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Mary Worth, 7/24/18

Sorry I haven’t updated you on Mary Worth in a bit, but rest assured that what was happening like two weeks ago — Tommy thought-ballooning about how his girlfriend is eventually going to find out about his terrible past — has continued happening with absolutely no dramatic forward motion of any kind. This remained true yesterday, and since Monday is the traditional day for new plots to being in soap opera strips, I have to imagine that today’s action pertains to the Tommy-Brandy storyline somehow — but how? Who is the mysterious figure helping Mary pick up her canned tomatoes? Why is Mary buying tomatoes? How can she maintain her taupe-to-ecru food spectrum if she’s putting tomatoes in things? Let’s all tune in tomorrow to find out!

Blondie, 7/24/18

Mr. Dithers letting Dagwood get a glimpse of the poor old man he’s kept enslaved for the last 30 years is a real power move that you have to respect! I also note that Steadfaster’s weird hairstyle looks kind of like Dagwood’s, so maybe this is supposed to be a threatening look into his future? He also looks vaguely like the villain in the 1983 Doctor Who serial Mawdryn Undead, so there’s that:

I have to assume this is a coincidence, because part of the vibe I get from Blondie involves extreme hostility to nerd shit of any kind.

Crankshaft, 7/24/18

Usually when Crankshaft makes his terrible wordplay, he’s glaring at his interlocutor/victim with dead-eyed hostility, so I guess this in some marginal way can be considered an “improvement.”

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Spider-Man, 7/14/18

Yesterday’s Newspaper Spider-Man provided the kind of pulse-pounding drama we’ve come to expect from Newspaper Spider-Man, which is to say that it featured Peter Parker, whose powers are beyond those of ordinary human beings, dozing off on the couch. But it wasn’t just a one-off gag! No, it was to set up today’s strip, in which Robbie calls Peter with a hot tip about the Iron Fist. Isn’t it more dramatic that the phone call through which this hot tip was conveyed woke Peter up??? I mean, marginally, I guess. There are other ways it could’ve been done, though. Maybe Robbie could’ve spun around dramatically in his chair right before he said “Iron Fist”? Just spitballin’ here.

Mary Worth, 7/14/18

Ah, yes, the seemingly unstoppable Tommy-Brandy Romance Express is hitting its first hairpin turn: Brandy is emotionally scarred by a bad dad whose problems sound a litte too much like Tommy’s until-really-quite-recently-active problems! And, as he’s a true acolyte of Mary Worth, Tommy is deploying her patented techniques for dealing with a painful past, and is just urging Brandy to just not remember anything bad her dad did, so, problem solved! Now all he has to do is will her with his mind into never asking anything about his own past, so that she’ll be satisfied with the idea of him as someone who spontaneously appeared as an adult in the supermarket where they work together, and everything should be smooth sailing!

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Curtis, 7/10/18

Curtis and Barry discover Michelle’s camgirl site with Zoom stuck at 400%.

Between Friends, 7/10/18

Obsessive neurotic Susan has vague memories of her former life.

Funky Winkerbean, 7/10/18

NARRATOR VOICE: “Their book was never nominated.”

Also, dearie, it’s called a “spit take,” not a “nod take” — you sip the coffee first; you don’t stick your damn nose in it. Any self-respecting Eisner nominee would know this.

Judge Parker, 7/10/18

Abbey has willed a gallows into existence in Sam’s office. Tread lightly, Sam!

Mary Worth, 7/10/18

Tommy has discovered the one person in Santa Royale who’s more of an emotional wreck than he is. I hear wedding bells!

Sally Forth, 7/10/18

Girl fight Girl fight GIRL FIGHT!!!

OK, that’s the actual joke; I just couldn’t help myself.

— Uncle Lumpy