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Mary Worth, 3/14/13

The tale of Mary’s new neighbors, the Kinleys, is rumbling along! We’ve learned that Beth is a professional romance novelist and that her mother Elinor is mean and belittling about everything, especially how stupid the romance novel genre is (this being the market that is presumably paying for the condo that Elinor lives in, but let’s leave that aside for the moment). But today we learn that Elinor doesn’t just hate romance novels; she’s disgusted by her daughter’s failure to experience romance herself. “You know nothing about real-life romance! You’ve never felt your heart beat at the sight of your beloved! You’ve never held hands with the guy you’re going steady with down at the malt shop! You’ve never let some dude put his thingie in your hoo-hah! You’re a fraud, a disgusting fraud!”

It’s surprising, really, that someone with a supportive mother like Elinor hasn’t been able to work up any kind of romantic self-confidence. Anyway, we all know, of course, that Beth is going to fall under the spell of depressed shut-in divorce Tom Harpan. The key question is: will Beth move into Tom’s apartment, probably several yards away from where Elinor will be staying? Or will they all live together in mutual animosity, to cut down on costs?

Gasoline Alley, 3/14/11

Meanwhile, the battle for the rights to sex up this donkey, for love or money, continues! It’s only Thursday, so you’ve got at least two more days of this horrorshow.

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Mark Trail, 3/9/13

OK, fine, I’ve been ignoring it all week, but yes, Rusty was snooping around Rod Bassy’s van and saw the cheating-at-fishing equipment and got caught and now has been tied up, and, I mean, it’s hilarious and all but it’s not exactly a surprise, is it? The best part here is that Rod Bassy is reacting to the fact that his friend/accomplice Catfish has, you know, forcibly kidnapped a child with irritation that this will complicate his plan to rig the outcome of yet another bass fishing tournament, rather than with mounting panic and despair a là William H. Macy in Fargo. I mean, really, the tied-up little boy is in a van with Rod’s name painted in enormous letters on the side! You know, there’s a reason child kidnappers usually use vehicles without distinguishing marks.

Mary Worth, 3/9/13

Carlos Alora is the Charterstone groundskeeper and he hasn’t been seen in years, like, not since I started reading this strip in 2002 or thereabouts. Now they’re misspelling his name, which is more insulting than just dropping him down the memory hole. JUSTICE FOR CARLOS! WE CAN HEAR THE DOUBLE L WHEN YOU PRONOUNCE IT, MARY!

Shoe, 3/9/13

Man, can you believe it’s been four years since the rebooted Star Trek movie came out? Which means it’s probably been about three and a half years that Shoe’s been sitting on this joke, but now at last it’s relevant! Wasn’t it worth the wait? (No, no it wasn’t.)

Six Chix, 3/9/13

“Good lord, that was a filthy fuckfest, in every sense of the word! I had sex with a lot of men that weekend, but your father was the only one whose name I learned. Of course, that was only after we had done it five or six times. Hey, where are you going?”

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Spider-Man, 3/6/13

We make fun of Newspaper Spider-Man as a character here a lot, and for entirely justified reasons. But we must save some pity for the other characters exiled to the Newspaper Spider-Man universe as well! Take for instance the Kingpin, whose main villainous super-characteristic seems to be his bulk. In a fair comic-book universe, he might be expected to display his displeasure by, say, theatrically bending an iron bar in half or something; instead, he’s reduced to busting up his entirely ordinary white-collar workstation. Tune in tomorrow when Ted King, assistant director of the accounts receivables department, must sheepishly ask IT for a new keyboard!

Mary Worth, 3/6/13

I think we can say with a certain degree of confidence that Nice But Nervous-Looking Lady Moving Into 3E will end up helping Tom Harpman forget his ex-wife and love again, despite the arbitrary disapproval of Mean-Faced Old Lady Also Moving Into 3E Who Is Probably Nice But Nervous-Looking Lady’s Mother. Still, I think it would be great if this were an entirely new storyline, and the Tale of Tom Harpman were at nine days the shortest Mary Worth plot on record. “Turns out the guy keeps to himself because he’s sad and divorced. Likes soup, though. Let’s never talk about him again. So, how about Apartment 3E, right?”

Edge City, 3/6/13

I have significantly less tolerance for dwelling on Edge City’s obsessive neurotic antics than Uncle Lumpy does, but I do admit a certain queasy fascination with seeing how explicit this “the characters explore B&D” storyline will get, so, here you go: obsessive neurotic Abby Ardin tops from the bottom.

Pluggers, 3/6/13

Plugger diversity is when a bunch of different brands of tires are owned by white people.