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Archive: Mary Worth

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Friday comics, explained

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B.C., 1/17/14

Here is today’s B.C.! It’s about drugs, and about how when you do certain kinds of drugs, you get the so-called “munchies.”

Momma, 1/17/14

Here is today’s Momma! It’s about the crushing expectations imposed by outdated gender roles on a confused and uninterested younger generation. (It also may be a dick joke? Is “picky” a dick joke?)

Mary Worth, 1/17/14

Here is today’s Mary Worth! It’s about how if you love someone, you should set them free. If they come back, they’re yours; and if you suspect they might not come back, you should surreptitiously unbutton the top of your shirt and let a virile patch of hair burst forth, just to make it clear what they’ll be missing out on.

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The less said about whatever’s happening on the side of Billy’s torso, the better

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Family Circus, 1/14/14

Even though the hairstyle/mustache combo marks this out as a probable rerun from the ’70s, I have a hard time remembering ever seeing a gentleman engaged in educating the Family Circus youth before. It does seem to undermine the Natural Gender Order, which is obviously troubling! Still, today we learn why male teachers (or, as I call them, “malechers”) may actually help reach kids in ways that more typical lady-teachers can’t: Billy feels comfortable telling this guy, man-to-man, that he isn’t really very smart.

Heathcliff, 1/14/14

Let’s ignore the horror of a clearly sapient creature begging his current owner to not callously sell him to some monstrous stranger and instead ask: since Heathcliff clearly has no problem with being this pirate’s sidekick, what’s the parrot’s problem? Perhaps the pirate’s lack of a peg-leg marks him out as a poseur upon whose shoulder no self-respecting parrot would deign to sit.

Mary Worth, 1/14/14

Ken thinks that if he just arranges enough scenarios in which Mary to falls into peril from which she can only be saved by handsome actor Ken Kensington, she’ll eventually have to submit to his advances! But will she instead come to the conclusion that New York is a dangerous death trap? “Hmm, Jeff’s never saved my life … but then again, Jeff’s never had to save my life!” You’re playing a dangerous game, Kensington!

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Fly in the ointment

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Mary Worth, 1/12/14

OK, maybe Mary is feeling certain … feelings for legendary Broadwayman Ken Kensington, feelings that have never been stirred by ostensible longtime semi-boyfriend Dr. Jeff. If the introductory quote from notorious erotica writer (eroticist? erotica-ist?) Anaïs Nin isn’t enough of a clue, how about the fact that Mary is thought-ballooning about him for four straight panels? Obviously she can’t bring herself to actually visualize the act of s-e-x, but the fact that her reverie begins with a display of monstrous bones seems significant.

But is there trouble ahead for our heroine? Of course! Because Ken in panel four looks … strangely familiar:

Oh my God, Ken is really notoriously corrupt 19th century New York political boss William Tweed! The most striking difference between these two images — Tweed’s baldness — explains why “Ken”’s hair is a weird, buttery yellow: because it’s a terrible, terrible Gilded Age toupee. I’m not sure by what means Boss Tweed has hurtled himself forward to the 21st century to romance our Mary — time travel? suspended animation? chrono-witchcraft? — but it’s clear that an upstanding citizen like Mary could never get mixed up with anyone who was the object of such ire from Harper’s. Their love can never be.

Spider-Man, 1/12/14

Um, JJJ, I know it’s cool to have spent your newspaper’s copy editing budget for the year on a powerful gadget that can override a TV camera’s feed with its own video stream, but probably you could’ve just talked to the network’s producers ahead of time and set all this up in advance? Also, “FaceTime” is a registered trademark of Apple, Inc., so expect a sternly worded letter from their legal department, narration box, hyphen or no.