Do birds even have souls?
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Mary Worth, 3/11/25
I have to admit that I’ve never fully understood the arrangement Wilbur and Mary have where Mary subs for him as “Ask Wendy” when he’s too busy travelling (or too busy masturbating nostalgically to the hot sales director from Orlando that he met while traveling). Like, is she doing it as a “personal favor,” for free, or is he paying her, and if so is he paying more or less than what he makes? I guess what I’m getting at is that Wilbur doesn’t seem that emotionally or for that matter financially attached to the column, and I’m guessing that a syndicated newspaper column that your name doesn’t actually appear on is one of those things you can pretty easily convince your bosses to hand over to another person of your choosing, especially once you tell them said other person has actually been writing it for some time. On the other hand, don’t forget that Wilbur literally won his job as an advice columnist in a contest, and I while I always assumed it was a thing where people submitted sample advice to the paper and they picked whoever was best at it, maybe it was more like the deal where you meet the Devil at a crossroads in rural Georgia and go toe-to-toe with him in an advice-writing competition, winning a new job but losing … your eternal soul. Wilbur would have a hard time being rid of that sort of job, but if he could just get Mary to sign this contract, a lot of his problems would be taken care of … no need to read the fine print, Mary…
Luann, 3/11/25
In classic Luann fashion, Luann’s terrible date has somehow morphed into a large and complex event over at The Fuse, about which I have two things to say: (a) Tiffany is right, “Transfuse at the Fuse” is a more fun way to brand this than a giant boring sign that says “BLOOD DRIVE”, and (b) Tiffany should not back down just because she suddenly noticed that this guy named “Phil” or whatever is cute, since we’ve already seen his date with Luann and as noted seen that it was terrible, mostly as a result of his off-putting personality. Stand your ground, Tiff, he’s going to read at you off of index cards, you as always deserve better!
Rhymes With Orange, 3/11/25
I mean, it’s going to break most of her, honestly — pretty much all her organs and body parts, and then she’ll die. That’s how fly swatters work: by delivering shattering blunt force onto the body of the fly.
Shoe, 3/11/25
ME USUALLY: Shoe is such a jerk. Sometimes I wish he would take a minute and reflect on his wreck of a life. He won’t like what he sees!
ME TODAY: Oh god, OK, this might’ve gotten too dark, actually
173 replies to “Do birds even have souls?”
Luann: I’ve got mixed feelings. On the one hand, blood donation should be encouraged as a beautiful, selfless duty that saves lives. On the other hand, the life it saves might be a Luann character.
MW:
Wilbur should ask Lampy instead of Mary. He’d shed light on a lot of situations, and help illuminate things.
MW:
Mary’s consistent choice of purple haberdashery suggests that it’s always liturgically Lent or Advent for her.
Wilbur said he didn’t ask for the job but won it in a contest, but isn’t entering a contest whose prize is a job asking for the job? For that matter, isn’t a contest where people submit sample advice to a newspaper and the newspaper gives the best one an advice columnist job is also known as a “job search”? What I’m saying is, Wilbur used to be a lot worse at coming up with cover stories for his drug-running empire.
MW: Wilbur is such a talented writer that he can have his neighbor write his column for months, and nobody even notices.
So is the problem with Shoe the loss of any joy or happiness in Shoe’s life, or the cannibalism?
Luann: Have no idea (nor do I particularly care) who the end guy is, but it amuses me to think that he says, “I’ll make green cookies!” in every possible situation. Play to your strengths, dude!
Shoe, panel three: “But we ran out of chicken, she picked up the axe, and I didn’t like the look in her eye.”
MW: “…but if you ever presume to know what I will or won’t do again, I will reduce you to crumbs like you with a muffin.”
Luann: Yeah, if there’s one thing that mixes with blood donations, its dancing! Maybe you could serve some cocktails as well, in a sauna!
RwO: “…by which I mean his penis.”
Shoe: So if I’m understanding this right, Shoe stayed with his girlfriend because she threatened to kill, dismember and eat him, smothered in a cream sauce? Fair…
At the end of a hard day, Shoe likes to reminisce over his life’s regrets over a tall, frosty mug of quicksilver.
MW: Wilbur once lost his job as the writer of “Ask Wendy”, and it sent him into one of his signature tailspins. But now that he has a loosely associated romance with this “Belle Batsfrey”, I’m sure that everything will work out for Wilbur this time!
*two weeks later*
(Everything has not worked out for Wilbur this time.)
RMMD: Please say we’re not going the, “We can’t do anything if he hasn’t committed a crime” route. He IS committing a crime. Stalking is a crime.
MW: Too cool for a mere advice column, Wilbur now identifies as the latest Bear Grylls or Crocodile Dundee. He has re-branded himself as Wombat Weston, Adventurer.
SHOE: I’d love to hear the she-bird’s version.
Shoe: “Relax, the chicken wasn’t anyone we know.”
Luann: They really are setting him up at the dullest man alive. Except, is it common for nurses to wear their scrubs and their name tags everywhere they go? Maybe that’s a fetish. Finally, why are Tiffany and Ox at this meeting?
9CL: So, she can see that there are bullet points of different sizes on the page, and there are topics assigned to these bullet points, but she can’t read what the topics are? And she can see that there’s a bullet point for the wedding night, and this one has sub-points, but she can’t count the sub-points? Does she have a learning disability?
Mary Worth: “Daily soap opera comic strip writer” for “newspaper advice columnist” is pretty much a 1:1 substitution here. Who is Karen Moy, and how do we know she doesn’t have her elderly busybody neighbor filling in for her on the regular?
MW: So now, every victory lap will include both Mary talking to Dr. Jeff and using “Ask Wendy” to soapbox her beliefs, just like Dirk arc? What next, Mary gets an anchor position on the evening news so she can wax poetic there as well? Maybe a State of the Union?
GT: Can any doctors here advise what medical condition Gil must have to give him such a disproportionately long right arm?
@pugfuggly: Luann: And a bouncy house!
MW:
Dear Ask Wendy,
I asked a friend to ghostwrite my column and she somehow managed to wrangle the copyright away from me. What can I do?
—Cheated
Dear
ChubbyCheated,Suck on it!
—Wendy
Shoe: I am convinced this is a vamp on this classic Maury Povich episode, I will not be dissuaded.
MW: I don’t think Mary has changed clothes in 2025.
Josh casually bringing up Wilbur masturbating, with no acknowledgement to how horrifying such a thing is. Makes me question (among other things) if Hell has already risen to earth and we just never noticed until now.
In the past, Josh joked that he wanted to do a Wilbur masturbation joke but his computer burst into flames, then his phone, and then a blackout occurred before he could do it.
We’re now in dark times man… dark times.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Adding, it is comforting but also not a little disturbing that I can immediately tell an Uncle Lumpy post from a Josh post, and many times which mudge has written which comment, even before I spot the name. You all are distinctive, and give no worse advice than Mary, usually.
MW — Wilbur is more Flying Dutchman than Robert Johnson, which explains why He Shouldn’t Be Alive.
I guess he’s currently in the honeymoon phase of the whole “living forever” thing. . .
MW: “No problem, Wilbur! I’m happy to do it! Just like I’m happy to hoist this tiny teacup with my cloven hoof!”
I choose to believe the chickens were all enemies of Shoe. Now that they are all dead and feasted upon, Shoe and his girlfriend were forced to realize that shared murder/cannibalism, and a love of the movie Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, simply were not enough to sustain a relationship.
@The Rambling Otter: Without getting too political, we can say Trump has unleashed a weird, unsettling id on America, and also Elon Musk.
Luann: TJ may be onto something. A good cover band could probably work Transfuse at the Fuse into Cypress Hill’s *Insane in the Brain* lyrics.
Luann: They’re on a collision course with WACKINESS!!!
@MKay: Ahh, but you forget that if he hasn’t made a specific, verifiable threat, of bodily harm and not just property damage, in front of at least 6 competent witnesses (that stoned docent and the drunken bar patrons don’t count unfortunately), then Leisure Suit Larry can fall back on the famed ‘Nuh uh!’ defense, which any seasoned lawyer will tell you is absolutely ironclad!
Six Chix: It seems likely to me that this is less about murder than about White dudes and their elaborate kinks, but then I spend too much time online.
@matt w: Is eating chicken in the Shoe-verse cannibalism per se or is it more like the disgust most of us would feel eating a capuchin monkey?
Can I just point out that “transfuse” is a terrible word for promoting a blood drive? Transfuse, as an imperative verb, sounds like you receive blood at the Fuse, not donate it there. Is that the joke? Are Luann and crew going to promote the hell out of this thing, only for anemics, hemophiliacs, and fresh accident victims to show up?
Shoe: We spend our lives trying not to die. But hold on. . . What if you were faced with a more noble end than anything that ever came before in your hum-drum existence? If, for instance, you knew someone could make an incredible tetrazzini out of you?
Mary Worth: Three months from now, Wilbur’s editor tracks him down –probably sitting alone on a dock, weeping about the way Belle Batsfry fleeced him and protecting his sandwich from gulls– and confronts him about the quality of submissions: misspellings, grammatical errors, hardly any punctuation at all. Turns out, Mary got bored and handed “Ask Wendy” over to Mr. Alora.
Shoe: So that’s why we haven’t seen the chicken-headed woman in Pluggers for a while! I had no love for that wretched abomination, but she didn’t deserve to end up in the belly of the even more loathsome Shoe.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: In any other reality, this would be when some random guy’s superpowers awaken and becomes our beacon of hope as he fights all oppression.
“You are safe now, I am here!”
Luann – I’m surprised that neither the Red Cross nor the Board of Health are shutting this down for any of a number of reasons. But it’s Luann, where reality is just a hurdle to be cleared.
Side note: I found an old slice of swiss cheese in the fridge, it was rock hard, I took it out of the package (to throw it out) and almost cut my finger on the edge.
In Soviet Russia, The Cheese Cuts You!
Bird eat other birds all the time and Shoe is not a chicken. That means today’s comic is not about cannibalism so back off everyone.
***
Houseflies lifespans are about 15-30 days. That is not enough time to learn a language, let alone become conversational in one.
***
My elderly neighbour refuses to do my job for me until I feel like getting back to it. I’m going to show today’s Mary Worth to her and tell her she’d better start pulling her weight.
***
Shhh! Nobody tell Mary that laptops are portable and Wilbur can write his column anywhere!
Shoe: “After 6 months, her ex-husband’s remains were picked to the bone.”
Rhymes With Orange: I like how the painter is attempting to stir his canvas with a wooden spoon.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: To be fair, I think Karen Moy is at the “Elderly Busybody Neighbor” stage herself at this point.
GT: “When Gil was young and his heart was an open book
He used to say live and let live
(You know you did, you know you did, you know you did)
But if this ever changing world in which we’re living makes Coach Gerard’s give in and cry
Say live and let die”
Luann: Does Moony U have a radio station? Band is one thing, but a live broadcast would bring in more donors. Add swag.
(And, yes, I remember pop/rock stations in the past who had blood drives.)
@Pozzo, Luann: That’s Ox, the lummox and designated Nice Guy who pines for Tiffany, who is oblivious to his affection (besides, she’s a semi-evil cheerleader and beautiful girl who shouldn’t succeed in business).
@Pozzo, Luann: It’s supposed to work, because this should be held on St. Patrick’s Day. “Should”, because this storyline will continue into June.
Shoe: So, on that grim note, they stare into their beers, as if they were deep cesspools of despair.
By the way, can birds pick up mugs of beer, or pens for that matter, with their wingtips, or do they just bob their heads and use their beaks, like those cheap toys of yesteryear?
MW-“Oh, Wilbur, you poor naive fool. Don’t you know? They canned your lazy ass and gave the column to me. Your advice column? It’s my advice column!”
Six Chix-Anymore? I don’t think anything inspired you. How you got this job is beyond me.
RMMD-“And does he look like the man standing behind you?”
MW-“As long as I keep writing ‘Ask Wendy’, Wilbur, I get all the paychecks from it.”
FC-Later Thel will be seen with a box with a weird stain on the bottom.
Luann-I’ve seen blood drives held at a bunch of places. They never go for anything elaborate. They just setup and pretty much say, “We’re here”.
Shoe-The idea that these are walking talking sentient birds going around and murdering and eating each other I find fascinating. Shoe’s lucky that he didn’t wind up in the pot.
Shoe-“It wasn’t made from anyone we know?”
@Bob Tice: Wilbur should ask Lampy instead of Mary. He’d shed light on a lot of situations, and help illuminate things.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Watch out, though. Lampy might throw shade on things.
RwO: Folks, we have a Very Special Episode today! I know that to the untrained eye, this looks like your ordinary tragi-comic setup of irony in the Insect world. But it’s so much more!
Today we have partnered with Rhymes with Orange to provide gainful employment for our neglected Four-Legged Flies! Yes, through no fault of their own, these genetic aberrations were destined to a life of exclusion, or worse – exhibits at a freak show. But thanks to this compassionate creative team, our clients are able to realize their dream of show-biz stardom, if only for a day. And the scene was respectfully done, even drawing attention to the appendages of the Lady Fly. With gams like that – she doesn’t even *need* middle legs!
And of course no actual Fly-swatters were involved here.
@Old School Allie Cat: That or something similar is what’s going to happen on Friday/Saturday, mark my words…
@Bob Tice: Definitely Lent. Nothing says “Mary Worth” like self-righteous abnegation and haranguing people about everything they’re doing wrong.
Luann: Hey, you know who might have some valuable input on this situation? The people at the blood bank, who do this sort of event all the time and probably have some specific requirements as far as protocol, facilities, advertising and branding, etc. Maybe you should have asked them before getting around a table and throwing out all of your stupidest ideas.
MW: I’m not normally one to advocate for the use of AI in creative fields, but really, what can Mary and/or Wilbur do that ChatGPT can’t?
RMMD: “By the way, do you always wear your hair like that? It’s hideous. Maybe that’s what’s attracting the weirdo.”
GT: “Weak men lack the empathy to operate in this ever-changing world. I read that in Ask Wendy.”
JP: So Ann goes straight to prison. No bail. No trial. She must have worked for Biden.
LUANN: I see that shift leader TJ got over irritation from a few weeks ago with fellow workers ignoring customers while on the job and decided “Hey, if you can’t beat them, join them.”
LUANN (2): You’re missing the point Josh. Tiffany has to be put “in her place” because she’s so boorish and rude! I mean who does she think she is, inquiring about some strange guy who just randomly showed up at their work meeting without an introduction of any kind!
LUANN (3): Also, The last guy Tiffany was infatuated with had a off-putting personality as well, Josh, so I wouldn’t worry about that being a “turn-off” for her.
6Chx: Obviously.
@Tabby Lavalamp:
Wilbur: “Give me a break! It takes time to stalk a one-night-stand all the way on the other side of the coast and…oops did I say that part out loud?”
“OK, now that’s out of the way, we have the upcoming ‘Unabomber Appreciation and IED Demonstration Night coming up. Any thoughts?”
“Oh, how about a big sign that says ‘Defuse at the Fuse!'”
“Kind of the opposite vibe than the guests are looking for there, Tiff.”
Shoe-Would you say it was a killer chicken tetrazzini?
Rhymes with Orange: Classic musca depicta, she’s totally safe. Sexy(?) or leaning back chilling(?) aren’t the common symbolic interpretations but you do you…
MW: “As long as you need me…to write the column. I’m not available sexually, to be clear.”
@Vanya: To appreciate the true darkness of Shoe, imagine a human male regularly copulating with a female chimp or bonobo and then eating her when he gets tired of her.
GT: God dammit, Gil, if I want smug self-righteousness I’ll read Rex Morgan.
JP: “I mean sure you were extradited to another state on fraud charges, but I didn’t think they were going to put you in jail!”
Phantom: “Lay off, Heloise, not everyone wants to spend their life in a jungle cave making babies to carry on your stupid colonialist family legacy.”
RMMD: “Guess that’s a no. Come back to us when you’re kidnapped or shot.”
Mary Worth – The formality of Wilbur’s language in the origins comics makes me read every line in a Transatlantic accent. While Wilbur has fallen into vernacular speech and slobbish manners, he still retains a classic misogyny that expect a lot of unpaid work from women.
Rhymes with Orange – This philistine fly doesn’t understand the concept of musca depicta, where a painted fly stands for rot, sin, or mortality. Her death won’t be tragic, it will be fulfilling a great work of art. That philistine fly would be better off going over to Marvin or another one of those scatological strips to feed on some warmed over crap.
Shoe – Shoe is a purple martin, an insectivore, not a bird-eating species. And in this bird world, “Chicken” used in chicken tetrazzini like “Shepherd” is used in shepherds pie in our world. No birds were harmed in the making of this joke. Well, save Shoe and his soul, but that was already a in pretty bad shape.
Don Abundio, translated:
“These cards are all too sweetsy-poo”
[Sign: CARDS FOR ALL OCCASIONS]
“Everyone would assume I’m being sarcastic”
“Do you have any cards that sound sincere coming from a heartless bastard?”
The least realistic thing in comics is that Wilbur is earning enough off an advice column in a local newspaper that he can take vacations. Or eat, honestly. It was probably always a bit of a stretch, really, but at this point they need to start dropping hints about Wilbur being a trust fund baby because that’s the only way he isn’t homeless.
RMMD: at some point Auggie or Summer will make some kind of very light physical contact with Stalker and get charged with assault.
@TheDiva: re: Luann.
The “funny” thing about this arc is that the Fuse gang will never think of contacting the blood bank until the event is over.
Which leads to the next story: what is a restaurant going to do with all those loose bags and buckets of blood?
LUANN: (b) “Tiffany should (also) not back down” because this seems like something the Fuse should be doing anyway. Indeed, I thought this place was supposed to be some kind of performance arts venue with a cafe attached to it (which is why the eatery has a separate…if terrible name, after all.) Of course poor Nancy here is just now figuring out that she should be doing a budget for the business she runs, so maybe she’s as out-of-the-loop om what’s going on at the Fuse as me.
CS: And if anyone knows crash and burn, it’s Ed Crankshaft.
MW – Oh dear – what will the dead-tree news consumers do without his Solomoronic wisdom….
Luann – Hot girl wants a rebrand – ordinarily hot girl gets what she wants. Not so in the Luanniverse….
RwO – Stu-Stu-studio….
Shoe – The bluebird of bereftment….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
@Liam:
Likewise concerning blood drives. Although I was told at one large place, when a marching band made a surprise visit during a periodic blood drive, everyone got into the spirit and the blood flowed much more quickly enabling them to process donors faster.
Wilbur being cursed by / in hock to the Devil would explain a lot actually…like why he’s so hard to kill.
FG: Team Kiran Alchemist is made up of Blue Meanies. This adds a whole new depth. Does Queen Azura have her own Dreadful Flying Glove? Also, nice new togs, Zarkov — who’s your haberdasher?
GT: I hope That Man in the White House doesn’t
read the funnieshave the funnies read to him every morning. Barajas may find himself in a Louisiana detention center, pending a revoked green card and deportation.JP: “But it’s a swell prison! My cellmate is really fat, so the toilet seat is nice and warm for me in the morning.”
Phantom: “….and she’s so articulate!”
6Chx: You’re not that old, Bianca. Barber College is still an option for you.
@TheDiva: what can Mary and/or Wilbur do that ChatGPT can’t?
What can Karen Moy do that ChatGPT can’t?
Mary Worth: Its so on-point for this comic that an arc about a woman being a victim of domestic abuse was ultimately just the lead-in to a story about Wilbur getting laid and lavished with praise.
Luann: This whole arc is proof that Luann is written by robots with no comprehension of human emotion, because it’s treating this doctor dude like he’s some kind of catch that everyone likes when he’s probably the most obnoxious and repellent person imaginable.
Pluggers are in various states of cognitive decline #722
Seriously, I spent longer than I care to admit trying to figure out WTF this was supposed to be.
FC – Thel is pissed off because she was planning to take those antique toys to an antiques dealer. Now they’re all damaged and won’t be worth shit.
Frazz – This is a coincidence – that artist and painting were topics of discussion here just last week. If Mallett is reading Comics Curmudgeon for inspiration, maybe he could send Caulfield to a farm in the country where he can play and blather to his heart’s content.
Pluggers – Cat plugger looks as bored as anyone would be listening to that inane drivel.
Mary Worth – What was the newspaper looking for with the contest to find an advice columnist? I can’t believe that Wilbur has the training or empathy to help people with their problems, and all Mary does is regurgitate a string of smug platitudes.
Luann: Can’t wait to see how this blood drive will be depicted. In reality the blood bank or Red Cross sends a big white van the size of a metro bus and trained med techs do the blood drawing. What’ll happen is nursing home orderly Phil and Tiffany in a candy striper nurse fetish costume will draw the blood, in the storage room Tara stayed at when she was homeless.
Rhymes With Orange-“Paint me like you paint your French flies.”
@Liam: Mmmmm….french flies.
@I speak Jive: Re: Frazz: Noticed that, too. Funny, while Curry’s Tornado over Kansas is certainly high drama, I never thought of it as an especially scary painting. The family is getting safely into the storm shelter in plenty of time; even the cats and dogs (and chickens) are gonna survive. Too bad about the horses and the barn, though. Does Mallett live in Kansas?
Now, Giradot’s Scene from a Deluge, in the Louvre, that’s a scary painting. Especially because it’s so fucking huge. The subjects are colossal in proportion, and the picture just looms over you.
Luann: On the bright side, it’s easy for the Fuse staff to have impromptu planning meetings since they have no customers.
Shoe– It’s strange how often comic creators forget the framing concepts of their own comic–especially Shoe. Or maybe cannibalism is just a thing in the Shoeniverse I never picked up on.
Has the Luann artist always put eyebrows IN the bangs? I do not care for that one bit.
“Chicken Tetrazzini” is a sex thing, right? Like a three-way involving a chicken, because they’re birds
Luann: has owner Frank DeGroot ever seen the inside of The Fuze?
Fred Basset Spanish to English.
MW – He can hand it over to Mary – and only Mary – whenever he wants because it was she that he met at that crossroads in rural Georgia.
MW-Mary is happy with the paychecks she gets from writing ‘Ask Wendy’.
@UncleJeff:
TJ can easily dispose of all the bodies of the people they killed.
Shoe – Huh. Sounds like maybe Earl Houndstooth can eat what he wants when he wants since his wife crossed the road to the Shoe side of the house and got served over noodles in a rich yet tangy cream sauce.
RWO: I backed out of the audition, on this one. The prosthetic wings were not working very well, and the fat-suit they had me try on made me chafe. But ultimately, when I found out that they had me in mind for the sultry pose in the middle of the frame, I put my several feet down: I’m a black ant, I don’t work blue.
@Professor Well Actually: #84: He has, once, when he and the entire DeGroot family ate there on Pru’s dime, and they all ordered the most expensive dishes on the menu.
RMMD: “I’m sorry, ma’am. Without any specific threats, we’re unable to take any action against the guy. His behavior so far is only at the ‘endearing quirks’ level.”
@Tom T.: Luann – They both work there. And Luann is there with a man, and Tiffany has a thing for men who are not emotionally available to her. Could be daddy issues.
And Ox, because cookies are good for restoring depleted blood glucose after donation. As for me, my post-donation go to is burgers with spinach and mushrooms.
MW: The Mary Worth Retrospective found in the link serves to remind me that Allen Saunders was a more engaging writer than Karen Moy is. I even venture to say that Wilbur seemed to have endearing quirks, the way he was originally written.
@Liam: #88: The Fuze kitchen most likely has a commercial grade meat grinder. This week’s special: All you can eat meatloaf.
MW: Ah, yes, because lounging around and making up imaginary romances to impress your teenage daughter is just so exhausting that you don’t have the energy to sit on your ass and make up platitudes. Just give Mary the damn column already. It’ll momentarily satisfy her meddling and you can get back to stalking your exes and extorting meals out of the unlucky women who you swiped right on.
Luann: Come to think of it, Tiffany standing outside of the blood drive van in a fetish nurse costume with white fishnet hose would probably draw in a lot of donors.
6ix Chix: Tune in again next week, for another thrilling episode of Self Indulgent Artist Island, when we’ll hear Xunise say, “they just don’t understand my art! Giant shoes and rotting pumpkins! Do I have to connect the dots for them?”
@Guillermo el chiclero: Luann: Come to think of it, Tiffany standing outside of the blood drive van in a fetish nurse costume with white fishnet hose would probably draw in a lot of donors.
Bad move. This is for donors to a blood bank, not a sperm bank.
@Guillermo el chiclero: I’m anemic and I would go for that. Probably because I find Tiffany a much more interesting character than Luann.
@Just John: #94: Allen Saunders also wrote the Steve Roper strip. It was his job to transition Mary Worth from her Apple Mary era to the upper middle class widow we all know and love.
@I speak Jive: At this point, Karen Moy has no idea what jobs and careers are like. The only person we’ve actually seen doing any sort of work in Santa Royale is Dr. Ed and it’s considered both a bad and good thing that he’s so dedicated to his veterinary practice (because how dare he try to save puppies instead of being Estelle’s meat ticket). Wilbur just gets gobs of money thrown at him to take vacations despite him looking and acting like the kind of person that would get a face full of pepper spray.
Charterstone is supposedly some sort of fancy condo but nobody has jobs except for Ian (who probably uses his position to find young sorority girls when he’s ready to replace Toby as soon as she gets a wrinkle) and Wilbur (who we know does nothing but play around on the newspaper’s disposable income). Are we supposed to believe that all of these people can live in a fancy California condo with no means of income aside from Social Security?
RMMD: have the Evansii forgotten that the DeGroots own The Fuze. Frank doesn’t have anything to do with The Fuze. He never spends a moment worrying about profits and losses. Nancy works there to make a little money. Luann has never spent a single minute working there. Are the Evansii that clueless about running a business?
@Guillermo el chiclero: Ah for the good old days when the lil’ dumplings stayed barefoot in the kitchen and left the heavy lifting of making comic strips to the manly men.
(The ghost of Trina Robbins reaches out from the icy grave to smite me)
DT: “Any new ideas on the John Doe matter?”
“What if I just talk to some random guy who will turn out to have exactly the information I need because Costello thinks that’s how detective stories work?”
Luann: Nothing to do with today’s strip specifically, but coincidentally I was reading the TV Tropes page “Seasonal Rot” earlier today, one of a number of TV Tropes pages that sternly warn that they’re not just there for people to complain about stuff, and then are filled with people complaining about stuff but (sometimes) justifying it with lines like “Many people think…”
Anyway, that page is about When Good Media Goes Bad, and one of the examples was Luann, which, as someone who gets most of his comic strip knowledge from these parts, surprised me. I’ve seen ‘Mudges reminisce about when Funky Winkerbean was funny, and FOOB was charming, and even that there was a time when 9CL was coherent, but I don’t remember any suggestion that Luann wasn’t always like this.
JP: “Could you pass on my thanks to Mayor Stewart for giving me the number of the guy who faked the footage of Abby burning down the B&B?”
Phantom: I don’t know why I expected Weezie to be slightly more subtle than this. Tomorrow she’s probably going to suggest Kit counts Kadia’s teeth.
Mary Worth – I just reviewed the MW strips showing Wilbur’s arrival at Charterstone and outlining how he acquired the advice column. Two things I took from the old strips:
Ian was much more entertaining when he was a pompous, conceited, opinionated windbag. Karen Moy destroyed him when she lobotomized him and turned him into a cuddly, understanding teddy bear in the Helen Morris story.
I really miss Joe Giella’s artwork. I laughed out loud when I saw the last panel of the 5/18 strip – Mary is staring, unbelieving and in shock, at Wilbur’s hand, and I don’t blame her. He has two thumbs, one on each side of his hand.
Apropos of nothing, if you are a baseball fan, don’t fail to miss the opportunity to purchase one of these beautifully styled hats currently for sale at Major League Baseball’s web site. I particularly commend to your attention the one for the Rangers, which at a quick glance says “Tetas”; I don’t know any Spanish so I hope Scratchy or someone can help me translate that. Other highlights are the Ashos and the Pasdies.
@Ukulele Ike: I only started reading the strip when I discovered this site, which was well into the Moy era, but now I’m wondering if Saunders ever wrote female characters with the slightest amount of agency who weren’t either the Blessed Saint Mary herself or villainous shrews and harlots. If he did, it’s possible he was a more feminist writer than Moy!
My last comment was about Luann.
@Horace Broon:
I’m wondering if Saunders ever wrote female characters with the slightest amount of agency
I started reading Mary Worth during the younger Saunders final decade, and back then, Mary herself was a lot meaner. She was all over Dawn when she first moved to Santa Royale, complete with body shaming.
What I will say is that where they seem to have dropped the ball with this strip is by focusing heavily on the regulars. I feel like there is no new territory with either Wilbur or Dawn. Saul and Eve were breaths of fresh air until they weren’t. Stella and Iris had similar well-worn trajectories. So similar that I had to really think about how they ended.
Tommy and Brandi could have been interesting if they had let it play out.
But to me, the beauty of a place like Charterstone is that for every Toby/Ian-esque long-term resident, there is someone new and interesting.
Keith Hillend was fine, but my running joke is, “Can we please get a voodoo priestess to move into the complex?” Like, you have a cast limited only by imagination. Make it crazy!
@I speak Jive: June Brigman knows how to draw young, pretty women (though obviously she can’t do anything about Dawn’s hideous hair which went from baseball helmet to the aftermath of a thresher accident) but her men are incredibly hit or miss to say the least. Ian has a ridiculously soft face that matches his newly neutered personality while Wilbur’s face went from pinched pug to a fat Leisure Suit Larry. And then there’s Jared who is supposed to be “homely” but looks like he belongs in Middle Earth harassing hobbits for rings.
LUANN:. Don’t be a spoil sport, Phil. Those of us who believe in donating already do. You’ll want to draw others into the pipeline by offering something new and exciting. Like Maya’s (BLONDIE) style enchanted cookies or a hip new band like Hillary’s (S4TH) or Liz’s (FBoFW). Ok, cut the band.
CURTIS:. And here I thought the Eiffel Tower was in Austria! Or was it Argentina….
FRAZZ:. Nightmares make for thrilling art. What was yours?
PHANTOM:. Heloise was raised to do many things; sales was not one of them.
6CX:. Yeah, we all have blank periods and blocks. If a change of scenery or a new adventure or gratitude doesn’t work, see a professional.
@Ukulele Ike: I think that the tornado painting is frightening, but not to the point of causing nightmares. The sense of action is wonderful.
You’re right about the horses. The chicken in the foreground looks unconcerned; she should hurry up if she wants to make it to shelter.
The other painting is definitely scary. And creepy.
@Needless Exposition: Dr. Ed’s veterinary work didn’t even make sense. He was overworked and constantly had to drop everything for emergencies, yet there were a sufficient number of veterinarians in Santa Royale to have a convention. Why didn’t he work out an on call system with some of them?
@astroboy: Even Brigman can see Mary Worth for the devil she truly is.
LUANN: So is Tiffany raising her hand like she’s still in high school, or is she copying Elon Musk? And you’d think the venue’s owner might want to be here for this discussion, but that would require Frank to actually take an interest in his business. Maybe Frank doesn’t actually want a blood drive and knows the best way for that to happen is to leave it in Luann’s hands since she’ll eventually get distracted and forget all about it.
QC: Oh thank the Lord in Heaven, we have a day where nobody’s doing the Closed-Eyes Smugface. Though since we can never have too many good things, we also have:
9CL: Yet another character wearing a turtleneck so long that she looks like a giraffe. And notice only the women wear turtlenecks in this strip? The men instead wear button-up shirts buttoned all the way to the throat but without a necktie. And every single character in the strip (except Thorax) all have the same fashion sense. That combined with their identical looks, personalities and vocabularies, makes me wonder why Brooke brings in new characters at all.
@I speak Jive: I blame Moy’s attempt at rehashing “Dr. Ed works too much” because it shows that the comic strip is incredibly episodic. Like how most long running shows have the characters learn nothing because they want the audience to not get lost trying to keep track of the show.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Allen Saunders also wrote the Steve Roper strip.
Which I enjoyed as a child. It was a little too “adult” for me at the time, but like Rip Kirby it kind of engaged me as a challenge to aid my understanding of the world, after first finishing off the day’s Hi and Lois and Marmaduke of course. Apartment 3-G was just a bit beyond the pale, though.
@HaikuMatt:
#81. SHOE: that cannibalism thing disgusted me too until I realized he wouldn’t be eating his own species. Though I know for a fact stressed chickens do. Just as we eat fellow mammals, carnivore birds often eat other types of birds.
@Horace Broon: LUANN: but I don’t remember any suggestion that Luann wasn’t always like this.
Hey, I may rip the strip to shreds on a regular basis these days, but the story of Brad becoming a firefighter was actually good, if a bit frustrating at times. His character evolved over time (as did his appearance, as he grew a full head of over the course of the arc) and things actually happened. There was full-on plot progression, unlike Luann’s treading water for ten years now.
MW: It will never cease to amaze me that this idotic waste of a man gets paid to give advice to other people. And of course Mary’s eager to keep doing it for him, since it lets her be a meddler in both her personal and professional life. It’s the same reason Bernice from Luann decided to study psychology: she already enjoys telling Luann everything that’s wrong with her, so why not do the same thing on a larger scale while getting paid for it?
@Bryan: The irony is that the Evansii can only write character development for the characters that we’re supposed to see as dull witted (Brad) or bitchy (Tiffany). We’re obviously supposed to side with Luann but she’s basically an adult toddler while her BFF Bernice…well, let’s say that the B stands more for bitch than best.
MW: Feels like a passing of the torch. Especially since Wilbur can’t care less, bound to win his Pulitzer this year for “A Heartbreaking Jerk of Staggering Genius”.
@Tabby Lavalamp:
#36. SHOE:. You said it first and better.
GA:. Is this arc transitioning Walt to live in the assisted living facility for retired characters, or is it a metaphor for his death? Or is it both– with him living in a purgatory to give him a second chance?
@Little Guy: LUANN: That’s Ox, the lummox and designated Nice Guy who pines for Tiffany, who is oblivious to his affection (besides, she’s a semi-evil cheerleader and beautiful girl who shouldn’t succeed in business).
Tiffany was oblivious until Stef told her about Ox’s crush to try and get them together. Tiffany said she was “not interested in dating right now” and then resumed her plot to steal Stef’s boyfriend away from her.
@Bryan: Hugh, the curly-headed World-Class Pianist, thrall to Chedda, son of the greatest harpsichord-builder in all of Hampshire, the man who can only poop in his childhood bathroom, wears a turtleneck exclusively. Since it never changes color, it may be the only shirt he owns.
Dennis the Menace Spanish to English.
@Ukulele Ike: 9CL: Ah yes, I forgot about Hugh, the guy who often bolted like a startled gazelle whenever Chedda hinted at sex, but eventually tried to fuck her right there in the hospital after she’d literally just given birth.
https://www.gocomics.com/9chickweedlane/2023/05/06
And miss me with that “he was just trying to hug her” nonsense. You embrace her from the side; you don’t get all up in between her legs like that. Brooke didn’t draw that body placement by accident.
MW: For a long time, Mary Worth was about people taking an old lady seriously, helping John Dill, finding romance with Kensington, helping a prepubescent girl with growing pains. It seemed a bit silly sometimes but it made sense in a world where old people are generally ignored. Nowadays, the story has shifted to ancillary characters solving their own problems with Mary popping in to make trite observations, a strange tack for the star character.
@richardf8:
How is spinach on a burger? I don’t think there are any places around me that does that.
@Guillermo el chiclero:
Tiffany would turn that into a sperm drive too.
@Cleveland Mocks:
But…if the creep just stops stalking Summer, he wouldn’t have to look at it. Does this makes sense to anyone else?
(Blank looks from the Rex Morgan M.D. cast)
Er….play “Muddy Boots”
(
Joyous hooting and fist pumping from the castmild-mannered golf clapping.)@Old School Allie Cat: She can shrink Wilbur’s head, so it can finally match the size of his brain.
@2+2=7:
Well my point, as lame as it is, is that only a weirdo would want to look at that hairdo. (Which doesn’t speak well of Augie either, but one weirdo at a time.)
But enough about the hairdo. How ’bout the price of eggs, eh?
Today’s recipe is provided by Breaking Cat News!
@Activist: #118: My mom used to keep chickens. One time I saved a piece of fried chicken to see if they’d eat it. They scarfed it down.
@Cleveland Mocks:
#133:. Price of eggs, price of eggs. Everyone wants to talk about price of eggs. But given the theme of the day we SHOULD be asking about the welfare of the chickens! Eggs are high because innocent, docile laying hens are being us killed en masse. How? Are they shot before a firing squad? Probably just gassed. Is that any more humane, if humane includes mercy to birds. And if egg prices are high due to diseased birds, why are chickens still plentiful in the supermarket, eh?
@Cleveland Mocks:
#133:. Price of eggs, price of eggs. Everyone wants to talk about price of eggs. But given the theme of the day we SHOULD be asking about the welfare of the chickens! Eggs are high because innocent, docile laying hens are being us killed en masse. How? Are they shot before a firing squad? Probably just gassed. Is that any more humane, if humane includes mercy to birds. And if egg prices are high due to diseased birds, why are chickens still plentiful in the supermarket, eh?
@I speak Jive:
I absolutely love the 5/8 strip, where Wilbur lifts the hamburger bun to carefully examine the contents…as if he’s not going to scarf that thing right down regardless!
@astroboy: Ha ha, yeah. I thought that he was taking it apart to put mayonnaise on it before he scarfed it down.
I also liked Toby wearing that strange shirt and carrying that tray of hamburgers. I miss Joe Giella’s artwork. To give him credit, he put a lot of detail into those strips.
MW: “Yes, Wilbur. In fact I’d be delighted to take over your column on a permanent basis. Have you noticed a bitter almond aftertaste to your tea?”
RwO: Thus far the artiste doesn’t appear to notice the fly at all, perhaps because he’s painting an apple three times the size of a cluster of grapes.
9CL: Never mind “Is this funny?” or “Does anyone actually talk like this?” The dialogue descends into gibberish halfway through.
Blondie: “Dagwood and Herb Engage in Tool Worship” is the title of a largely unread Blondie fanfic on AO3.
C-Shaft: A joke so awesome it took three men to tell it.
Dustin: The fact that Dustin wears heavy body spray but only forces his family to suffer through it may be his most likable trait.
GT: A century ago Gil would have been more forthright (heh-heh) in his character assassination and just said that Coach Gerads is obviously feebleminded, as evidenced by his tiny ears.
JP: I hope Ann has time during this phone call to talk to April and get some big house self-defense tips.
Phantom: Apparently Heloise foresees that she’ll be glass ceilinged out of the Phantom business so she’s prepping to host her own game show.
RMMD: “As my thoroughly undignified combover is supposed to signify, I’m only a uniformed representative of the weak liberal state that will eventually leave you no choice but to take up armed vigilantism.”
I got an advertisement for a Streaming channel today, one of the movies was something about a monkey? Called “Better man”
It didn’t show much of the movie, so I looked it up for context.
It’s a film biopic about the singer Robbie Williams, who is depicted as a CGI Chimpanzee for some reason.
Also the film absolutely flopped.
I only saw one Robbie Williams music video when I was a kid and it scarred me deeply.
He stripped off his clothes, then stripped off his skin, then his organs until he was a dancing skeleton.
But me as a kid was kind of dumb and didn’t know too much about CGI, I had literally thought that it was a live performance in front of an audience. I was too freaked out at the time to take into account that what he was doing would be literally impossible.
Still… -shudders-
Whenever I see Wilbur doing the advice column, I always expect
him to pull something from “The Loved One”, and advise some
lovelorn person to kill themselves. That’s the kind of quality work I’d expect from him.
My comment is waiting approval.
Does this site even have mods? I mean like human mods who will read through it and determine if it’s suitable through many various factors? Or is it a bot who will block my comment because its filter caught a bad word and it can’t different it from the various other meanings?
@143 The Rambling Otter:
The bot is a pile of shit dressed like a czar.
@Lauralot: arc? What next, Mary gets an anchor position on the evening news so she can wax poetic there as well? Maybe
_____________
After its revealed that John Darling faked his death as part of a government sting to bring down Pete Moss, everything is in order for Channel One’s award winning THE DARLING/WORTH REPORT!
@The Rambling Otter: My comment is waiting approval.
Well, you have mine. Sight unseen! Proceed, put it up at once, do you hear me, at once!
@The Rambling Otter: Does this site even have mods?
_________________
Are you a Mod or a Rocker?
@Maltmash3r:
Nah, that would be poaching on Mary’s turf.
@Peanut Gallery: Judging from where that pencil is that saleswoman must be a Vulcan.
@Maltmash3r: Wait, does that happen in The Loved One? The only suicide I remember is when Aimee Thanatogenos hooks herself up to the formaldehyde machine and replaces her blood with embalming fluid. What a fabulous book.
Incidentally, if you’ve not yet watched the 1965 film version, WATCH IT. It’s one of those bizarre 1960s confections that Hollywood would never dare to do today. Starring Jonathan Winters, John Gielgud, Rod Steiger, and a constellation of off-the-wall cameos by the likes of Milton Berle, James Coburn, Liberace, Tab Hunter, Robert Morley, and Lionel Stander.
@The Rambling Otter: The site has Uncle Lumpy and Josh, whom I presume have better things to do than read through the comments a dozen times a day. I recommend you copy your moderated comment, paste into a new screen, change whatever it was that set off the modbot, and re-post.
@Garrison Skunk: No, I’m a rod.
@Ukulele Ike: Re: The Loved One: Don’t forget Paul Williams, who was in his 20s but appears to be playing a middle schooler.
@Ukulele Ike: Jonathan Winters sure was in some weird movies in the 60s. I haven’t seen the The Loved One, but I have seen Oh Dad, Poor Dad. I like some weird movies, but that one was just a sorry mess.
@Ukulele Ike: The Loved One: You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Ma Joyboy get after a turkey.
Not sure why, the character positions, the Dick Tracy cosplay, or what, but something about that 4/16 strip makes my inner ear hear Dan Aykroyd’s voice saying, “Wilber Weston, Male Prostitute.”
@Artist formerly known as Ben: And Jamie Farr was a waiter (uncredited) according to IMDb.
@Peanut Gallery: That PLAY was a sorry mess. But Winters was great in It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, terrorizing Arnold Stang and destroying his gas station with his bare hands.
@White Rabbit: And how about MOM’S BIG TUB? Nightmare fuel.
@Stuart F: “Chicken Tetrazzini” is a sex thing, right? Like a three-way involving a chicken, because they’re birds
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Don’t forget to rub her breasts with oil for that unique spark of Wessonality™!
Was Jonathan Winters in Groucho Marx and Jackie Gleason’s “Skidoo”?
@Ukulele Ike: Mama’s little Joyboy got lobsters, lobsters, mama’s little Joyboy got lobsters for Mom!
Reading Wilbur’s introduction shows how the characters have degraded. They’re still awful but they’re awful in different ways:
-Mary used to actually be proactive in her meddling but now she’s just relegated to the sidelines so she can be the Blessed Saint Mary who does nothing but gets all the credit.
-Ian was a loud, pompous blowhard who was condescending towards everyone, especially his wife. Nowadays we’re lucky to even see a deadpan snark.
-Toby had some semblance of personality and independence but now she’s a blowup doll who seems to be guzzling a box of wine a day with how glassy eyed and vapid she looks.
-Wilbur was a divorcee with an Eeyore like disposition in his first appearance but now he’s an obnoxious little creep that Karen Moy is obsessed with shoving in everyone’s faces.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: @Peanut Gallery: @White Rabbit: @Gladly, the cross-eyed bear: Love all you guys who watch weird-ass movies. Heading over to Internet Archive now to stream The Saragossa Manuscript.
Wah! Wah! My comment at #162 is waiting approval.
@162 Ukulele Ike:
Suck it up, man. Here’s a baby bottle filled with bourbon.
@Garrison Skunk: No, he wasn’t, but other members of the ‘Mad World’ cast were, including Mickey Rooney and Arnold Stang.
P.S. ‘The Loved One’ is available on a nice Blu-Ray edition from the Warner Archive Collection. I own it, and I can aver it’s truly one-of-a-kind!
@Ukulele Ike: I didn’t mean to come off sounding like that earlier, I was just asking a question (I was legitimately curious)
@Ukulele Ike: Also thanks for the answer, and advice, I appreciate it :3
@The Rambling Otter: While I’m not going to repost my comment, I was going to explain what it was about and why it’s a pointless ramble even for my standards… but in turn THAT keeps getting moderated.
I really don’t feel like trying to figure out which word is setting the nannybots off, it feels like playing Minesweeper honestly.
@The Rambling Otter: Yes, the site has a mod, and the mod is me, and I get to the blocked posts when I can
@Ukulele Ike: Internet Archive has some good stuff all right. I’ll be on the lookout for The Saragosa Manuscript.
Do birds have souls!
https://youtu.be/lMtL_kqUxN4?si=xv2eHYcpiQCkZcr1
Luann: “No bands! No fun! Just a quiet area and a coupon, with money going to the Red Cross!” If Luann ever ages, she’s going to be the Evansii version of Big Nate’s dad at Halloween.
Phantom: I think Heloise has a CK account. She’s the one who posted “I think Kit should hook up with the daughter of the Nomad for more interesting storylines.” (Paraphrased)