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Mary Worth, 8/4/15

I’ve gone through a lot of fads and obsessions over the eleven (!) years I’ve been writing this blog, but Mary Worth is, and always has been, my lodestar. A quick peek at my stats shows that fully a quarter of the posts I’ve ever written discuss this strip. And you know what? It deserves all the attention. Today’s strip, in two efficient panels, encapsulates everything great about it: the overblown narration box, the crazy dutch angles in panel one as Ian pulls his hair out in consternation, and Toby’s twisted rage-face making her look like she’s planning on slitting Ian’s throat with that X-Acto knife. All this drama, of course, is turning on a relatively minor dispute, which could be resolved in one of several wholly acceptable ways — Ian could apologize and reschedule, Ian could cook something simple himself, Ian could explain his own error and ask the University Director what kind of takeout he’d like. But no, the Camerons have mutually and angrily decided to spin a terrible web of lies, in which Toby will attempt to pass off restaurant takeout food as her own, for literally no good reason at all. We can only hope this all unravels terribly and violently over dinner and Ian’s quest for academic advancement is ruined, ruined, but no matter what I am salivating to see what comes next, just as Ian probably is at the thought of takeout food.

Judge Parker, 8/4/15

Judge Parker’s joys are more subtle, but still worth savoring. Obviously when Sam’s close personal new friend (with whom he will never interact again, not once) gave him a skeet gun as a gift, it was a $20,000 Italian skeet gun. Unlike Sophie, I have no desire to Google anything about skeet gun models or their cost or nation of manufacture, so I’m just going to enjoy Sam’s rapid change of heart between panels one and two. “Hey, Sophie, this’ll be a chance for us to bond, and … wait, it cost how much? Yeah, keep your grubby hands off my high-quality, luxurious gun.”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/4/15

Speaking of class war, I too like my whiskey neat, and one of my go-to jokes about that is to say “in a glass” when people ask me how I like it — a joke I will now immediately stop making after seeing an addled British aristocrat say it in a soap opera comic strip. I’m pretty sure our put-upon servant is wearing gloves so that he doesn’t leave prints when he eventually throttles Avery.

Hi and Lois, 8/4/15

Having Lois’s head stick appear in front of the bottom of Dot’s word balloon is an interesting visual choice, but the fact that said word balloon covers up the house shutters makes it look like Lois is sticking her head right through that window. Anyway, I’m focusing on this minutia because I don’t want to deal with the fact that Hi and Lois’s long marriage is riddled with lies and deception.

Pluggers, 8/4/15

GOD DAMN IT PLUGGERS I’M NOT A HUGE FAN OF THE BIG BANG THEORY OR ANYTHING BUT IT’S BEEN ONE OF THE HIGHEST-RATED SHOWS ON TV FOR EIGHT YEARS. THERE’S NO WAY IT CAN BE DESCRIBED AS “THE LATEST” ANYTHING. EIGHT GODDAMN YEAAAAARRRRRSSSS

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Mary Worth, 7/31/15

Uh oh, looks like Ian’s plan to have Toby cook his boss dinner has hit its first snag: Toby has no desire to cook Ian’s boss dinner! That’s because Toby is not some young trophy wife who lounges around the condo pool gossipping with Mary all day while living off her husband’s posh academic salary; she’s an artist who Ian snatched away from the Greenwich Village scene to sterile southern California exurbia, and her creative urges still need an outlet. It appears that she’s moved away from the tiny paintings of her New York days to a new medium: tiny sculptures lovingly crafted then put on a shelf in her studio to be admired by nobody. Actually, that white lab coat makes her look more like a scientist, and she appears to be sculpting a tiny replica of Blucifer, the giant horse statue with glowing red eyes outside Denver Airport that literally killed its creator, so maybe she’s doing research on how to harness its evil powers. Better take Hilton out to dinner Ian! Better take him out to dinner … forever.

Dennis the Menace, 7/31/15

“The meaning here is that he’s literally wrecking our home, to be specific. He’s not breaking up a marriage by seducing anyone’s spouse, which is the usual meaning of the phrase. Just wanted to be really clear on that. Why would I even bring that up? He’s a child! I, uh, I really should walk this back, shouldn’t I.”

Family Circus, 7/31/15

The best part of this installment in the current “Keanes go to Disney World” sequence isn’t that Billy is being a moron; it’s that he seems to be all by himself, far from the hubbub of the main areas of the park. It’s as if his parents lured him to this out-of-the-way section, said, “Look, Billy, it says ‘PUSH’ in big letters! It’s very important that someone push it!”, and then ran away as soon as he was distracted.

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Apartment 3-G, 7/30/15

I’ve said nothing but mean things about Apartment 3-G for months now, so I’ll offer some tentative, half-assed praise today: I think Lu Ann and Tommie’s outfits are bizarrely charming? I mean, the glory days of their dumb makeover is long in the past and we’re going to be stuck with “cardigans or maybe suit jackets over turtlenecks” for the foreseeable future, but I like the colors! The bright, bold colors! It’s like a cult uniform, but with pizzazz, you know?

Blondie, 7/30/15

Yes, maybe not everyone is that interested in seeing a man eat the same meal over and over again. It may seem extreme that anyone would invent time-travel and risk a temporal paradox inside his own digestive system to do this, but consider the alternatives.

Mary Worth, 7/30/15

Ian seems rather desperate to convince his widowed boss to move into Charterstone for reasons we can only guess at, and will apparently stop at nothing to make this happen. Will a three-way with Toby seal the deal? He’s got a solid couple hours to talk her into it!

Judge Parker, 7/30/15

Now, probably you’re thinking, “Oh, Sam and Abbey bought this RV for a song, probably they’re about to make yet more undeserved and unneeded cash on the deal!” But the truth is they’ve already profited handily from securitizing their interest in the vehicle and selling RV-backed tranches to overseas investors. Honestly it’s going to be something of a pain in the ass to wind all those deals up when they unload the actual physical asset.