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Mary Worth, 5/4/12

Oooh, it’s a surprise wedding! This rates about a 3 in “actual surprise revelations” but maybe as high as an 8 in “surprise revelations that one might reasonably expect in a Mary Worth plotline.” Still, as our heroine gasps in three-part harmony with other guests, does it look like her beaming smile from the first panel has crumpled a bit? I mean, she’s just been denied a host of wedding-related meddling pleasures: she’ll have no opportunities to give passive-aggressive advice to Gina, first hinting that she’s spending too much and then implying that she’s being cheap; she won’t have time to perfectly calibrate her gift choice so that the couple will hate it but still feel awkward returning it; she’ll barely have time to ask prying questions to their families and find out the deep-seated emotional problems that will lead to their inevitable divorce in 18 to 36 months. C’mon, Mary, start working the room, now! We are running out of time.

Blondie, 5/4/12

I’m going to do my best to avoid contemplating Dagwood’s phallic torso, though I will give kudos to the syndicate coloring drones for reading enough of the dialogue to make his shirt green. I do find it pretty funny that Elmo can just wander into the Bumsteads’ house with his friends, like Dagwood is some weird, exotic pet that he’s letting them look at.

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Mary Worth, 4/29/12

The greatest thing about Mary Worth … wait, no, scratch that, there are so many great things about Mary Worth, how can I be expected to choose? Ahem, let me start over. One of the great things about Mary Worth is how each storyline begins with limitless possibilities of amazingness. These are generally swept away by a tide of painful boring, but it’s fun to imagine at the beginning where it’ll go, and once in a while you do get an Aldo-style payoff. Anyway, right now I’m hoping that against all odds the Gina-Bobby star-crossed love story will suddenly become an Agatha Christie-style locked room mystery in this mysterious mansion. “Is all this yours?” “Ha-ha … no! It belongs to a friend of ours, mysterious benefactor who specifically requested that we gather a demographically heterogeneous group of people, each with a dark secret that will come out at some point during the proceedings, for a ‘special announcement!'”

Your first clue: this Long Island manse has the Spanish-tile roof that we see everywhere in Mary’s West Coast home. Did she ever really leave California at all? Or did her flight out, which was full of trippy visuals, all happen in her own head? Prepare to have your mind blown at the shocking conclusion! Or maybe Bobby and Gina will just announce their engagement at their friend’s house and then Mary will go back home, that seems more likely.

Marvin, 4/29/12

Whatever you think about Marvin’s relentless and repulsive obsessions, you have to credit the strip for using the entire space the Sunday format provides to set up this “Marvin enjoys wetting himself” joke.

Hi and Lois, 4/29/12

Hi and Lois sure has been leaning heavily late on the Thirsty and Irma sure do hate each other schtick. That all ends today in spectacular fashion as Irma beats her husband to death with a broom handle, while a horrified Lois watches and tries to figure out how not to be arrested as an accessory to murder.

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Spider-Man, 4/27/12

Here is me getting you up to speed on the current Spider-Man plot: Peter went with MJ to a cast meeting for her play, and her co-star showed up on crutches, and said he had a freak accident in which he fell down the stairs (“almost felt like someone pushed me!”). I half-expected Peter to be enlisted to replace him, but then the stuff you see above happened, which makes almost as little sense. Don’t Broadway productions as a rule have understudies for the major roles? Can anyone just wander in off the street and secure a part in a stage play if they’re desperate enough? Is MJ’s play actually a comedy? Would anyone with even a slight sense of what might make someone a bankable comedic actor use the name “Hardy Laurel”? Are we expected to be surprised when it turns out that Hardy Laurel is the guy who pushed MJ’s co-star down the stairs, using some kind of boring superpower, and that Spider-Man will have to defeat him in a half-assed fashion?

Mark Trail, 4/27/12

Honestly, you can’t blame those “drug guys” for their violent anger at Ranger Tom. I mean, if you had spent a hot afternoon harvesting marijuana with a pirate cutlass and some fat-cat government bureaucrat who had been sitting on his ass all day started whining about being thirsty, you’d want him to shut up too.

Mary Worth, 4/27/12

I’m sure as a cabbie you get inured to the inane conversational stylings of your passengers, but I do find Mary’s choices here kind of puzzling. This “special announcement” is frankly the most interesting thing you’ve got in this anecdote, Mary! Why are you holding it in thought-balloon reserve?