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Mary Worth, 3/17/16

What do you think the story is with that all-blue-clad guy in panel two? How irritated do you think he is that his nighttime (?) reverie and his plan to stare at the ocean and the setting (??) moon (???) for hours have been interrupted by Mary and Jeff drunkenly stumbling up the boardwalk shouting at each other about how great Mary is at fixing people’s problems? Do you think he know how much those pants flatter his ass? (Based on the pose he’s striking, I’m guessing yes.)

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/17/16

Haha, whoops, it seems noted local pinhead Franco Wallace is only bad-mouthing his ex’s house so that she can’t sell it, because if she sells it, she’ll move away and he’ll never see her again! Rex’s facial expression in panel three gives you a pretty good sense of what he thinks of human beings and their so-called “emotions.”

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Six Chix, 3/15/16

Hey, remember how these goldfish used to have a friend, but he escaped from the bowl, only to die in agony while they watched? We all learned a valuable lesson that day about never trying to go beyond the bounds of your everyday life, no matter how constricting they seem. Anyway, today we also learn that even we stay safe in our home, we’ll eventually die, mostly due to our own flaws, which we can neither control nor overcome.

Mary Worth, 3/15/16

Oh, so now Mary and Jeff are just, uh, rehashing the basic concept of the strip? Did Mary Worth get picked up by a new paper for the first time in years? “Shit,” they’re saying down at Mary Worth HQ, “do we gotta … explain how this thing works?” [Blows dust off a manila folder labelled SO YOU JUST STARTED READING MARY WORTH]

Dennis the Menace, 3/15/16

OK, so, I suppose a child asking another child if she has a signature cocktail is mildly menacing, but let’s talk about that uniform. I guess it’s supposed to be a Girl Scout uniform, but it in no way resembles what Girl Scouts actually wear. If Margaret is starting her own neighborhood paramilitary group, that’s gonna take menacing to a whole new level.

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Mary Worth, 3/10/16

You’d think that after eleven and a half years of literally commenting on soap opera comic strips for a living, I’d be inured to their narrative quirks by now, but honestly, it never gets old to me how weird they are. Years ago somebody told me that continuity strips are written so that people who only read them two or three times a week (i.e., most people who read them, probably) can still follow the storylines more or less, which explains the glacial pacing, the constant repetition of points, and straight-up time-filling strips like today’s, in which Mary and Jeff take time out to explain to one of the Bum Boat’s employees how much they love the Bum Boat. It’s the sort of weird dialogue that in another context I would assume was paid product placement; but, of course, no actual restaurant would bother to pay for placement in Mary Worth, though a restaurant that did might be so cluelessly marketed that it would be named something like “the Bum Boat.” Anyway, Jerry is no doubt tired of Jeff and Mary’s shtick, but he knows he’s got to hide his contempt if he wants that sweet, sweet 12.5% tip.

Crankshaft, 3/10/16

Let’s ignore the ostensible plot action here and just focus on how delightfully angry Rose looks in panel one. She probably only has the vaguest idea of what’s going on or who this young woman is, but that isn’t stopping her from thinking “Fuck these people. Fuck all of these people.”