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Mary Worth, 5/9/19

Gotta appreciate the efficient storytelling in today’s Mary Worth! Estelle’s unkempt hair and vague reference to the “several” days it’s been since she heard from “Arthur” let us know that she’s entered a sort of sad fugue state, not bathing or leaving the apartment or talking to anyone other than her only mildly interested cat. I just want to point out that, now that you can get staples like CAT CHOW delivered to your door by Amazon, Estelle could keep this up for weeks, becoming a Miss Havisham of the condo complex, until Mary or Toby finally get bored with whatever they’re up to and decide to check on her.

Dustin, 5/9/19

So for those of you who aren’t, like me, getting really drawn into learning about and immediately disliking the minutia of Dustin, this lady here works at Dustin’s temp agency, and she’s always trying to find temp assignments for him but he keeps screwing them up and getting fired because ha ha millennials, amiright? Anyway, today she doesn’t like Siri because … get this … it doesn’t understand sarcasm! This joke probably would’ve landed better if we had seen her attempting to look something up sarcastically, like “Hey Siri, find me a job for my favorite client, the extremely task-oriented and reliable Dustin,” but I get that all that dialogue would take away from three solid panels of a lady looking at her phone while a dude looks at her from the other side of a desk.

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Mary Worth, 5/5/19

Some might say this is “Arthur” revealing his true face, and it is … just not the way you think. Our slovenly scammer has come to realize that Estelle will never, ever give up on him unless he makes it truly obvious that he is not and never was the man she loves. Rather than just abruptly ceasing to take her calls and leaving her bereft of both love and closure, he’s decided to make his own bad intentions as clear as possible, really leaning into the scumbaggery, in order to establish a clean break. Look at how riled up he is in that final panel! Surely such a skilled con artist would never let his emotions run away with him in the midst of his act; no, this is pure method acting, and in its own way an act of love, to help Estelle get over him as soon as possible.

Pluggers, 5/5/19

There’s exactly one tiny chair within viewing distance of that television, so I’m assuming that Henrietta Beak is unfamiliar not just with the remote but with TV generally, as her husband spends most of his waking hours sitting there while she tends to the kitchen or whatever. She’s in for a steep learning curve as she tries to find her favorite shows. “What channel is the DuMont Network? Why won’t the TV Guide tell me the schedule for this ‘Net-flicks’ channel?”

Hagar the Horrible, 5/5/19

Good Lord, in order to assuage his deep and profound loneliness, Hamlet has demanded that this pagan sorcerer pull living souls from the aether! Sure, these children will make Hamlet’s birthday more fun, but will their very presence in our world unbalance the structure of reality? Merlin, you’ve gone too far this time!

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Six Chix, 5/2/19

Hey guys, remember the Smurfs? I do! Sort of! In the sense that I know I watched the show obsessively as a kid and was super into it but honestly couldn’t really recount the plot of a single episode, but I do distinctly remember that Gargamel, the show’s primary antagonist, wants to eat the Smurfs, which I found fairly shocking as a child but honestly Gargamel was a pretty incompetent villain so he never got particularly close to achieving this goal. But these random children sure have, as part of their campfire fun! I’m not sure if that smurf in the s’murf the orange-shirted lad is proudly holding is already dead and nobody’s had the decency to close his eyes, or if he’s alive and trapped between the graham crackers, his screams muffled by the marshmallow goo holding him in place. And what about the guy just sitting there at the lower right, looking stunned? Is he drugged? Is he too frozen in terror to flee? Did he betray his friend, thinking, incorrectly, that the children would let him live? This is without question the most horrifying thing Six Chix has ever presented us with, and this is a strip that once did a joke about having sex with bigfoot.

Mary Worth, 5/2/19

Oh my goodness, “Arthur” has a dog! This changes everything. Maybe Arthur isn’t a bad man, he just needed money for his dog’s expensive operation! That fancy hotel he was staying at was just the equivalent of a Ronald McDonald House for people who need to come in from out of town to go to a high-end vet!

OK, fine, we all know this isn’t true and that Arthur is a bad man, and the way we know is by his dog’s expression of profound ennui. He’s heard all this before, man, and too many times. Sure, it pays for the kibble, but at what spiritual cost?

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 5/2/19

I was going to make a joke along the lines of “Ha ha, Snuffy’s being left alone in his cell to starve to death!” but honestly, look at how rickety that jail is. The door Sheriff Tait is walking out of isn’t even on a hinge! He’s just kind of moving it out of the way! I’m reasonably sure Snuffy will be out chicken thievin’ again before you know it.