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Mary Worth, 4/7/22

Dream sequence, dream sequence, dream sequence, everybody! You might recall that years ago, during one of her fruitless attempts to psych herself up to dump Wilbur, Estelle had a bizarre dream sequence featuring boxing Wilburbabies, and more recently Dr. Drew had a psychedelic dream sequence where he was stretched to his limit by the women in his life. I can’t wait to see what on-the-nose metaphor Toby’s subconscious is about to serve up! It’s starting out promisingly with a series of nesting gazes: Cal’s affectless face staring out dumbly from the canvas, presumably for Toby’s erotic viewing, except she’s been forced to turn her back on him and lock eyes with her too-curious students. Presumably Helen’s red, demonic face is gazing up at all this, from hell.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/7/22

Fight club, fight club, fight club, everybody! Uh, I don’t have any follow up to that, I just think it’s gonna turn out this guy is part of an underground fight club, run by other guys who won’t take “Can’t this week, I have a rotator cuff injury” for an answer.

Pluggers, 4/7/22

Man, I’m not generally impressed by the insights into the human condition served up by Pluggers, but you have to admit that “At first you’re horny, but eventually you’re just cheap” has a certain bracing veracity.

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Mary Worth, 4/3/22

It’s fascinating to me that in the year 2022, the rhythms of soap opera strips are still predicated on the fact that some newspaper subscribers don’t get the Sunday paper, while others only get the Sunday paper, so Sunday has to be treated in a special way for continuity storytelling — whether that means you take the Phantom route and doing entirely different Sunday and weekday storylines, or the Mary Worth route where you just recap everything for the week on Sunday and don’t introduce any new information. Today’s strip achieves this cleverly by showing us that Toby isn’t just crying in her car, she’s also playing the moments that brought her to this pathetic state over and over in her mind, including a fantastic vision of Helen transforming herself into a literal demon as she threatens to narc Toby out for a little light flirting. That panel should frankly be used in advertisements to get people to sign up for the Sunday paper. Do you really want to miss this, in vivid color?

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/3/22

On the other hand, sometimes a strip just takes a Sunday to reintroduce you to all their characters, just in case in the year 2022 some Sunday subscriber is thinking to themselves, “Rex Morgan, M.D., what’s that thing’s whole deal” but isn’t feeling so curious as to walk over to the computer. Anyway, I’m cackling about the fact that Buck didn’t make the cut for the ancillary character panel. Not sure if they’re finally admitting that they’re never going to make Buck happen or if they feel like they need to get readers hooked and emotionally involved before learning how much of this strip revolves around Buck’s off-putting antics.

Marvin, 4/3/22

I know nobody likes Marvin, and and that it’s very understandable why Marvin’s dad doesn’t like him, but you have to admit it’s pretty wild that “I, Marvin’s dad, do not enjoy the company of my son, Marvin” is the entire punchline to this strip!

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Mary Worth, 4/2/22

I love that Mary Worth seems to be edging towards “what if we did a story about cancel culture and #metoo overreach … but we gender reversed it” but then they didn’t fully gender reverse it, instead leaving Cal a vacuous and vaguely horny cipher and making some random middle-aged lady the villain. Obvious a man can’t ruin someone’s life with hysterical accusations! Men can’t be hysterical! It’s right there in the name!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/2/22

So we see where Rex Morgan stands when it comes to sensitive content: totally OK with catering to the increasingly baroque desires of foot fetishists, but prudish about showing a guy getting beaten to death with a lead pipe in the backseat of some car by a guy who looks like Thomas Dewey. And honestly? I’m fine with that.