Thursday fast takes
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Marvin, 10/16/25
Lately, when I bring up Marvin as an example of a strip that loves talking about peeing and pooping, some people in the comments will try to gaslight me about it, claiming the strip really hasn’t done much by way of toilet humor since 2023 or so. Well, look at this! Bitsy the dog is like, “I love to defecate and I want to do more of it,” and that’s the punchline! Don’t try to deny what I can see with my own eyes!
Mary Worth, 10/16/25
Have you enjoyed the last 87 years of “Mary Worth meddles gently in the lives of her friends and acquaintances?” Well, that’s over now. Get ready for “Mary Worth has an unshakeable belief that many people are capable of ESP, and has a new mission to find them and Awaken the Gift inside them.”
Dustin, 10/16/25
Meg, this is no time to crack wise! Your brother has experienced a serious head injury and appears to be in some distress!
Archie, 10/16/25
Sorry, Dilton, I’m going to be straight with you: put the glasses back on. You don’t look very good at all without them! Don’t give in to peer pressure!
181 replies to “Thursday fast takes”
Mary Worth Mashup: Canceled today after Baja read today’s Mary Worth then was overcome by a sudden attack of reverse peristaltic reactions that makes Regan’s pea soup scene look like a gentle burp.
Luann: They’re going to Queen Unpopular’s lair? How’s that possible? Queen Unpopular is right there wearing tennis shoes!
Ignore Veronica’s passive-aggressive cattiness, hot foreground glasses girl. She’s obviously hoping you’ll hear.
So in other words, Josh, would you say the commenters… pooh-pooh your take on Marvin?
….I’ll see myself out
Marvin-“Why can’t you go on the carpet like Marvin?”
MW-“Let my love open some other things in you, Olive.”
FC-Mary had a little lamb with mint jelly.
Archie-Open your eyes.
Why are you trying to get Dilton to take off his glasses when the hot goth nerd IS RIGHT THERE?!!
MW: “Sure, Dear. Everyone has psychic abilities.”
Mary humors Olive about her claims of canine clairvoyance while dialing 911 with her left hand under the table.
Maybe more people would be interested in awakening their latent ability to communicate telepathically with dogs if dogs weren’t just constantly thinking about poop.
Archie: regarding that Asian gal with the huge buck tooth: sorry, every Asian person in the world. We didn’t mean to imply that only Caucasians can have quality dental care.
Today’s strip kicks off the Mary Worth/Scanners crossover event you’ve been waiting for.
Archie : that incidental character in the first panel… the AJGLU3000 must have interpreted Ronnie’s line as the prompt to design her, but only saw “sexy” and “glasses”…
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Crankshaft : “Do you use special soap to repel deer?” “Yes, particularly strong soap, normal soap wouldn’t work.”
WHERE IS THE JOKE!? Is the fact that Crankshaft’s actual line includes the word “laugh” enough to justify it being a punchline!?
***********
Dustin : is seriously injured, but to his family, that’s no excuse to make fun of him for not being currently working in an office.
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Luann : … No, seriously, I *SWEAR* Greg Evans is drawing that “Tiffany sticking her tongue out in disgust” expression because it looks like something else.
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Mary Worth : Oh, so it turns out it’s not the tummy brain-fueled powers that make Olive special, it’s that she CARES MORE and is MORE FULL OF LOVE than ordinary people.
…I liked it better when she was some kind of superpowered mutant, not some kind of Avatar of Sainthood. I liked it better when Olive could do incredible things because her brain was superior, not her goodness.
…I can’t believe that the story going “No, EVERYONE could do what Olive does!” could make it worse, but “Everyone could do what Olive does if they actually started to REALLY care about each other” is a way, I guess…
MW: I looked closely at that second panel but their pinkies aren’t straight. So either Mary and Olive are NOT invaders from another planet—which events and dialogue strongly suggest—or they are but are mutants of that distant race. Either way, they are insufferably creepy.
Questionablecontent:
1. Oh, look, your annual reminder that Marigold is still alive.
2. Marigold has an online “voice”? Since when? How is it that this was never alluded to before?
3. Marigold has a catch phrase and this catch phrase is “FFFFFFF”?
4. How long till Marigold gets a rhinoceros horn as a nose like every other main character?
She’s laughing now, but just wait until Dustin draws the Flux Capacitor (she still hasn’t seen the movie! It’s a CLASSIC, Meg!).
Did we have to know that Mary is going cross eyed at the thought that everyone could be a telepath?
Wrecks Moregone:
If holding their closed mouths vaguely in contact is what Auuuuughie and Winter call kissing, what do they call having sex, and how did Winter ever get to become a mother, anyway?
“And the best way to awaken this gift is to keep cats in your house, Olive. Dozens and dozens of cats! So many some people are horrified, but they just don’t have enough love!”
Marvin: Frankly, the “I just took you out” gag would have worked better with his son, Marvin. “See if you can hold it till old man Swinson’s lawn, this time.”
Marvin has taught me that sea green is apparently the color of annoyed anger, so at least there’s learning going on today! Thanks, Marvin!
Dustin: Aren’t you supposed to be at work right now?
Uh, I’m not sure where I am. Did I tell you I hit my head?
Hot girl in the foreground removes her glasses. With a different hairstyle, she, too, is Veronica. Aaaaaand we’re out of panels.
Archie:
“I bet you’d look good without those glasses”“I bet you’d look attractive towards women without those glasses”“I bet you’d look sexy without those glasses”~Veronica towards her platonic friend.
(seriously, what?)
Mary Worth: Many people have psychic powers and love can do anything!
(Remember when Mary Worth used to give literal advice? Even terrible advice was still advice.. I don’t know what’s even happening any more)
MW: I don’t think Olive’s powers have ever been shown as being triggered by love. Or does Mary mean “if your parents love each other a bit too much, they’ll neglect you and give you lots of alone time to develop psychic powers”?
Marvin: I like how happy Bitsy looks. He’s not in any intestinal distress, he’s going back out for the love of the game (the game being feces).
MW: I’m really looking forward to this strip six months from now when it’s gone completely Scanners. Just imagining Wilbur doing another bad karaoke set when BAM! his head explodes.
Dustin: Yeesh, that is expression of a guy with severe head trauma, or someone deeply repressing what really happened…
Archie: Nope, sorry, can’t focus on anything else aside from that little bit sticking out of that girl’s mouth in the first panel. Is that a tiny tooth sticking out, some kind of piercing, or does she not know how to eat a chiclet?
MW We’re one step away from the strip turning into a Magic Girl – by the Power of Love and Friendship story, aren’t we? Try not to think of Mary in a Sailor Moon outfit, folks!
Archie: Dilton in panel three looks like a mid-century caricature of a Japanese person.
@Ukranazi Stepan:
1. I’m surprised Jeph doesn’t simply update some characters’ bio page with “btw, they won’t appear again because they were eaten by a dinosaur off-panel” more often. IT’S WEIRD IT ONLY HAPPENED ONCE, okay?
2. Maybe Hanners is thinking that Marigold’s voice becoming more shrill and nasal when she gets angry/emotional is actually Marigold purposefully doing a grating voice to match her online alter ego. (that is to say, Marigold ISN’T doing a voice, but the way she sounds when she gets worked up SOUNDS like someone trying to do an over-the-top cartoon voice)
3. Marigold’s online streaming avatar’s “catchphrase” being simply her repressing the urge to scream “F@&#” tracks, really (it would be a joke (intentional or not) about how a character’s “trademark catchphrase” is a completely unremarkable ordinary thing)
4. Never, look, Marigold has a big ugly nose to distinguish her from the other girls, who have weird, tiny, perky upturned noses.
…Look, I just felt like answering you, even though I’m pretty sure I’m off the mark on all these answers…RMMD: Summer was hoping she’d have something that didn’t need batteries twixt her nethers tonight but square-jawed Augie has school in the morning.
MW: At long last, Mary makes her move.
On Monday, when I said Mary was grooming Olive to become a cult leader, it was supposed to be a joke.
MW: My disgust at today’s strip is exceeded only my disgust at the thought that this will continue, and we’ll be “treated” to an arc where Wilbur develops telepathic powers after finding His One True Love (Who’s Not A Fish).
MW: Olive loves classic episodes of OFF as well.
Mary suddenly explaining the truth about telepathy is step one. Next, she wants to talk to Dawn about cryptocurrency.
MW: Call me when Olive makes her spoon float to feed her the sundae.
In fairness, I’m guessing that whatever Augie has between his legs also needs batteries.
LOLing at Archie and Veronica’s reaction in the last panel. “Wait, removing someone’s glasses can reduce their ability to SEE?! What strange witchcraft is this?”
@CanuckDownSouth:
I think it’s more that Mary intends to unleash the Human Instrumentality Project.
Rex Morgan, MILF Diver – The “I have to get up early tomorrow” is a guy line for saying, “Yes, I’ll come in and get my rocks off, but then I have to raid your fridge and leave right away,” not an excuse to not come in at all. Doesn’t Augie watch Seinfeld?. Elaine explained all this to The Virgin.
I’ve always thought of Marvin‘s art style as “Legally Distinct From Garfield,” but it may have taken things a step too far. It starts with pets thought-ballooning at their thin, white owners. It ends with diapers filled with lasagna.
Archie: I’d like to know the thought process behind the extra in the first panel. “Wait, we can’t actually be promoting glasses-shaming. Let’s include a cute girl with glasses somewhere in the comic. We need to make clear that people with glasses can be attractive, and it’s just Dilton who’s the uggo.”
MW:
And here I always thought that, insofar as it pertained to Mary Worth, “ESP” stood for “Excruciatingly Stupid Plots.”
Archie:
Archie is kind of like the “Brigadoon” of high school comic strip venues, only instead of nobody aging, nobody actually grows up.
RMMD: *SIGH* Beatty clearly has not gotten any in a very long time and needs therapy to relearn that you do *not* throw away an opportunity like this. That “kiss” in panel one doesn’t even look like anything of the kind. The perspective makes it look like Blondie just stuck her face near Augie Doggy Ding Dong Daddy’s nose for a few seconds. Not that I believe she could kiss him with that distended chin of his in the way. Apparently ‘kiss’ in this universe means smelling the other person’s greasy, makeup-caked forehead.
JP: You mean she won’t be doing it *at all*, Abbey, because she’s going to cry uncle and foist the raspberry-haired brat on you at the first opportunity.
@Baja Gaijin: I thought that was Bush Sr.?
MW:
“In fact, Olive, I’m writing a feelgood instructional book about this all which focuses on this purple smocklike thing I’m wearing that I’ve now sported for 589 consecutive days — it’s called ‘Love in the Time of Cowl-era’ !”
@Bob Tice: Nice to have your impressions confirmed, isn’t it?
RMMD: Is that a kiss?
Archie:
“How’d you end up with a weird first name like ‘Dilton,’ anyway?”
“You know how Margaux Hemingway was ostensibly conceived after her parents quaffed a bottle of Chateau Margaux? Well, I was conceived after Mom and Dad had a cheese plate — Mom prefers ‘Delice de Bourgogne,’ and Dad prefers ‘Stilton,’ so they kind of met in the middle!”
Blondie: Looking splendid in his fine Italian suit of Mocha/russet worsted wool, Dithers stands before his dressing room mirror and opts for a pair of blue brogans. As a lifelong Mothers of Invention groupie, he knows that Brown Shoes Don’t Make It.
@CanuckDownSouth: Please, don’t give me any more bad fanart ideas.
Mary Worth:
“I tried unlocking my gift, Olive, with conversations back in the day with Nostradamus. I telepathically communicated with him, ‘Would you make those quatrains of yours a little more accessible, user-friendly and relatable, so that people can actually understand what you’re trying to say?’ — apparently I was unsuccessful at unlocking, though, because you see what we ended up with!”
Dilton being a super-genius, can’t he make a machine to repair his vision? Or patent one of his inventions to afford laser-eye surgery?
This is like that stupid Harry Potter plothole, where there is a spell to repair broken glasses but no spells to repair one’s eyesight.
Submitted for your approval, a dying woman with a special gift, trying to find the right person to give it to. Where would you look? New York City? Charterstone? It doesn’t matter, for the gift, the giver, and the recipient, are where they’ve always been . . . in the Twilight Diner, off Route 7 in Santa Clara, California. Home of the Twilight Sundae.
Archie: It’s tough to be Veronica. Some days, you really need to make Archie jealous by flirting with another guy, and Dilton is the only one nearby.
Archie: In today’s performance, the role of Dilton will be played by Gilbert Gottfried
MW: Looking forward to tomorrow’s strip when Mary dons her version of Cerebro. Unlike Professor X’s device, which amplifies his psychic powers to locate emerging mutants all over the globe, Mary’s machine enhances her abilities to identify sad-sack weirdos and meddle them from afar.
Phantom: Ah, good old taupe tubes. Looks like chef here when to the Mary Worth School of Culinary Art (Of A Kind … I Suppose)
Mary Worth: A week from now, Mary visits Olive in the hospital, where she’s in a body cast with all four limbs in traction : “Turns out, what seems impossible isn’t often possible with love after all, that it’s specific to calling dogs when you’re stuck in a pine/palm tree in a hot air balloon. Would you like some more ice chips, Dear?”
@Guts Dozier: One of my favourite Archie stories, was that Veronica’s father kept getting in the way, between Archie and Veronica’s precious make-out time.
So Archie put a game on Mr. Lodge’s computer to distract him, and Mr. Lodge became completely addicted which worked, but before Archie and Veronica could have proper alone time, Mr. Lodge asks Archie for help with a level. So he goes to help him and is gone for hours. Veronica checks in on them, in her father’s office and both Archie and Mr. Lodge are massively addicted to the game, now playing two-players.
A while later, they’re still playing, Veronica (feeling spurned that Archie is playing a game instead of spending time with her) comes in with some guy to make Archie jealous “This is my new boyfriend Brad, seeing as you’re too invested in that dumb game, Brad actually pays attention to me”
Archie is too invested in the game to care and just brushes her off.
Brad (Sees the game): Oh man, I love this game! Can I join in?
Archie: Sure!
All three guys are massively addicted and Veronica just gives up.
@Westing1992: Since the glasses-wearing extra occupies most of the first frame and I hadn’t heard of Dilton before, I assumed that the characters at the table behind her were just there to show that the strip was taking place in the lunch room and that someone off-panel was addressing her by her last name. It was confusing when we then cut to the background people.
Also, since it’s the internet and the concept of sexiness is under discussion, I’ve been wondering what “Dilton” is an acronym for.
Marvin Sr. does not look happy as he’s standing there reading the dog’s thought balloon and realizing he’s trapped in an alternate Funkyverse where all the forced wordplay is biological waste related.
***
Hold on… Did Mary use her own psychic brain powers to force Aldo Kelrast off the road, killing him? I guess she needs something if she’s going to lead the new team of weak-ass superheroes, the Dependers, consisting of her, Olive as Gets Dogs to Come Here Girl and Wilbur as Fugue State Man.
***
Welcome to the world of sexist tropes, Dilton, and thank you for being the man we need to explain why people can’t just take off their glasses to be “sexier” all the time.
Archie: Is there a regular Archie HS female character who wears glasses? Strange time to introduce one.
GT: “Oy, so this app supposed to know his every play?” is a new one–it appears to be a lettering error.
Crankshaft is doing that “Hey, readers, you write the punchline? Okay.
“Yes, the soap has to be Fels-Naptha. It makes the deer think there’s a skunk around.”
Zits: Has Pierce always been cougar bait?
RMMD: Summer goes inside and unfurls the Mission Accomplished banner over her bed, having achieved her chief objective of not getting her glasses smudged. Or her lipstick.
Blondie: Mr. Dithers should be flattered by this, as it shows the more initiative and effort than he’s seen from Dagwood in ages.
FC: Amazing the books you can read in the veterinarian’s waiting room. Flea baths for everyone, including Dolly!
Okay, it was bad enough when Marvin couldn’t keep straight whether its title character was a preverbal infant or old enough to hold conversations with his parents despite still resisting toilet training. But now we have the dog opening his mouth (?) to quip at his owner (??) with a thought balloon (?!?). Even Garfield doesn’t open his mouth to thought-talk at Jon or anyone else!
FC: Dolly continues reading from the Ovine section of her Moleskine:
Barbara Black Sheep hasn’t any wool.
@Tabby Lavalamp: Yeah, so many times in movies, you have a woman with gigantic glasses, baggy clothes, hair in a bun, other characters go “Oh no, she’s unattractive, we have to make her attractive!”
Just removing the glasses alone automatically turns her into a supermodel… >_>
This reminds me of one of Charles Stross’s Laundry novels. Members of the population are getting magical powers, and the Laundry, as the government bureaucracy responsible for monitoring such things, has done statistical analysis. Power levels follow a bell curve, cut off at the left – “We can’t detect a child whose puppy always comes when she calls.”
(The briefing continued: “However, we identified that fisherman who summoned fish because his catch size was an outlier. And there’s no trouble finding people like the Crazy Cat Lady in Hertfordshire, they make national headlines.”)
@The Rambling Otter: When I was a kid, there was a Sabrina the Teenage Witch cartoon. Where Sabrina felt sorry for the nerdy kid in her class, Norma. So she cast a spell to make Norma the most popular kid in school. (Interestingly she didn’t change her appearance, just made everyone love her)
The spell went too far, and the entire town turned into a cult worshipping Norma and were burning people at the stake who weren’t “Norma enough” their Norma standards were so high at this point, that even Norma herself wasn’t Norma enough.
Of course the spell gets reversed, and Sabrina realizes that Norma was perfectly fine and happy the way she was, Sabrina never actually asking her if she was unhappy/wanted to be popular.
Good moral.
MW — “Everyone can be like me and exercise special powers–they just have to try. And if they don’t it’s their own fault and they deserve to wallow in the mud.”
Olive just became even more incredibly unlikable, but she’s obviously been to business school.
I’m not shocked that Veronica is billing and cooing over Dilton; her latest theory is that the smallest men have the largest schvances. She cornered Moose last week and was disappointed to discover he’s microdicked.
Archie: 15 years ago when this strip first ran, it was fashionable among some young women to draw a line extending from the corner of their eye, Cleopatra/East L.A. style. The tongue stud is direct from whatever strip club model the artist used for his “research.”
MW – What a bizarre couple of weirdos! No, I’m not talking about their belief in psychic bullshit, that’s common enough. But who on earth takes a spoonful of an ice cream sundae without either eating or discarding the maraschino cherry first?
Don Abundio, translated:
“Hooray! I love having my own bowling alley!”
“Why do you think he’s so excited about it, Polonio?”
“I’m not sure”
“But I don’t like the look in his eye while I’m in here resetting the pins!”
Archie: Points for effort on trying to keep things contemporary by giving Foreground Extra a lip piercing, but unfortunately it just looks like she’s got an awful cold sore.
Dustin: Dustin, when are you going to learn that when your sister asks you a question–or indeed, speaks to you at all–she’s only doing it to set up an insult? I mean, I know your pick-up-artist techniques ensure that you will never know romance, but you can’t be that desperate for female attention.
MW: Why is Mary wasting her time on the residents of Charterstone? With bullhockey like that, she could write a best-selling self-help book and meddle on a global scale!
@Peanut Gallery: Also, the sauce looks totally wrong unless it’s Magic Shell, which isn’t a very commonly available topping.
Discussing love-based telepathy? A new and weird direction for Mary Worth. Doing so while awkwardly holding sundae spoons? Continuity of form, if not content. Pushing Wilbur into the dim recesses of the strip’s memory in favor of teenage witch? A blessing from on high.
@David Matthews: I’m getting more of a “Goth gal with lip piercing” vibe here.
Dustin “Ya fuckin’ loser!”
C’shaft: For someone who has the running gag of dropping tons of money on gardening toys, Crankshaft’s solution for buck rub is bizarrely low-tech (and, I’m guessing, ineffective). What, Bean’s End can send you a live coyote to hunt your rabbits but they don’t have trunk protectors in stock?
GT: The “app” is just the Wikipedia entry for “American football plays.”
JP: “In fact, she won’t be doing this at all. It’s obvious we–well, I–will be left with most of the work.”
Luann: Oh great, Clan Evans is trying to jump on the Wicked bandwagon.
RMMD: “No, I really should get going…”
“No, I almost touched your lips that time! I’m sure to get it right soon!”
@Peanut Gallery: They’re not actual sundaes; they’re those Nectar bath products that come in the shape of ice cream. Mary and Olive have taken three bites and not noticed anything unusual.
MW – “We often forget what is possible with love!”
“Ok Mary, I don’t even need to read your mind to know what you’re thinking and frankly, it’s grossing me out. You’re what, 78? Ick!”
Marvin: The art seems to indicate that Marvin’s Dad can hear the lame punchline spouted by his dog, even though his dog is, well, a dog and clearly thinking it, not speaking. It would seem that Marvin has decided to try and follow the leader and do psychic power-themed dog propaganda.
Mary Worth: So basically this comic is turning into David Cronenberg’s Scanners but with less head explosions and more old woman meddling.
Dustin: If the creators wanted this to be funny instead of disturbing, they probably should’ve just drawn Dustin looking normal with a small bandage on his forehead instead of drawing him looking like he’s about to go on a TBI-induced murder of his own family.
Archie: “Dilton’s Chinese cowboy impression is so offensive that Archie’s ulcer practically explodes and he is unable to ask Dilton to stop being so fucking racist.”
@The Rambling Otter, Archie: As opposed to the sexy/naughty librarian archtype, who is more attractive because she wears glasses.
HotC: I don’t know why Kat & Alyssa are wasting time collecting signatures. Kat can just go trick-or-treating anyway because…
1: If she’s in a costume, who’s going to know she’s 12 and not 11?
2: Most of the adults at the neighborhood committee meeting were unsympathetic toward the new age limit, so even if they recognized a 12-year-old “illegally” trick-or-treating, will they care?
3: What are a couple of HOA stuffed shirts gonna do anyway?
DT: Yes, members of the Major Crimes Unit – the DA prefers to have a solid case with evidence, facts, and solid motive, opportunity, means and circumstances before charging and going to trial. Right now, we have utility workers getting zapped but why? Okay there is a common work interest in electricity but again, why break in to those substations (?) We have loan shark and goon getting zapped but why? Why a loan shark? Why did LaKoyle appear on his list of debtors? I know, Dick, that you just want to aerate bad guys with your roscoe but the pesky DA insists on rational cause and reason before trying to indict. He is one of those guys who hopes to use the job become mayor or governor, darn his political ambitions!
MW: Ahem, Mary, it is LOVE and Midichlorians. Don’t forget the Midichlorians.
Judge Parker: Months have gone by and Randy and April (?) are fading away, or moldering in a shallow grave or stuffed into a barrel in a deep Norwegian fjord. Let’s focus the strip on Charlotte and her wack aunt – maybe become the new Nancy!
GT: Just when we thought the new artist ushered in a new age of clarity in story design and arcs. But again, we have in panel two, the oppostion intercepting and then in panel three, Milford punting. So did the opposition get the ball, score and then hold Milford? Or did the opposition get the ball, do nothing and give the ball back over (punt, turn over on downs) and now Milford continues to do nothing and punt. Or are these just random images that there were reference photos, and a cartoon AI has assembled in some way? We could have had the announcer recap the events ” …and that is the end of the quarter. Jefferson intercepted killing a Milford drive but couldn’t do much after 5 plays and punted the ball back. Milford continues to struggle and had a quick 3 and out.”
Phantom: so the phantom is hiding these guys he knocked out and feeds them bread and water.
Rex Morgan MD: How long has it been since RMMD actually did any MDing?
Today’s Archie is a great argument for the sexiness of glasses, because when the girl yinz are calling a hot goth showed up in the foreground without glasses the punchline was how desperately the ALGJU had failed at drawing a pretty girl. Or maybe it’s the black dye job that does it.
Marvin: Poor Jeff Miller. Not only does he have the worst combover in American comics, he is also able to understand the absolutely disgusting thoughts of animals. Look at his face in the last panel. It’s like Bitsy has taken a shit in Jeff’s mind.
MW: “Yeah, this is a strange place. For some reason, they put cigarette ashes on all of their sundaes. I just try to eat around it. The ice cream is perfectly good.”
Dustin: How do eyes work in the Dustin-verse? I cannot figure it out.
Archie: “Oh… I thought you were going to show me an app that tells you what you’d look like without glasses. Like a reverse Warby Parker thing.”
RMMD: Augie is clearly auditioning for the role of Dick Tracy in an upcoming remake.
On Archie, I don’t think that that’s a lip piercing, but rather a sort of shine effect.
A hastily done effect but still may be what they were going for.
Dustin: During the filming of “The Room” one of the actors had a head injury but Tommy Wiseau wouldn’t allow him to get medical treatment. So his character Peter in one scene is wandering around dazed and touching a lot of random objects.
As horrible as that was, this is exactly the vibe I’m getting into today’s Dustin.
Those eyes man… he’s in serious pain, he needs help.
Archie: Also interesting that they put more effort/detail into drawing this random one-shot than Veronica herself.
MW: Damn, you know, I always wanted to have the power of telepathy but I guess I just have to much of a frosty, closed-off heart incapable of love.
Archie: Maybe I’m just a prude but there’s something deeply icky to me about characters in Archie comic strips saying the word “sexy”.
Dilton no looka so good, eh? Eh?
Marvin – This time I’m gonna “leave” a shit….
MW – We are the world! The implications for my Christmas card list alone are staggering….
Archie – You need Final Destination Lasix job….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
@Noel: (kind of related, I guess) that in “Atop the Fourth Wall” there was a plot that if a magical being turns evil, they lose their powers.
Explaining that as the reason why we’ve never had evil sorcerers try to take over the world through sheer magical force.
@Dennis Jimenez: I miss that Archie/Final Destination parody. One of the few banned Robot Chicken sketches, and just happened to be one of my favourites.
I like that somebody at Archie felt bad enough about the anti-glasses sentiment that they made the patented Archie Comics “cute foreground girl” wear glasses even though it kind of muddles the strip.
@The Rambling Otter: @Dennis Jimenez: You’re in luck.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Thank you!! :3
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV:
Never knew this had any ban on it, still hadn’t seen it in eons, awesome! My allegiance to TV facsimiles of the Old Ones pays off!
Mary Worth has become even worse than a Hallmark movie.
@Hibbleton:
#6. MW: “great news! If everyone is telepathic, that means you’re not special at all. Dear.”
@The Rambling Otter: @A Grave Mind: Pshaw, ‘twarn’t nothing, just a little duckduckgofu…
RMMD: for those requesting a reminder of the backstory, Summer’s daughter is Kelly, who was dating Rex’s protege. Kelly went to college, leaving Summer alone and lonely. Her daughter told her to get a bf online, and Summer hooked up with a stalker. After most people died, she went to a bar and was approached by her daughter’s high school teacher, August. After months of dating, they kiss.
Correct me where my memory fails.
MW- IF Olive ever goes back to New York, Mary is going to be bored stiff going back to meddling the simpleton of Charterstone.
Six Chex and A Cat Named Sparky: “I got a crock!”
Mary Wormtounge: So … the Mean Girls could have used their powers to give Olive an Atomic Wedgie if they did it with love?
RMMD: Geeze Louise. Eleanor Shaw kissed her son Raymond with more passion than *that*.
Cranky: I see it all now. Cranky is just bullshitting Lillian with his hogwash about bucks and their tastes in soap. She, knowing nothing of outdoors lore, believes his every word. But the joke’s on Cranky. Everyone knows that a few shots of Tabasco is far more effective than soap.
Riverdale really puts the ‘high’ in high school. In the first panel, the girl is clearly in the middle of some kind of 3 gram vacation. In panel 2, Veronica shows off her powder pink compact whose mirror could tell tales out of school. In the final panel, Dilton is baked and helpless as he squints from the glare of daylight without dark glasses.
“Olive,the whole world is pathetic!Everyone I meet is pathetic! “Olive mind sends, ” TELEPATHIC, you old €€¢=×??©®™!” “Olive! language! For shame! Do you kiss your mother with that brain?!?!!!”
RMMD- Rhapsody In Blue Balls- My chin is growing just reading this. “Just one more. And gimme some chin this time! And maybe a reach around!”
Mary Worth: “Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you” is a quote from 1 Timothy 4:14 in the New Testament. But I’m also pretty sure that a book called Awaken the Gift Inside You can be found in the self-help section — it’s a sex manual.
Marvin: When Marvin turns 5, he’s going to think this joke is hilarious. He’ll also start to understand how weird it is that babies and dogs can communicate their thoughts, but his first dose of Ritalin should take care of that problem.
Archie: Of course you can’t see what you’re looking at, Dilton — that’s a tiny compact and she’s holding it four feet away. Who’d have thought that Veronica, of all people, would be the one who doesn’t understand how mirrors work?
Dustin, like so much of Kelley’s ouevre demonstrates that “the cruelty is the point.”
MW (@Anonymous): I was also wondering how Olive’s “tummy brain” fits into this new philosophy. Is that why they’re eating ice cream? To “love” the tummy brain?
@Peanut Gallery: re MW: Is anyone surprised that Mary is saving her cherry, and Olive is following her example?
@A Grave Mind: Archie Comics took them to court on that sketch, they came to a sort of “agreement” as it was removed from regular TV airings (they replaced it with a new original sketch, but I can’t recall what that replacement sketch was, never actually saw it) and absent from the DVD Season set.
Either the 3rd or 4th, season can’t remember which season had the Archie sketch. I have both seasons on DVD regardless, and Archie’s Final Destination is not present ^^;
Marvin – Has Marvin been trying to do fewer strips about shitting and pissing? Perhaps, but you can’t go 40 years of doing the shame schtick and give it up cold turkey.
Mary Worth – Mary Worth has been grooming Olive for years to be part of her biggest meddling ambitions yet. Now with a potential mind reader (the rules of her telepathy, future telling, and other gifts is ill-defined) she can really meddle at deeper levels than ever.
Dustin – “Dustin has undiagnosed narcolepsy, and other potential neuro issues that keeps him from succeeding in mainstream society” is absolutely a baseline truth about the titular character, and one ignored by his awful family and creators, who would rather dunk on his very real struggles to feel better for their own shortcomings.
Archie – Forget Betty vs. Veronica, there needs to be Veronica vs. pierced-lip goth girl for best brunette love interest.
@Jym Dyer: I second that, have they even mentioned her Tummy Brain in this entire arc? Did Moy forget?
Mary Worth: Ok, fine, telepathy is real, Olive really has ESP, Mary and Olive actually lived in Ancient Egypt together, and this whole storyline is an excuse to transition this strip to a gender-switched remake of The Mummy (no artistic changes will be needed for the title character).
@The Rambling Otter: And yeah, Archie Comics is very protective of their image, they don’t even allow fanfiction…
@Drew Funk: Lest we forget, this is marketed as a “realistic” “slice-of-life” comic about an elderly woman giving “sage advice” towards real-world issues…
MaryKUltra
Dustin-Join us tomorrow as Dustin is found dead in the kitchen and the family complaining about he can’t even die right.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Doesn’t Augie watch Seinfeld?.
________________________
He’s still waiting to be offered sexcoffee™
@The Rambling Otter:
Figured something along those lines, but I thought the clip provided by our tentacled god-portrayer said 2nd season? Which would track, I think I was in Habbaniya when I first saw it. Wow, I’m old.
@GarrisonSkunk:
He’s still waiting to be offered sexcoffee™
_________________________________________
Sex Coffee™, new from your friends at Sexcafe Foods,try all 69 varieties!
@Austria: Heck, *I’m* trying not to doodle up something along the lines of the Wonder Woman mashup ( https://joshreads.com/images/08/10/mw_ww.jpg )…
I’m not a big fan of sequels, generally, but I’d buy tickets weeks in advance of the opening of “The Men Who Stare at Goats: Mary Worth”
Crank: Your regular reminder that Tom “Batton Thomas” Batiuk never agreed to our assumptions that his comic strip should be funny. And, while he didn’t draw attention to it, also never agreed that, when it’s not funny, it should at least be trying to do something else.
Curtis: Hang on. While we all rightfully despise Barry for his ability to never get into trouble over anything, how did he “help break the TV”? Curtis was standing in the doorway, attempted something he saw in a Harlem Globetrotters video and the basketball left his control and smashed into the TV. Barry’s involvement … was that he was sitting at the table, some distance away. Is Curtis trying to pull a “You didn’t tell me not to do it, and I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t have an audience”?
MW: I don’t know about anyone else, but the actual absurdity of this is rapidly exceeding my ability to exaggerate the absurdity for comic effect. I can’t remember the last time that happened (although it might have been the point where I quit Mark Trail). There have been stories where, for one reason or another, I’ve been too infuriated to snark (including several past Mary Worth ones) but not so many where I’m just “No. It’s … it’s just too stupid to engage with.”
Peanuts: Jeez, I hate to kick this strip, but really, day 4 of “Disco! That sure is a thing that’s happening in the current year of 1978!” I have to assume that even back then, the audience was reacting to this the way we react to “It’s funny because social media buzzword!” strips today.
Mary Worth: “Let’s see if you’ve awakened to your gift, Mary; bend that spoon with your mind! Oh, look at that, you must not be trying hard enough. Hey, don’t change the subject now, I’m trying to muggle-shame you!”
Archie: Instead of the “joke” (near-sighted people, amirite?) I’m going to focus on the girl in panel 1. Awwww yeaaaa- wait a minute, that’s just Veronica with accessories and messy hair.
AWWWWWWW YEAAAAAAAAAAH
The Family Circus Spanish to English.
Dustin: How did Dustin get home? If he fell and hit his head that badly, shouldn’t he be forbidden to drive? Or gone to the hospital? Or have one of his coworkers drive him, or…something?
Of course, maybe they just fired him, kicked him out the door, and left him stumbling home. Wouldn’t be surprised.
What Mary’s telling Olive is no stranger and out of context for the strip than what she told her about angels and cysts 12 years ago, though. For some reason Moy has the strip have a supernatural element that just lies dormant most of the time.
Hey there, Poteet!
Gasoline Alley put Slim in the last panel just for you even though they didn’t need him as part of the story.
Lalo Y Lola Spanish to English.
Marvin Spanish to English.
@TheDiva: What, Bean’s End can send you a live coyote to hunt your rabbits but they don’t have trunk protectors in stock?
And I always thought the intersection of hunting coyotes and unfeasible mail order companies had them as the customers…
@treetown: GT: Just when we thought the new artist ushered in a new age of clarity in story design and arcs.
As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I quit the strip back when Our Hero’s clever play was manipulating a player into triggering his rival coach’s PTSD, with the strong implication that this was the only reason he’d headhunted said player, but I decided to have a look at what the new artist has been like. And it’s … interesting.
As I know I’ve mentioned before, one of my hobby-horses is that Rachel Merrill’s pre-Gil Thorp work is actually pretty good, and her early Gil Thorp was … well, no worse than what had come before. I’ve been torn between the theory that she simply wasn’t ready for a daily schedule, and the possibility that faced with drawing Bajaras’s strips, she just stopped caring. Whichever it is, I kind of get the impression Kit Mills is going the same way, maybe slightly faster?
You make a valuable point. We should remember that hate-clicks and can-you-believe-this-clicks are still clicks, and that Moy may be trying to exploit that to drive up traffic. Of course the alternative that Moy is just a bad writer is still open, per “never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity.”
C’shaft: Poor Lillian, looks as though demons are tormenting her to find a conversation, any conversation and keep it going to stave off self reflection.
DUSTIN: Not to be bitter, but why didn’t I ever get the kind of temp work that would allow me to fall asleep on the job, back when I was doing temp work? I always had to keep working, no chance for a snooze.
But wait, the other Mudges are all expressing compassion for Dustin! Ruh-roh. Quick mental reboot…Awww, poor Dustin! Why isn’t he getting the care and medical attention he deserves? So unfair! His family is always so mean to him! I’m glad I’m not like that. At all.
@Bob Tice: HAR!! Say, do you suppose that Mary and the Ghost Who Walks are having a secret contest to see who can wear a weird purple garment the longest, so long that it smells really funny and causes passersby to feel a little faint? Just a thought.
MT: It’s going to be at least two weeks before we have even a chance of seeing a feral hog, isn’t it. Until then, it’s going to be Tess the Unbearable. MT actually stands for Masochistic Travail.
LUANN: Greg and Karen Evans seem to have a different definition of the word “popular” than the rest of us, since they keep using that word to describe a girl who lost her only friend after graduating high school and hasn’t really been close with anyone since. A girl who spent her high school years watching everyone, student and teacher alike (and even aforementioned friend), constantly mock and belittle her right to her face. A girl who chooses to live with three people she dislikes just so she can have some form of social contact. A girl who set up a beauty pageant for the sole purpose of trying to get herself some positive attention and then proceeded to lose said pageant. A girl who repeatedly goes after the same guys as someone else and has never once been chosen over the other girl. A girl who spent a semester shut up in her dorm room getting depressed and overweight, taking all her courses online instead of attending class, and nobody noticed.
But yeah, sure, “Queen Popularity” it is.
GA: Slim in that second panel is serving no purpose except to illustrate that GA is well aware that some of us are not able to break free from the Gasoliniverse and are therefore forced to put up with gratuitous yuckiness. Curses.
@Sequitur: That Slim! He certainly does enjoy his food.
@Poteet: The secret is not to give a good god damn. Find a secluded supply closet, lock yourself in a bathroom stall, and doze off. Refreshing!
FG: Queen Azura has magicked up a Ming the Merciless air dancer (one of those floppy things outside car dealerships) in order to spook all the attendees. Every Halloween, the same damn thing. Boo!
@A Grave Mind: Now I don’t know what to think. Maybe it was second. Maybe it was on the Second Season DVDs
No idea now.
@140 Ukulele Ike:
It would seem a human being should be able to eat without having the table manners of a hyena.
@The Rambling Otter:
Worth investigating, I would’ve seen it on a DVD, a buddy in my squad had them, back when the show was relatively new.
@Bryan:
In these kind of third-rate High School stories, “popular kid” is just short for “the main bully is rich”, it has NOTHING to do with whether anyone in the school actually likes them or not.
@Ukulele Ike:
C’mon, Uke. A MING “air dancer” is possibly the only way I’d ever buy one.
AGM’s note: I do not have a lawn, so would never buy one anyway, but you get me.
@Sequitur: When you’re tucking into a Corky’s Diner Big Sloppy Gooey, Emily Post rules do not apply. Feel free to upend your plate and secure it to your face with your necktie. Don’t forget to ask for your free bowl of gravy, for dipping.
@Sequitur:
Add “what’s involved with the Health Department shutting down a restaurant” to the things this dumbfuck exercise in dumbfuckery masquerading as a comic strip is clueless about. And, oh, Slim! Lookit him go!
@146 Ukulele Ike:
And, of course, Corky’s Diner encourages such manners.
@Anonymous: Sort of like how mean cheerleaders never seem to do any actual cheerleading unless it’s absolutely necessary for the plot, but they wear the cheer uniform 24/7 as a visual indicator of “you are supposed to hate this person”. It’s the shallowest of clichés yet Greg still plays it straight.
@Pozzo: #26: To me Dilton looks more like an average Caucasian trying to force a shit.
@The Rambling Otter: #72: There was an early 60s beach movie, “Swingin’ Summer” I believe, where the nerdy girl that no guy wanted until she took off her glasses and undid her hair bun, was played by Raquel Welch.
@Poteet: #13/: Back in the days when I did temp work it was always the dirtiest, most bust-ass job in the place that none of the regular employees wanted to do. None would let me sit, or even stand still long enough to think about falling asleep.
@Sequitur: Holy moly, I can’t believe I didn’t see your Slim comment until after I had written mine. Thank you for your sympathy. That was sympathy, right, not just understandable mild glee at the thought of my reaction to the chomp-slurp-drip? Of course it was! Thanks again, and great minds think alike! Yay! #Slimmustdie
I’m hoping that whoever draws Mary Worth was getting in a dig at whoever writes Mary Worth by showing her today looking slightly cross-eyed and crazy as she spouts what could charitably called senile nonsense.
@Poteet:
I sense that two more cases of spontaneous human combustion could be upon us!
DUSTIN: I seem to have the unpopular opinion that Dustin doesn’t deserve any pity. Maybe try working instead of sleeping and you wouldn’t have this problem. Others here may call it worrisome but I call it karma for a lazy piece of shit.
GA: I don’t understand why Jim draws Slim like this and expects readers to react with anything but revulsion.
@Poteet:
Totally right, this is why you’re President of Iowa, madame.
@Bryan:
It’s not unpopular, I don’t think. Fuck this kid. Who actually falls asleep at work who isn’t hung over or a narcoleptic?
GA: Bah… I hated Slim all the way back when he wanted to drop a meteorite on a bunch of black kids. (Seriously why is this piece of shitake still alive?)
He’s like Wilbur if you suck what little likeability he has out of him.
Dustin: Affectionate sibling teasing might be to tell Dustin that the head bandage makes him look like a member of Loverboy. Okay, that one’s a little Gen-X-specific, but it’s still better than this.
Marvin: If the goal was to come up with a pun vile enough to make me wince, congratulations.
MW: Mary is now telling us that if you can’t bend reality to your will with the force of your brain, that just means there’s not enough love in your heart. The Sunday quote box should be…interesting.
@Artist formerly known as Ben:
But then he’d have to be working for the weekend!
C-Shaft: Unlike this alleged joke, which provokes laughter out of exactly no one.
DT: From what I understand of law it means that single jeopardy hasn’t attached. But with the “double jeopardy” Liz just made Sam sad for Alex Trebek all over again.
JP: This whole narrative jag began with April getting her dumb ass abducted by the Russian mob, which led to Randy setting off to be the hero. Now that’s led to Mr. and Mrs. Botox getting roped into their daughter’s extreme nannying. You have to admit it’s a curveball, although not necessarily one for the better.
Lockhorns: This panel was going to have Leroy telling Loretta he had to stay up because someone is wrong on the internet until Randall Munroe’s legal team got wind of it.
Luann: Pretty sure the Wizard of Oz references are a case of putting a good movie in your bad movie.
MT: A Catholic church in the Modernist style, perhaps. Or the transit center for a seaside tourist destination. But if I picture three hunting cabins strapped together, the result won’t have a titanic glass-fronted lobby.
Phantom: Hey, that seven-figure campaign DoorDash mounted to increase awareness among political prisoners in Africa really paid off!
@A Grave Mind: Until they turned him loose, yes.
@152 Poteet:
Actually, it was a bit of a warning much as clown warnings to Baja.
I don’t agree that Slim must be killed, only kept away from other people.
@Horace Broon: Have to give Sparky Schulz points for prescience, though. Minor Female Supporting Character has skipped 14 years ahead to Seattle Grunge.
@Sequitur: “I don’t agree that Slim must be killed, only kept away from other people.”
Especially us readers, by having him appear in the comic as little as possible.
@The Rambling Otter: Doesn’t salvage the rest of the terrible cast though, except for maybe Walt (who is old and harmless) his housekeeper who is a gentle woman and probably one of the few characters with common sense, and maybe Skeezix because I’ve never seen him act annoying/like a clod.
Not that he ever appears enough to show his personality aside from “Gets annoyed by Frank Nelson”
@The Rambling Otter: I am pretty sure people come here, see us mention it, and think that it must be some kind of in joke. But no…And years later, we are supposed to root for this POS.
Lesson learned: glasses are only sexy if you don’t need them to see, like the girl in the foreground who is very conspicuously not looking through hers. Tune in next time when Archie explains when it’s sexy to be in a wheelchair.
@Horace Broon: It is hard to know how detailed the directions/discussion is between the writer and the artist. Alan Moore in his script for Watchmen that was drawn by Dave Gibbons was pretty explicit about points of view and even effects like pulling back the point of view. For a daily comic I’m wondering if there isn’t any specific game flow in mind, just a vague sense given to the artist, which is why last year’s football and basketball comics were comically bad (recall the 11 man total blitz – one can see all eleven Milford players trying to sack the opposing QB, yet resulting in a interception from a down field pass being returned for a winning TD, and basketball shots where it looks like the shooter has two left or two right arms). Perhaps the artists themselves don’t have much if any sports background so basic concepts may not be familiar, but they soldier on using reference photo material (like the punter today). Good image but not exactly graphic story telling.
BETWEEN FRIENDS: Time warp here? Haven’t we seen daughter with baby already, and Susan headed out to visit them?
PHANTOM: Thanks to the Phan who wrote earlier– so these are the guards Kit punched out but didn’t mark with a skull. So what will he do with them? For the record, never diss the only person bringing food.
FG. So did the two guys actually kill Hiza, thought they’d just st wounded her. Now trying to figure out if magical vision of Ming the same as an actual Ming.
Late Thread Cuisine: Lemon Jell-O, tomato sauce, and tuna salad.
@171 Baja Gaijin:
Well, Baja, it seems you want to have a party!
I hope those drinks are pure alcohol because that’s the only way I might try this.
@pachoo: Late in the comic’s run, the writers introduced Veronica’s cousin who was in a wheelchair (her name escapes me) and OF COURSE being:
1- Female
2- A teen
She ends up becoming another woman to crush on and date Archie at times.
Funny, the only woman that never crushed on Archie was Ethel, although they did go on a date once, Archie enjoyed it because Ethel never demanded anything from him and never made the date all about herself. Although while nothing blossomed from it, Archie found the date refreshing.
@Baja Gaijin:
Is it a salad? Is it a pie? Is it a dessert? Is it edible?
@172 Sequitur: Old-fashioned glasses of Sambuca.
@174 Anonymous: I hoped you could answer those questions because I sure can’t.
@175 Baja Gaijin:
That’ll probably do it.
MW: “To me, my W-Men!”
@Baja Gaijin:
Dammit, hoss, you paid attention. I’m out, with emphasis I lack sans top hat!
@Bryan: See #135.
@179 Poteet:
It seems like Slim pickin’s out there.
@179 Poteet:
Slim’s motto.