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Mary Worth, 7/20/21

Folks, I feel like this is one of those Mary Worth image pairs that will go down in infamy. Just admire the contrast between base, trashy Ashlee, sourly painting her toes while consumed with thoughts of jealousy and her grift not panning out, and Drew, nobly applying CPR (?) with his eyes closed (???) while two other doctors or nurses or definitely scrub-wearing people of some kind frown meaningfully at him from several feet away. And well might they frown! That person on the bed is clearly dead and has bene for some time. This is a different kind of drama indeed, a drama where Drew fucks up and kills someone, again.

Funky Winkerbean, 7/20/21

Phil … Phil, you faked your death. You faked your death! Faking your death is definitely a kind of hoax, man.

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Marvin, 7/19/21

Almost ten years ago, my audiologist told me something that has really stuck with me: studies have shown that when someone gets a hearing aid, it noticeably improves their relationship with their spouse or partner, even if the hearing aid itself is ineffective. It turns out that, when your partner can’t hear you very well and always makes you repeat yourself or just tunes you out, that’s a constant stressor on a relationship, and just the fact that your partner tries to improve the situation often changes how you feel about them for the better. And because hearing loss is often (though not always!) associated with aging, opening a conversation about it can be very fraught! This is mostly to say that nobody in Marvin would ever get a hearing aid out of consideration for their spouse, because they’ve repeatedly shown that they all hate one another.

Funky Winkerbean, 7/19/21

Ha ha, holy crap, Phil Holt faked his death! Gotta admit, just when you think Funky Winkerbean has explored all the depressing ways death can affect us, it comes up with a new one (i.e., sometimes people who you think are dead really aren’t, and often they’re real assholes so it’s kind of a shame). Anyway, since we’ve already seen Phil as a ghost, talking to dead ghost Lisa about how Darrin auctioned off the valuable comic book covers Holt left Darrin in his will for charity, it seems like we’re going to learn some shocking truths about the theology of the Funkyverse afterlife, as well as some legal stuff about whether you can get back the stuff you leave people in your will if you fake your death.

Mary Worth, 7/19/21

We’ve all been thinking that Drew will be easily scammed by Ashlee because he’ll just automatically agree to whatever outrageous request he makes of her. But we weren’t counting on the layer of protection offered by his goldfish-like brain, which has been distracted from his bold promise to Ashlee by whatever shiny object he encountered next. I’m talking about a literal shiny object, possibly his watch. “Oh, hey, my watch is back!” he’ll say, noticing it on his wrist. “I wonder how that happened!”

Blondie, 7/19/21

You ever notice how young people today don’t appreciate proper grooming and instead like it when you look like a slob? It’s disgusting and I personally blame this corruption of the young on [checks notes] 57-year-old actor Brad Pitt.

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Funky Winkerbean, 7/10/21

Hey, do you guys remember Phil Holt, who was (I guess?) a thinly veiled stand-in for Jack Kirby, and who Darrin met at a children’s party once, and then he died and left his valuable comics to Darrin, then took up residence in the same spectral hell-dimension that Lisa haunts? Well, he and Flash Freeman had some bad blood, which I guess is supposed to mirror some real-life comic book drama from the Good Old Days, but one of my constant positions is that I love newspaper comics and am extremely lukewarm on comic books, and that was true in 2004 when I started this blog and remains true today in 2021 when comic book franchises have swallowed all other media, so I refuse to do the research as to what the real-life analogue of the “subterranean” is. The point is that this is setting up the real identity of the figure who’s mysteriously interested in Flash and Ruby’s Hall of Fame induction. Do you think it’s supposed to be Phil Holt? Do you think that everyone involved in making Funky Winkerbean forgot that he was dead, or maybe assumed even ghosts needs some kind of pass to get on the Comic-Con floor?

Mary Worth, 7/10/21

Wait, hold on, I had always assumed that, what with her substance abuse problems and her legal issues, Shauna had in fact been the dumpee in her relationship with Drew, which led her to strut her way back into his life looking her best (?) in an attempt to win back his heart. But no, she left him! This is delicious. No wonder Ashlee is so determined to hold onto Drew, this is a guy who will absolutely stick around while you extract all the emotional and financial value from him that you can.

Gil Thorp, 7/10/21

Ugh, it’s a bad idea because the labor necessary to pull this off represents a huge new expense, and you wouldn’t make the money back because libraries don’t charge people! Honestly, Abel, I know this is (hopefully) the last day of it but it’s like you’ve forgotten what your entire deal in this storyline is.