Soapy Friday
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Mary Worth, 9/25/26
Dang, Alma, you were the most sensible person in this whole situation for about 30 seconds, but now you’re out there buttonholing people in the Charterstone parking lot to tell them the good bad news about Mary Worth and Ian maybe enjoying the pleasures of the flesh together. We’re about to finally get some forward movement in this story, though, because this constant gossiping is at last happening with Toby within earshot. I do hope she really only caught that last part. “Wait, spend that time with me? That’s time I could be spending with my parrots! No thanks.”
Gil Thorp, 9/25/26
Gotta say, the second two panels here, where a glowering, mustachio’d Marty Moon says “The success is largely on Borys Orlov’s shoulders–” and then Coach Gerards cuts him off and and declares “Nonsense! I plan and they execute” really could be an exchange between Stalin and one of his aides, as the aide tries to explain to him that one of his non-purged generals had really started to turn things around against the Wehrmacht and Stalin immediately takes credit. Except for the perm. Probably. Can you prove that, in the darkest days of the Battle of Moscow, Stalin didn’t have a long, flowing perm? He’s usually wearing hats in most of the pictures I’ve seen. Could be anything under there.
21 replies to “Soapy Friday”
Mary Worth Mashup: How about a “Later” panel to see what Toby did in response to the overheard gossip?
Family Circus: You’ll never get rid of Dolly if you insist on shoeing her in loafers instead of sneakers with long, long laces that can easily get caught in the escalator’s machinery…
Dustin: What’s up with DustDad’s goggle eyes? He hates spending time with his family, too. He should be high-fiving the coworker.
Hagar: That’s a man in coconut oil? I was waiting for a corrective joke fighting the false stereotype about Viking hygiene being nearly non-existant.
MW: Ahhh, comic trope order is restored! No, I don’t mean this interminable plot, I mean Toby carrying a grocery bag and a head of celery* sticking out of it, with petiole still attached.
Tomorrow, Toby overhears the gossip, and is shocked enough to drop her bag. And there’d better be oranges bouncing out of it, Brigman.
(*Outside the USA and Canada, readers will get the version internationale, which is a baguette, as will readers in Quebec. Those popups about Comics Kingdom requesting to track your location are there for a reason.)
Blondie: Is this a smart in-joke to readers who remember the Comics Boom, followed by the Great Crash of the mid-1990s?
Dustin: “More hours in at the office” does not equal ambition, Dustdad, unless you’re perennially stuck in Several Decades Ago. Now I’m trying to figure out if Had Enough Of Kids Guy wants to star in The Apartment, How to Succeed…, or Mad Men.
FC:
“Dolly, don’t bother turning around or holding onto the handrail. Also, check your shoelaces.”
“They’re tied, Mommy!”
“Yeah, well, they don’t necessarily have to be. And it’s more fun if you untie them now before we reach the top.”
DtM:
“Is this the pine box my Dad always threatens to put me in, Dennis? It’s more fun than he makes it sound.”
GT: The “Goshen Defiant” have adopted one of those new singular noun sport nicknames. Their next two games are against “The Devon Erebus” and “The Boothia Terror”. WDIG is on top of it: Marty Moon expects easy Goshen victories, the weathercast is for dangerously cold, icy conditions, and the Sponsored Helth Minit recommends massive consumption of orange slices to ward off scurvy.
H&L: All I can see is that cable coming down from the black rectangle, which is there to make sure readers don’t think this is a picture window at night.
BG&SS: Alton Brown would approve of Granny Creeps’ choice here. No unitaskers in her cave!
MW “_Finally_” the fans think, “this plot will get going as Toby hears the rumour and either confronts Ian – or at least agonizes to the parrots who repeat it to Ian! Right?” Wrong! For Toby is concentrating too hard on getting inside as fast as possible, remaining oblivious even to shouted gossip, trying to outrace the celery’s power as it reaches for her underwear…
Six Chix: Plugger diet magazine.
MW: Ian did what?! And after I went through the trouble of getting this bag of groceries for our Art Frahm cosplay?
MW-Whoa there! Slow down. This sudden plot advancement almost gave me whiplash.
Oh, I hope Toby heard the whole first panel, and thought “Wait, she’s right! Mary sucks!”
@ValdVin: No, I don’t mean this interminable plot, I mean Toby carrying a grocery bag and a head of celery* sticking out of it, with petiole still attached.
Not quite. She’s wearing pants, not a dress or skirt.
GT — Is it just me or does Marty Moon look life Big Brother in panel 2? And if it is, I just want to say that I love him!
MW — “Put her two cents in?” Talk about a euphemism. . . And implying that a Charterstone resident doesn;t knwo who Mary is seems. . . .off.
Mary Worth:
“What have you heard, Alma?”
“The Charterstone condo board is making Professor Cameron wear a scarlet ‘A’ !”
Gil Thorp:
Does any male who’s that old actually wear hair of Coach’s length anymore — other than, perhaps, members of hair bands from the ’80s who are riding the oldies/casino circuit?
MW: Here’s Moy’s chance to do the funniest thing possible: Have Toby not give two shits about any of this obvious nonsense and move on a story about Cyclospora-contaminated celery. Now that’s something she’d give some shits about.
Phantom: So Phantom’s just been standing over Chatu now, hips on hands, for how many hours now? Just watching him twitch? Real psycho stuff. Also hilarious.
RxMD: I see that have just finished a story where not only nothing medical happened, but literally nothing at all happened, this strip is simply dispensing with the idea of stories altogether. I’m tempted to joke that Beatty will next introduce an absurdist pinhead character who spouts non sequiturs to Rex’s bemused chagrin, but microcephaly is an actual medical condition so I doubt it.
MW I never thought too much what Alma’s voice might sound like, but I’m definitely going to be hearing it in a movie trailer baritone from now on. ” She’s a widow who likes to put her two cents into other people’s affairs. He’s a married university prof. Together they’re...Biddy and Braggart!“
Giil Thorp:
“Marty, if you grew your hair a little longer, you could go as Tony Orlando for Halloween!”
MW: “SHE’S a widow who likes to meddle. HE’S a pedantic windbag who thinks the beard-sans-moustache look is fly. In a world where nothing ever happens, it still won’t. ”
BB: The only logical third panel; Snorkel crouched on a pile of feathers, gorging on roasted goose.
MW: to complete this scene Toby’s panties need to fall down to her ankles.
MW: has nobody in Charterstone been invited to this party?
Careful, Alma — when you tell a lie, your neck grows longer.
Crankshaft : Pepper’s “friend” was woken up, rather than summoned from the future? That’s not a Terminator ™, that’s a NECRON ™!
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Gil Thorp : had to double check, and yeah, that’s Marty Moon interviewing coach Perm. I thought that was his evil assistant coach. It was kind of a bad idea to have TWO characters be mustachioed sleazeballs on opposite sides (Marty is a good guy now), especially when the art makes it hard to tell characters apart!
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Hagar the Horrible : alternate second panel : “And I’m glad I’m not. Me and Hagar kill a SHITLOAD of those guys on a usual raid!”
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Mary Worth : Toby, later : “IAN! IAN! HELP! People think I look like an elderly widow for some reason, and they don’t know *I* *AM* your wife!”
“Puts her two cents in other peoples’ business”
So the comic is admitting that Mary is a nosey busybody?