
“After I gave his little friend a good-bye tickle, not bad at all!”
JP: Jeez, they’re ditching their parents! A new low.
RMMD: “Maybe he didn’t want to show how upset he was. I get that. I’ve been dumped so often I get a discount on Hefty bags. So anyway, do you want to pick each other’s noses?”
GT: So the point of this week’s baseball action was . . . ?
Trick question. Anyway, Football Coach Gerads is back, and he’s being his usual dick self while coaching some as-yet-unspecified girls’ activity. And it looks like he’s up against his nemesis’ ex and her assistant, who was already coaching at Milford when ex showed up and is no doubt extremely resentful at being demoted to second banana on the depth chart. Let the dramas bloom.
Wizard: “Indolesco, ergo sum.”
Luann: “Not that kind of doctor”
FC: What, not even “oh, fudge”?
DT: Now they’re not only worried about warrants, they have to have a hardcopy instead of showing the electronic … oh, right, they’re not allowed to notice that smartphones have long since surpassed their wrist doohickeys, I should be surprised they’re fighting with a printer and not a fax machine
MW: Jesus, I know that Mary doesn’t have the most personable way of speaking in the best of times, but this whole scene reads like Data from Star Trek trying his hand at therapy.
WoI: Sure, an auto shop doesn’t really fit within the medieval fantasy world of The Wizard of Id, but when you have such a crackerjack of a joke like that, you really can’t pass it up.
MW: “I made sure this lasagna is vegan. That means inedible, right?”
WoI: He’s going to wake up with his catalytic converter missing, isn’t he?
FC: “Well damnshitfuck, what kind of cunttwatpussies are your parents?!?”
Dustin: It’s official. Pluggers officially can’t open DVD packages, even though they’re the only ones who officially buy DVDs.
MW: Why does Mary say “I made the vegan ricotta in the lasagna myself” sound exactly like Mr Burns saying “I pickled the figs myself“?
WoI — The Wizard is a Plugger! And the King is a fink!
MW — Dawn has had a vision of sitting at a table with an old woman, who asks “Tell me about your home life lately?” but suppressed it because no human would talk that way. Now she begins to realize that the homemade ricotta has awakened her prescient awareness, and will soon be in many places at once. . .
@pugfuggly: The final Mary Worth strip will be her revealing herself to be a Brainiac figure, who has been carrying out cruel emotional experiments with Charterstone’s residents, and she condemns them all to a Kandorian existence in a bottle.
mary worth – i always keep the salt and pepper shaker 3 feet away because my food is wonderful on its own
@richardf8: YES. I shall now call vegan lasagna SAD Lasagna.
Also a great band name.
Wait a minute! There weren’t auto repair shops or coveralls in medieval times! I’m beginning to doubt the historical accuracy of Wizard of Id.
***
We all know that Mary is full of shit, but even Dawn has to suspect it when the old biddy tells her she’s glad to have her company.
DT: Dick: “This is what you get when you put too much procedural into the strip. Can’t we go there and just shoot someone?”
MW: If MW’s spider sense starts tingling and she figures out that Bats is batty it may mark an upward improvement in the strip.
RMMD: staging a break up at your paramour’s workplace didn’t seemed to strike the creators as odd or not appealing.
Luann: “I want to move out on my own, stop leaning on others,” Phil says as he stares at Luann.
CS: Well, yes, Pam, this is a Batiuk-written comic, so we all know you’re going to state the obvious, Sunday’s fluke be damned.
9CL: What a hair-raising story!
@Schroduck: Not that I ever want to do vegan lasagna, but maybe not so wild-eyed crazy? First hit is a 5-ingredient recipe that might take a bit of time (let raw almonds soak) but is otherwise “dump in blender – voilà”. If you prefer nut-based cheese alternatives to the off-the-shelf tofu brands at the grocery store, why not?
TWoI: So the Wizard now lives in a “house” with a “chair” and a “rug” on the floor and some nondescript “art” on the wall, and an “auto mechanic” is within walking distance, and he’s preoccupied with simple aches and pains. Hey, the Wizard of Id has become a Plugger.
@Yesyouar ghv: Go away troll.
Mary has lived a long life and met thousands of people, but she’s still open to new experiences. For example, this is the first time ever someone complained that a dinner with Mary is not long enough!
Phantom: Well, NOW, dahlings you see why I had to come back to shoot new scenes for the flashback! A death scene! What every serious thespian dreams of – to be shown dead without the eyes being Xed out!
I only found out last night that this would be my swan song here, but fortunately I’ve been preparing for this moment my entire career. And I must say, I think I really nailed it – the right mix of tragic finality and peaceful repose. It’s a pity they cut my graceful “fall” out of the scene… but they decided it might be too intense for the sensitive audience.
…and on the second clay tablet, Mary inscribes the tale of great Pharaoh Unas, who ate of the entrails of the gods, and became everlasting. Which must be SO much better than vegan ricotta.
I saw Vegan Lasagna open for Tofu Ricotta at the Charterstone Jazz Fest back in ’72.
MW: I don’t want to be That Guy, but a vegetarian friend (not vegan) can tell when what should be no-meat marinara has some beef or chicken stock. (And I don’t mean Bolognese, which is meat based.)
GA: Slim and Clovia will Do Their Own Research. And they’ll introduce a new clutch of Americans to Salmonella.
GT: I too like orange over fruit punch sport drinks, and hate having something in common with Gerads.
H&L: Is Ditto socially-maladjusted or in need of psychotherapy enough to be a billioniare?
FC: So there is a river dividing Sgt. Snorkel and FC, and never will grawlixes cross it.
BG&SS: “Avian flu hits Hootin’ Holler with a vengeance.”
Beetle Bailey: There’s nothing more 2025 than a deliveryman for an app-based company who has time to come in and chat over a cup of coffee.
@Dr. Bentley Ballsack:
Naaaah, I guess we always gotta have ONE. And it’s so, SO lazy, it’s cute!
BIZARRO: Um, once you cross the River Styx, it’s ALL dead zone. Might as well toss that phone overboard, Mr. Yuppie Businessman.
@Voshkod:
Dude, you owe me for the coffee that just came out my nose
MW: Josh is correct that Mary is much too polite to speak ill of anyone. As we see from her grilling Dawn about Wilbur’s new “guest”, however, Mary’s whole raison d’etre of meddling in other people’s lives depends on getting them to do just the opposite. So when it comes to listening, Mary’s motto is the same as Alice Roosevelt Longworth’s: “If you don’t have anything good to say about someone, come sit next to me!”
@A Grave Mind: It does have a puppy-like quality, a fruitless gnawing on a shoe while emitting little growls.
Mary Worth – Mary is never salty in her language, or apparently her cooking, if she needs to leave two salt-shakers on the table so guests can get any seasoning from her food.
Wizard of Id – Stephen King’s The Dark Tower is a dark fantasy series that takes place after a calamity in the modern world, with remnants of the industrial past left in the wastelands, but also magical elements and medieval politics and society.
Wizard of Id may be the same, where society backslid from democracy and industrialization. While the medical establishment regressed into superstition, tradesmen like mechanics took over some of the previous medical functions like hip and knee replacements, much as barber surgeons of the middle ages handled actual procedures on the body that doctors thought themselves above doing.
@Bob Tice: Mary Worth once up hung around the house of an unrelated child she barely knows in a different state for weeks just because the girl felt “kinda sad” for 5 minutes. That does sound “perfectly normal” for Mary.
@Yesyouar ghv: Sick burn, dude!
@Dr. Bentley Ballsack: Bentley, dude! Long time no see, how’s it hangin’?
@astroboy: Poor Kelly has been gone from the town for a bit now, and has forgotten the Rexverse is where drama and conflict goes to die. (“Now let’s all solve our problems with a big bowl of
strawberry ice creamundercooked diner meatloaf and tuneless roots country hootenannies!”)MW: Karen Moy isn’t doing a good job of convincing me her knowledge of vegan cooking extends beyond a few hasty searches on AllRecipes.com.
RMMD: Nikki must have a new girlfriend with big uns.
MW: is the FBI on the track of the Heh Heh Killer?
Gasoline Alley: My maternal grandmother moved into an apartment near our house in 1965, and was able to get permission to maintain a garden at the back of the building. I think Slim and Clovia might have a difficult time persuading their landlord to let them keep livestock behind theirs (and that’s not even considering zoning and health regulations). I have some friends in Tampa who keep chickens, but that’s in the yard behind an actual house.
MW – Damn, Mary goes into full therapist mode in panel two. She should tack on a “let’s explore that” at the end.
Look at that vegan ‘lasagna’. It’s just… grey. Unappetizing. Looks like a stack of paper cut outs. No juicy tomatoes, no savory Italian sausage or ground beef, no epic, glorious cheese stretch. It’s just wood pulp, glue, and sadness! It would make Garfield wretch.
– This comment and comic strip brought to you by the National Dairy Producers and the Meat Council.
MW:
“What makes you think Belle is hostile towards you?”
“Trying to be nice, I asked her what song she was humming.”
“She answered ‘Hammer Smashed Face by Cannibal Corpse'”
MW: Dawn is now trapped in one of those “thriller” movies made for the Lifetime Network (or the Lifetime Movie Network) that used to have generic sounding titles like “Deadly Silence” or “What She Found Out” but now have much more blunt, direct titles like “Psycho Sorority Sister” or “Her Dangerous Stalker”, in this case it would probably be titled something along the lines of “My Dad’s Killer Girlfriend”. Only I suspect more meddling will be involved in the finale of this storyline, instead of a struggle that ends with Belle about to finish off Dawn before the police show up at the very last minute just in time to intercept Belle.
Mary Worth: Dawn tells Mary about suspecting Belle has tried to poison her by sneaking something into her food. Mary shakes her head somberly, hoping Dawn won’t realize that she and everyone else in Charterstone has been getting drugged through their food by Mary to keep them compliant and easily controlled for decades.
Wizard Of Id: One of the biggest differences between real life and the world of newspaper comics is that in the latter, you can be an obnoxious prick who wastes everyone’s time with annoying “bits” without getting punched in the face.
@Bob Tice, WoI:
Alternately…..
Wizard of Id:
“At first I was too embarrassed to admit that I might need some help for these creaky old bones, but then I conjured an image of a pack of lions leaving just after Labor Day….
“No. Don’t say it, Wiz.”
“Yep — pride goeth before The Fall!”
JP:
“And then the moment they graduate, BAM! They’re off to another country”
Lady, would you prefer a kid like Dustin Kudlick, thirty years old, unemployed, and still living at home? Would that make you happy?
Between Mary Worth and Luann, this is a very lasagna-y week. Are they getting some kind of payola from Jim Davis to get us subconciously thinking about lasagna, and thereby Garfield?
Fun fact, I had a stuffed Garfield as a kid (ages 6-8) that I was so fond of, I loved the stripes off of it.
“I’m glad to have your company, Dawn,” Mary says, as if she is some helpless shut-in, when she is in fact omnipresent and omnipotent.
GA: Be grateful we didn’t get Walt getting the idea that he and Gertie should mint their own pennies.
LUANN: “But not all careers require years of college.”
Obviously not, since Luann is (apparently!) qualified to be a doctor simply because she was “calm” when an old lady fainted one time (this is the only requirement one needed for such an illustrious medical career, of course.)
@pugfuggly: I would suggest that the Wizard has time traveled on occasion, but that’s giving the comic too much credit.
They’re just not trying anymore…
C’shaft: I will forgive everything if I get to see the famously incompetent and accident-prone Crankshaft attempt to trim his nose hairs with those industrial-quality blades.
GT: Coach Permawave’s assistant is Milton from Office Space! And not too soon–this strip could use a little arson to liven things up.
Luann: I’m just saying, if you want your character to take the stance that higher education is not for everybody and not for them in particular (a valid position, especially give its prohibitively high cost), maybe that character should be, I dunno, a mechanic or a millwright or even a member of the armed services and not a certified health care provider?
MT: My dudes, if I wanted to see an argument with this many logical fallacies I’d go back on Xwitter.
Phantom: Maybe this has less to do with the hand of prophetic destiny and more to do with Sarvana just being very, very bad and her job.
RMMD: Calling it: Niki is also dating someone else, making this tepid little drama even more pointless.
SH: You two are about to get married, I think you should have figured out whether your partner is more butch or femme by now.
WoI: You know, the gag could’ve been written just as easily and less anachronistic if Mr. Hines was a chariot repairman. The Three Stooges pulled it off in one of their “period” pieces.
I’ll give Mary Worth credit here, as unappetizing as her Vegan Lasagna is. It isn’t a clip-art of a sandwich.
@Old School Allie Cat:
Garfield, sure, but try that with Heathcliff and you wouldn’t be around to tell the tale.
@2+2=7: This is a recurring theme in Luann: the title character shows some passing interest or relatively normal life skill, and everyone insists that she’s extremely talented at it and could make it her career. She goes into drama club and suddenly she’s getting the lead in West Side Story, she volunteers at a preschool and she’s the Best Teacher Ever, she takes creative writing and art classes in college and the profs can’t stop praising her. I think it’s the result of the crash between “the girl Karen Evans was growing up” and “the girl Karen Evans wishes she had been.”
@Terry Rhoden:”Bats In My Belfry: The Belle Batsfry Saga”
WizofId: If the Wizard is so smart, how come he didn’t sign up with Car Shield? According to their TV commercials, Car Shield is happily handing over thousands and thousands of dollars to their clients in return for just a small monthly premium! And they do this because they just want to help folks avoid costly auto repair bills! Frankly, I don’t know how these magnanimous folks manage to stay in business.
MW – Vegan lasagna? With tofu? Has it occurred to anyone that maybe Belle got to Mary first? And like Lee Van Cleef, once she’s been engaged, she always sees the meddle through? We’re talking about a true professional here.