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Archive: Mary Worth

133

Various sadnesses

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Shoe, 2/11/26

Shoe is a comic strip about depressed bird-people that is pretty committed to the gag-a-day format, but it’s actually been doing a continuing story of sorts for the past week or so. The story is about how the Perfesser bought a beautiful classic car that has turned out to be impractical and unsuitable for everyday use, giving him a specific reason to be depressed beyond the strip’s general sense of ennui.

Crock, 2/11/26

Wow, I bet you assumed Crock’s Legionnaires were involved in a rapacious colonial war to build up the glory and wealth of France, but apparently they will sometimes impose harsh punishments on French industrialists who aim to exploit the colonized population in ways that violate the laws of the Métropole! It really makes you think (about how child labor isn’t really a suitable subject for jokes, and execution by firing squad probably isn’t either).

Mary Worth, 2/11/26

JESUS CHRIST JEFF SHUT UP DO NOT ASK HER ABOUT THIS SHE WILL RECOUNT THE WHOLE STORYLINE AT YOU AND WE JUST NOW GOT OUT OF IT I’M BEGGING YOU

126

Bygone times, mostly

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Mary Worth, 2/10/26

OK, finally, finally we have absorbed the lessons (?) of the great Toby-Ian parrot story, and after eating those vegetables we get our dessert. That dessert is hot beefcake in the form of Dr. Jeff, who, after fitting a hood that’s too long to close onto his sports car, is taking a break to casually lean back, with his lilac shirt unbuttoned and sleeves rolled up to tease us with glimpses of his James Dean-esque undershirt and rippling forearms, like you do. Who wouldn’t want to go on a “sunset cruise” (wink) with this guy? The Mary Worth trufans certainly can’t resist!

Hagar the Horrible, 2/10/26

I guess we have Lucky Eddie awkwardly announcing that he’s staying outside in the first panel so that it would make sense for him to be asking this question to set up the punchline in the second. But I prefer to think that he knows Hagar all too well, and simply doesn’t want to watch Hagar murder the inhabitants of his former home and plunder whatever wealth they have, just like he murders most of the strangers he encounters on their journeys.

B.C., 2/10/26

I appreciate the single tear the cute chick “Grace” is crying for the farmers here. “Being a farmer sounds tough,” she’s thinking. “I’ll definitely urge my nomadic hunter-gatherer band to avoid agriculture indefinitely, and only interact with settled communities when we raid them for surplus goods.”

171

Family drama

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Mary Worth, 2/5/26

“Good lord,” you’re no doubt thinking, “how is it that, more than two weeks after Ian ended his war against Sunny the parrot by pathetically surrendering, this plot is still happening?” Well, it’s to set up a long-term plot point: if Ian refused to love the bird Toby acquired a few weeks earlier just because it shat in his shoes, could she ever trust him again? Somehow, after so many years of marriage, Toby has finally noticed that her husband is an asshole, and sure, maybe it’s over something that he’s actually right about, but he’s on thin ice going forward (until Toby remembers she has neither a job nor any marketable skills).

Judge Parker, 2/5/26

Ann’s triumphant return has, predictably, devolved into wall-of-text family dysfunction, but I am kind of curious why Ann’s dialogue in the second panel makes it seem like she’s trying to de-escalate but the jagged-edged word balloon indicates that she’s yelling. Maybe she’s worried a furious Katherine is about to deliver a potful of hot coffee right to her face? Don’t worry, Ann, that would be exciting, so it definitely won’t happen.

Mother Goose and Grimm, 2/5/26

Say, just out of curiosity, did, uh, Robin Hood famously have any kind of interesting relationship with the tax assessment and collection apparatus? You know, the kind of dynamic that might provide a punchline of some sort in a strip like this? A better punchline than what we got here, maybe?