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Mary Worth, 12/4/23

Oh, wow, it turns out Sonia isn’t the only disrespectful person in Kitty’s life, and her smooch with Keith was actually interrupted by this guy Brad. “It’s not what you think!” she protests to the person who knocked her up 20 years ago and who she’s been on two dates with since, as if he had some kind of jurisdiction over her. “I would never have a no-strings-attach fuck buddy relationship with a guy who wore a dumb hat like this! He did not wear the hat the other times he came by for sex!”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/4/23

Sigh, it looks like Rene really did rip off this guy’s self-help method, but maybe it’s worth it because this series of events has resulted in one of the most profound Rex pissyfaces we’ve ever seen. That’s a man who’s experiencing depths of contempt he never before thought possible. I’m assuming he’s grunting out “Self-help program … you created!?!” like Frankenstein’s monster, his outrage thickening his tongue and taking away his ability to use linking words like “that”.

Arctic Circle, 12/4/23

I genuinely love the expression on the rabbit’s face here. He’s immediately and involuntarily imagining the horrifying scene — a massive, powerful polar bear ripping off the top of a camper, pulling out a half-sleeping surfer and devouring them, their screams echoing across the landscape and the snow besplattered with their blood and viscera. He’s a simple vegetarian! He’s not built to think about such horrors!

Pluggers, 12/4/23

I’ve been making jokes about Pluggers for more than 17 years at this point, and in all that time I have frankly gotten no closer to answering the perennial “what is a plugger?” question. But that doesn’t mean I’m just going to sit back and let “You’re a plugger if you’re allergic to dust, or possibly pine needles” slip by. No. Absolutely not. I refute this!

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It’s Sunday, folks, the day when newspaper comics include a couple of panels that can be excised based on the vagaries of print layouts. Taken in isolation, these “throwaway” panels can be kind of fun!

Panels from Blondie, 12/3/23

Here’s the panels from today’s Blondie, for instance! It sounds like they’re discussing the possibility of doing some wife swapping, but actually this just leads into a dumb bit about Christmas decorations.

Panels from Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/3/23

And here’s the panels from Snuffy Smith! Snuffy looks like he’s going to make sweet love to that radio. In fact, he’s going to listen to horse racing with some horses, which, considering how many horses die as part of the horse racing industry, is pretty grim.

Panels from Dennis the Menace, 12/3/23

On Sundays Dennis the Menace uses its throwaway panel space to do a title block, which is fine, except in this case it seems to be drawn by someone who thinks boy band members wear suits and ties, which isn’t fine at all. Anyway, the main strip is about how Mr. Wilson hates Dennis but his wife forces him to endure the child’s company.

Mary Worth, 12/3/23

For Mary Worth we need the full strip, though, so we can see that Keith and Kitty’s big smooch is interrupted by some cruel soul razzing them! I suppose the razzer is Sonia, whose anti-authoritarian streak is so strong that she calls her own mother by her first name, but it would be very funny if it were just some random acquaintance of Kitty making fun of Keith’s cartoonish physique for no good reason.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 12/3/23

Oh come on! Are you going to tell me that the whole Mirakle Method was actually stolen wholesale from this old guy, somehow? C’mon! The Method was Rene’s one accidental success! It really worked on at least one guy! You’ve got to give him this! He needs this!

Rhymes With Orange, 12/2/23

Sorry I got so worked up there, I just really care about my boy Rene. Anyway, here’s a comic strip about teen starfish having sex!

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Dennis the Menace, 11/28/23

I guess the joke here is that Dennis is too stupid to know what “Uncle Sam” means, and has mistaken this metonym for America and the federal government for one of Mr. Wilson’s actual uncles, and thinks maybe the whole financial system is based on avuncular largess? This would work better if we already knew that “Uncle Charlie” is a real uncle in his family, and who knows, maybe there was a panel published sometime in the last 62 years that establishes this, but I’m reasonably sure that when it comes to Dennis the Menace Lore Knowers I’m in the top 5%, so if this is news to me, it probably is to most other people as well.

Blondie, 11/28/23

I think this strip does a pretty good job of capturing the energy of being trapped in a small, enclosed space with a crank (and for once, Dagwood is not the crank). I particularly like the way this guy’s waving his wallet around, as if that proves something about his wife’s spending. Clearing out your bank account has nothing to do with how much cash is in your wallet, my friend! Money’s all just numbers in a computer now, for the most part. You clearly have even less of a grasp on your financial situation than you think!

Mary Worth, 11/28/23

Speaking of being trapped in a small, enclosed space with someone, Kitty and Keith are trapped in a small, enclosed space (Keith’s Jeep) romantically, as Kitty’s ride back from the stables conveniently ditched her so Keith has to give her a ride home. They’re belting out Stevie Wonders’s 1984 hit, “Love Light in Flight,” and are definitely going to fool around when they get back to Kitty’s place, which is big news for those who are rooting for these two to reconnect. I’m not one of those people — in fact, the whole prospect repulses and disgusts me — but I take seriously my mission of reporting on the comics and wanted to pass the information along to all the K/K shippers out there.