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Mary Worth, 8/11/18

I can’t really tell if Brandy is doing a jokey “Ha ha, I certainly hope you’re not gonna dump me” thing or is genuinely on a real emotional roller coaster here with Tommy. I also know Tommy is nervous about starting this conversation with Brandy, but I think that asking her to suddenly sit on the ground in the middle of this running path isn’t really the best of all possible ideas. It’s also possible that he’s abruptly decided, upon being called “lover boy,” that he is going to break up with her afer all.

Crankshaft, 8/11/18

I thought I was going to be mad that Lillian is covering like a solid 10 percent of her laptop screen with Ann’s card for no good reason (hey, Lillian, did you know you can put someone’s contact information inside the computer???) but then I realized that her word processor (?) has for mysterious reasons truncated her book’s title page? And has truncated it using three periods to represent two letters???? RAGE … RAGE …

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Crankshaft, 8/3/18

OK, so here’s everything in this Crankshaft storyline that hasn’t prompted me to discuss it: Lillian came to some kind of publishing industry convention to find an agent, and she ran into a lady determined to be a book agent who’s never had have any clients but was determined to find one at the convention, which … is not how you become an agent, I’m pretty sure? I think you actually go work for an agency, and you help the agents there and then you get promoted? Anyway, said aspiring agent lady informs Lillian that she’s schizophrenic and used to be homeless and did some interviews with a newscaster when she was on the streets, which newscaster of course was Cindy Summers because the Funkyverse is a tightly wound nexus of coincidence. I learned this from an unofficial history of Funky Winkerbean (hosted by Angelfire! Angelfire is still up, everybody!) that also lets me know that this lady, who went by “Apple Annie” on the streets but now goes by “Ann Apple,” had a particularly poignant interview with Cindy after losing a friend on 9/11 (I am dearly sad to have missed the 9/11-themed Funky Winkerbean storylines, you guys). Also Lisa had a French roommate that Les described as looking “like Juliette Binoche, but cuter,” but that’s a story for another day!

Anyway, all that has not prompted me to write about this dumb Crankshaft plot, but here’s what did: “I think you have the write stuff.” See, it’s a joke because “write” sounds like “right.” Sounds exactly like “right,” in fact. They’re homonyms. They’re spelled differently because they have different etymological origins, but in spoken language you can only distinguish them from context. And in the context of the phrase “the right/write stuff,” you’re going to immediately assume the phrase is just “the right stuff” because that’s a very common expression. This doesn’t work! It doesn’t work at all and I’m so very angry about it!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/3/18

This is as good a time as any to remember that Doris, Buck’s abusive ex-wife who shot him in the head with a nail gun, did some dry humping or what not with Rex back in high school. Anyway, shoutout to Rex for being conveniently vague in panel two!

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Mary Worth, 7/24/18

Sorry I haven’t updated you on Mary Worth in a bit, but rest assured that what was happening like two weeks ago — Tommy thought-ballooning about how his girlfriend is eventually going to find out about his terrible past — has continued happening with absolutely no dramatic forward motion of any kind. This remained true yesterday, and since Monday is the traditional day for new plots to being in soap opera strips, I have to imagine that today’s action pertains to the Tommy-Brandy storyline somehow — but how? Who is the mysterious figure helping Mary pick up her canned tomatoes? Why is Mary buying tomatoes? How can she maintain her taupe-to-ecru food spectrum if she’s putting tomatoes in things? Let’s all tune in tomorrow to find out!

Blondie, 7/24/18

Mr. Dithers letting Dagwood get a glimpse of the poor old man he’s kept enslaved for the last 30 years is a real power move that you have to respect! I also note that Steadfaster’s weird hairstyle looks kind of like Dagwood’s, so maybe this is supposed to be a threatening look into his future? He also looks vaguely like the villain in the 1983 Doctor Who serial Mawdryn Undead, so there’s that:

I have to assume this is a coincidence, because part of the vibe I get from Blondie involves extreme hostility to nerd shit of any kind.

Crankshaft, 7/24/18

Usually when Crankshaft makes his terrible wordplay, he’s glaring at his interlocutor/victim with dead-eyed hostility, so I guess this in some marginal way can be considered an “improvement.”