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2010-11 was another great year for my holy trinity of Mark Trail, Apartment 3-G, and Mary Worth. Just in time for the midterm elections, Mark Trail wove a tale of political intrigue! Seems a mysterious fenced compound popped up on the edge of Mark’s land. Turns out it was the home of a little girl who adopted a deer (note that while I expect Apartment 3-G to conform to some kind of reality, I didn’t even blink at this in Mark Trail), whose stepfather Frank planned to stage caged hunts for bigwigs as some sort of plan to become governor. Obviously the little girl objected, as did (in particularly bad-ass fashion) Mark, ruining everybody’s fun. Frank sure was mad! Deer-kicking mad.
Mark punched him, obviously, and later Frank tried to kill Mark with his car but at the last minute a deer knocked his car off a cliff (haha, I know) and Mark saved him, for further humiliation purposes.
Mary Worth, meanwhile, forwarded the story of Dr. Jeff’s drippy daughter Dr. Adrian, who finally found the love of a good man in handsome cop Scott. Adrian got wedding-planning help from her “outspoken” pal Jill, who didn’t care for Scott, a feeling that was mutual. Later, at the rehearsal dinner, Jill got bombed, literally threw herself at Dr. Jeff, then denounced the concept of marriage in increasingly desperate terms.
Turns out Jill had ideological objections to a traditionally patriarchal institution was just a bitter old maid who had been left at the altar, and Mary literally told her to change the past by altering her memory in either the best or worst session of cognitive-behavioral therapy I’ve ever seen. Jill was too ashamed to come to Adrian’s wedding, of course, but she did spend a wildly overextravagant gift!
But as fantastic as those two plots were (and they were!) in Blog Year Seven my heart was won by Apartment 3-G, which included an adventure for all three of its main characters … as they dressed … in the dark.
Yes, Tommie applied to be on a TV makeover show, and somehow got Margo and Lu Ann roped in as well. Sinister makeover host “Mama Kat” insulted all three gals in turn and then openly announced her intention to annihilate their wills.
Lu Ann had her very sense of self (i.e., her hair) threatened, while Margo just resolved to use the opportunity to get as much free stuff as possible. Later, the girls met their stylist, “Mister Mojo,” who was written as some kind of sassy gay stereotype, though that was undermined by the art, which, as I put it at the time, answered the question “What if Mr. Clean were a supervillain who was also a resurrected undead king from ancient Sumer?”
After enduring some psychological gameswomanship, the girls’ makeovers were revealed. Margo looked like herself, with longer hair and exposed shoulders.
Lu Ann was indeed de-blonded, though the characters and the syndicate colorists couldn’t agree on the final results.
And Tommie … well, I guess they combed her hair properly, for once? That was literally it. Her new outfit was also stupid.
The absolute best part, though, was how all three girls immediately went back to their previous boring looks the instant the makeover show ended. For Lu Ann, this meant an introduction to new innovations in the haircare industry, which she was very enthusiastic about.
Coming up next in Blog Year Eight: Funeral fights! Home births! And the dumbest money-making scheme of all time!
