Archive: Mary Worth

Post Content

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!

Post Content

Mary Worth, 1/14/17

OH SNAP GUYS THIS IS A METAPHOR! A metaphor for Iris’s current romantic dilemma, where she has to choose between Zak and Wilbur! It might not be obvious at first, but once you look at the details I think you’ll find it’s pretty clear:

  • Zak is a simple grad student without much money, so his activities with Iris will be limited to things like bowling and cheap concerts for local bands. Iris is satisfied by her sexual encounters with Zak so consistently that they’ve almost become routine.
  • Wilbur, meanwhile can afford the go-go world travelling lifestyle that only a lucrative syndicated newspaper columnist career can subsidize, voyaging to exotic Antarctica and Japan on a whim. However, due to Wilbur’s age and constant mayonnaise consumption, his heart could go at any time, meaning that any relationship with him could lack longevity. Zak, by contrast, is healthy and twenty years younger than Iris, and thus unlikely to predecease her.

It seems like a difficult choice! I don’t envy her!

Hi and Lois, 1/14/17

I really appreciate the amount of care that’s been put into the accoutrements of Thirsty’s sloth here. I’m particularly fond of the fact that there are two sock but only one shoe in evidence, that there’s a can of PBR on the floor and pint and shot glasses on the coffee table (no coasters, natch), and that there are multiple books strewn about, since just because you’re a slob doesn’t mean you’re a philistine. But the best for sure is Thirsty’s big smile as he naps on the Flagston’s couch. He hasn’t been this happy in years!

Gil Thorp, 1/14/17

“Aaron, your teammates overheard you talking about taking drugs. This is extremely serious.”

“But what if … I don’t offer you any explanation, and you wait until the end of the week when I reveal the truth in a dramatic fashion at the game against our biggest conference rival?”

“Enh, that’ll work.”

Marvin, 1/14/17

Ha ha! It’s funny because Jeff is happy to let Marvin stew in his own feces, as long as he doesn’t have to smell it!

Post Content

Hey guys, a couple reminders/updates for you re: the new site design:

  • There’s a new site design! Please email me at jfruh@jfruh.com if you see any problems. Faithful Web designer Adam Norwood and I are working on fixing some layout issues in older browsers; we’ve implemented some suggested changes, like tightening the spaces in the comments and bolding commenter names, and are plotting some more.
  • For $3 a month, you can now become a Comics Curmudgeon Supporter! Click here for details, but the short version is you get an ad-free version of the site and advanced commenting features. Your credit card will be charged once a month and can cancel any time.
  • Speaking of memberships, we fixed a bug where when you signed up your default commenting name was your real name — now it defaults to the user name you chose. (Older users still have to switch manually, apologies! You can do so by clicking on “your profile” at the top of the screen.)

That’s it for now! Enjoy, and email me with bug reports which we’ll hop on, and feature requests which we’ll consider!

Mary Worth, 1/12/17

It’s sad to me that Iris was so mortified by her inappropriate dress for that concert that Zak had to spend all his time consoling her and complimenting her outfit rather than really cutting loose and dancing to the stylings of “Maggio Nollaig” (a name that I haven’t mentioned here before but I swear to God I didn’t make up). Or maybe he means “dance” in a more specialized way. Like, maybe he means “flail about the severed arm of my enemy, which is definitely what you’re seeing at the bottom of panel two, since there’s no way that hand is connected to my body.”

Dennis the Menace, 1/12/17

It’s time to ask ourselves: who’s the real menace in the idyllic suburban neighborhood where the Mitchells and Wilsons live? Is it the innocent young boy who means well but who, like many his age, doesn’t have much of a filter or an understanding of social niceties? Or is George “Single Bead Of Rage-Sweat” Wilson, a bitter old man perpetually on the verge of an explosion, willing to take out his bottomless supply of rage on his wife, the neighbors, or even hapless robots who make the mistake of calling his home?