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Mary Worth, 1/22/17

Hmm, some interesting mixed messages being sent by Mary Worth today. On the one hand, Dostoyevsky urges us to resist the urge to try to cater to popular opinion, implying we should follow our hearts, enjoying sexy times with hot younger dudes no matter how much our ex-ish-boyfriends’ daughters might disapprove. On the other hand, the final panel reveals that Iris is feeling some regrets, or at least has chosen to end the evening by settling into bed not with her sexy young lover, but rather a laptop with its browser pointed to www.giantpictureofwilburweston.com. Watch out, Zak!

Pluggers, 1/22/17

A grandpa plugger’s bucket list will never be completed … because they will never die, thanks to their awesome power of astromancy! THE BEAST-MAN WHO NAMES AND CONTROLS THE STARS IS THE BEAST-MAN WHO LIVES FOREVER, AS PROPHECY FORETOLD

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Gil Thorp, 1/18/17

Ahahahaha, I fully predicted this dumb plot twist in Gil Thorp! This reminds me of the time I successfully predicted that Gil’s ex-girlfriend would go back to teaching high school as a reality-show stunt, or that the nerdlinger basketball student manager was giving one of the players placebo adderall. I’m not sure which explanation is more unsettling: that I have a strange, psychic connection to Gil Thorp, or that, despite the fact that the “twists” in the strip’s plots are hilariously transparent, I’ve still spent a significant portion of my adult life to parsing the details with the same attention that a yeshiva scholar would dedicate to the Talmud.

Mary Worth, 1/18/17

I also predicted that Iris and Dawn would encounter each other at this dance party, but failed to predict that Dawn’s outfit would get even more hilarious below the shoulders. Is that a … romper? Or an overall dress? An overall dress with giant buckles? The crucifix is a nice touch, too. Is this … goth? Is Dawn goth? Or did she get bitten by a radioactive Hot Topic or something?

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/18/17

Well, well, well, it looks like the residents of Hootin’ Holler consider forcing animals to fight for their amusement to be shameful an’ illegal, but consider forcing them to race for their amusement to be A-OK? That’s an interesting moral distinction that’s … uh, shared by society at large, so never mind, carry on.

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Mary Worth, 1/17/17

Ha ha ha oh my God Dawn and Harlan are making a very strong bid to reclaim the crown of #1 Age-Mismatched Pair In Mary Worth Who Are Probably Having Sex! You of course remember Harlan as Dawn’s substitute Art History professor who fed her some line about the mind and the body and then invited her to a private, one-on-one yoga session at his apartment and then took her to look at erotic art and then Dawn assured Wilbur he wasn’t taking advantage of her but Dawn’s friends cruelly bullied her so Dawn agreed to see a movie with them and so now they leave her alone about it. Anyway, since then their relationship has clearly advanced well into “let’s wear entirely insane clothes in public together, dance sweatily, and drink” territory! The neck jewelry alone here puts panel one into the Mary Worth Panel Hall Of Fame in my opinion, though Harlan’s is riding so low it’s more like shoulder jewelry (is that … like, a chain you’d put on snow tires?). Do you think Dawn consciously chose to wear suspenders/overalls (can’t tell from this angle, but either option is hilarious) to mirror the awesome stripes on Harlan’s shirt, or are the two of them just that aesthetically in sync?

The real excitement here will come when these two twosomes encounter each other, since Dawn is of course the daughter of the man whose relationship with Iris is currently “on a break.” I imagine the two women’s eyes locking across the room, and both of them wordlessly assuring each other that what happens at Disco Night at Santa Royale’s second-most popular all-ages club while Wilbur is in Antarctica stays at Disco Night at Santa Royale’s second-most popular all-ages club while Wilbur is in Antarctica.

Mark Trail, 1/17/17

Oh good, it looks like Mark’s going to spend the week after the end of the volcano storyline explaining away all of said storyline’s logical inconsistencies! Tomorrow we’ll tackle “volcanic atolls are inevitably extinct,” Thursday will be for “the active front of the volcanic Hawaiian range is southeast of the Big Island, hundreds of miles from Kauai,” Friday we can do “what was the deal with that temple, anyway,” and then we can spend the weekend discussing Woods & Wildlife Magazine’s revenue model.

Judge Parker, 1/17/17

Oh, right, this whole thing started when Sophie tried to seduce Derek by taking guitar lessons from him, didn’t it? Anyway, this Judge Parker storyline should be a lesson to teens everywhere: your so-called “rock star” heroes make playing the guitar look cool, but in fact learning to play will inevitably lead to your mysterious kidnapping. Stay in school, kids!