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Mary Worth, 1/17/17

Ha ha ha oh my God Dawn and Harlan are making a very strong bid to reclaim the crown of #1 Age-Mismatched Pair In Mary Worth Who Are Probably Having Sex! You of course remember Harlan as Dawn’s substitute Art History professor who fed her some line about the mind and the body and then invited her to a private, one-on-one yoga session at his apartment and then took her to look at erotic art and then Dawn assured Wilbur he wasn’t taking advantage of her but Dawn’s friends cruelly bullied her so Dawn agreed to see a movie with them and so now they leave her alone about it. Anyway, since then their relationship has clearly advanced well into “let’s wear entirely insane clothes in public together, dance sweatily, and drink” territory! The neck jewelry alone here puts panel one into the Mary Worth Panel Hall Of Fame in my opinion, though Harlan’s is riding so low it’s more like shoulder jewelry (is that … like, a chain you’d put on snow tires?). Do you think Dawn consciously chose to wear suspenders/overalls (can’t tell from this angle, but either option is hilarious) to mirror the awesome stripes on Harlan’s shirt, or are the two of them just that aesthetically in sync?

The real excitement here will come when these two twosomes encounter each other, since Dawn is of course the daughter of the man whose relationship with Iris is currently “on a break.” I imagine the two women’s eyes locking across the room, and both of them wordlessly assuring each other that what happens at Disco Night at Santa Royale’s second-most popular all-ages club while Wilbur is in Antarctica stays at Disco Night at Santa Royale’s second-most popular all-ages club while Wilbur is in Antarctica.

Mark Trail, 1/17/17

Oh good, it looks like Mark’s going to spend the week after the end of the volcano storyline explaining away all of said storyline’s logical inconsistencies! Tomorrow we’ll tackle “volcanic atolls are inevitably extinct,” Thursday will be for “the active front of the volcanic Hawaiian range is southeast of the Big Island, hundreds of miles from Kauai,” Friday we can do “what was the deal with that temple, anyway,” and then we can spend the weekend discussing Woods & Wildlife Magazine’s revenue model.

Judge Parker, 1/17/17

Oh, right, this whole thing started when Sophie tried to seduce Derek by taking guitar lessons from him, didn’t it? Anyway, this Judge Parker storyline should be a lesson to teens everywhere: your so-called “rock star” heroes make playing the guitar look cool, but in fact learning to play will inevitably lead to your mysterious kidnapping. Stay in school, kids!

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Judge Parker, 1/13/17

“To Marie! To Katherine! To April, if she weren’t already missing! To Godiva Danube, except I think she’s been written out of this strip! To one of any number of other improbably busty women who’ve come in and out of our lives! But not to me! I’m a man! Men don’t get kidnapped! Unlike the teenage boys who did get kidnapped! They don’t count! That’s why I’m wearing this dumb hat and growing out my beard! To protect myself!”

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/13/17

Snuffy plans to put the poor tortured fighting cock out of its misery by killing and eating it, in a look at the blunt realities of life on the farm that’s maybe a little blunter than we’re used to from this strip.

Family Circus, 1/13/17

Oh, man, look at Big Daddy Keane’s dead-eyed stare. That’s a man who’s realized that you can control their screen time, you can put a wall around the Kompound, but nothing you can do can keep out … the brands.

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(Hey! What’s with the new site design? What’s this business in the top menu about “membership?” Get all the info here!)

Guys, apologies that Important Website Development delayed my return to comics blogging for [looks at watch] 16 days?!!??!?!?! Holy cats, that means a lot of strips to tear through in my traditional beginning-of-the-year comics recapping of the stuff I missed in the continuity strips. Let’s get to it!

Gil Thorp, 12/24/16

One of my favorite things about Gil Thorp is how Coach Thorp and Coach Mrs. Coach Thorp used to have two hideous children who appeared on their Christmas card with them, and now those children don’t appear on said Christmas card anymore and also anywhere else in the strip. What do you think is the most likely fate of the Thorplings?

• Died in tragic “accident”
• Sent away to boarding school, graduated three years ago but parents forgot to go pick them up
• Coach Kaz sent to the past to surreptitiously add birth control to the Thorps’ water supply, removing the children from the timestream altogether

Mary Worth, 12/24/16

Wilbur, meanwhile, in Antarctic exile and unaware that Iris has very quickly moved on, looks at the stars and takes solace that, despite the vast distance between them, he and his beloved are both under the same sky. They’re not, though! There are totally different constellations in the Southern Hemisphere. You have nothing in common anymore, Wilbur! Nothing!

Mary Worth, 12/25/16

Back at Charterstone, we get what I think is our first glimpse at the new art team’s rendition of Dr. Jeff and the Camerons. And it’s a doozy of an introduction! Dr. Jeff is wide-eyed in wonder and delight at the sight of the monochromatic Christmas ham Mary is presenting him with; meanwhile, the Camerons are celebrating the holiday in the traditional manner, by watching TV in the dark and feeding each other off of plates balanced precariously in their laps, an image that will haunt me (and, I presume, all of you) for years.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/25/16

Good news! Little Sarah finally woke up, possibly after being healed by baby Jesus!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/26/16

Bad news! Sarah has amnesia! Actually, if she ever gets called to testify against her erstwhile mob associates, that’s still good news.

Curtis, 12/27/16

By the way, despite last year’s brief return to form, Curtis honored its recent tradition by failing to honor its longer-established tradition and spinning an insane Kwanzaa fable, unless you consider this tale of urban real estate to the be the insanest Kwanzaa fable of all.

Dick Tracy, 12/29/16

New-look Dick Tracy continues to milk that comics nostalgia for all it’s worth, bringing the Spirit on for a guest spot and providing red-hot brightly-colored-hat-on-brightly-colored-hat action. Anyway, here’s Dick telling his counterpart that he’s a tool of the state, imposing the harsh order that a sullen citizenry secretly wants but could never bring itself to ask for.

Mary Worth, 12/30/16

Whoops! Iris is going to a concert with Zak and his millennial friends, and she overdressed! Like all people born in the early ’70s, Iris has never been to a so-called “rock and roll” show, and is unaware of the socially acceptable forms of dress at such events.

Mark Trail, 12/31/16

Hey, Mark, maybe you should wait until that boat gets to shore before you start bragging.

Mark Trail, 1/1/17

Or maybe the boat is going to get eaten by that nightmarish 30-foot-long gelatinous tube-thing? Ever think of that? That Cherry and Bill will have their nights haunted by the image of you being slowly digested by millions of microscopic mouths and the bill for the boat, respectively?

Mary Worth, 1/2/17

Back in Santa Royale, Zak likes that Iris dressed like an old lady at this concert, and is rewarding her with some erotic finger-touching.

Mark Trail, 1/3/17

Back in Kauai, Mark didn’t get Cal’s boat blown up or eaten at all, and Abbey is rewarding him with some erotic finger-touching.

Gil Thorp, 1/4/17

Oops, looks like we’ve learned why Aaron Aargard is so inconsistent: when he goes to all those warehouse raves, he’s totally high on drugs! According to this Three’s Company-style accidental overhearing of a partial conversation, anyway. It’s even money that “Molly” is actually his girlfriend, whose name is Molly.

Mary Worth and Mark Trail, 1/4/17

OH MY GOD THINGS ARE JUST GETTING MORE EROTIC! NEAR NOSE-TO-NOSE CONTACT! AWKWARD CAR HUGGING! I CAN’T BELEIVE THEY PRINT THIS STUFF IN THE NEWSPAPER WHERE CHILDREN COULD SEE IT, IF CHILDREN EVER LOOKED AT THE NEWSPAPER!

Mary Worth and Mark Trail, 1/5/17

Oops, never mind, Mark mentioned his wife and Iris was reminded that Wilbur exists, all eroticism has been aborted with extreme prejudice.

Judge Parker, 1/6/17

Oops, the mysteriously returned Sophie stumbled upon Sam’s crazy person conspiracy board! If she’s the know-it-all we all remember and love, she’s hopefully going to critique all the many ways he screwed this up. By the way, there are few large-font headlines I can think of that would be more hilarious that “VAN FOUND.”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/6/17

OH NO, SARAH’S AMNESIA TOOK AWAY ALL OF HER ART SKILLS! She is working overtime to prove, to whoever might want to know, the cops or the FBI or the DA or whoever, that she doesn’t know anything about any mob ladies or any art forgers in the employ of said mob ladies, no sir.

Crankshaft, 1/6/17

Hey, remember how the young people in Crankshaft bought that old movie theater? Well, they’re having sex in it now. Young people! Is there anywhere they won’t have sex?

Anyway! I’m back and I’m blogging again and my 2017 resolution is the same as it always is: to keep writing jokes about the comics until they make me stop! Brace yourself for another fun year!