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Mary Worth, 5/23/12

ROMANCE TIP: If you accidentally run into girl you just dumped over e-mail while grocery shopping with the girl you dumped her for, be sure to keep a death grip on girl number two, to ensure that you appear to girl number one as a walking Facebook profile picture of radiant happiness. To twist the knife further, be sure to tell girl number one that she “looks good” while basically shoving the much better looking girl number two in her face. At least, I’m assuming that Paula is supposed to be better looking than Dawn? This is Mary Worth, where everyone is hideously ugly, but Dawn is looking especially like a big-headed alien wearing a terrible wig, so probably that’s a good bet.

Funky Winkerbean, 5/23/12

“The compromise you proposed — that same-sex couples be allowed to attend the prom, so long as their faces and identities remain hidden behind the battlements of this Castle of Gayness — was really visionary. I’d love to show the pictures to my future children, if we were allowed to be photographed!”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/23/12

Remember, kids, with tiny bottles of liquor from your mini-bar, you can turn anyplace into your personal Tranquility Room!

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Gil Thorp and Funky Winkerbean, 5/21/12

So it looks like the cross shape on Tasha’s neck that I dismissed as a shadow a few weeks back is … an elaborate cross neck tattoo after all? Which I find just a touch unrealistic, as it seems to me that any parent who thinks that “teen mother bringing her child to important events in her life” is the moral equivalent to “whore-monster seducing innocents to sluttery” wouldn’t be particularly high on her own daughter getting a large, highly visible tattoo, even if it celebrates the Lord. From this strip it looks like it might be just a big chunky earring, but take a look at the strip from a few weeks ago and explain to me how it’s supposed to be attached to anything but her neck.

Still, as ham-handed as Tasha’s mother’s disapproval is, at least the student at the center of this teen-morality plot has a name and personality and is in fact at the center of this teen-morality plot, unlike the poor gay teens of Funky Winkerbean, who exist solely to help Becky’s dad finally stand up to his wife and life companion of many years, who is awful and everyone hates her. Congrats, nameless gay teens! You may have briefly been the target of unjustified opprobrium, but you suffered that criticism to help prompt the straight father of a straight main character find his voice, and use that voice to yell at his wife in front of everyone. Savor this victory, none will be sweeter!

Mary Worth, 5/21/12

Oh, man, Mary’s world tour of self-congratulation is in full effect! Here’s Howie and Carm, whose problem wasn’t even interesting enough to merit a Mary Worth plot (and let that sink in for a second) but who have apparently popped up to make it clear that, even though we readers aren’t necessarily privy to all of Mary’s comings and goings, we should rest assured that she’s selflessly helping others at all times, even if we can’t see her.

If this were an ancient Greek tragedy (and given that most ancient Greek tragedies ended in horrific carnage, I dearly wish it were), all this Mary-congratulation would only be serving to reinforce her hubris. This would be followed by atë, the action taken by the hero that leads to her downfall. In this case, Mary, drunk with power and believing her meddling to be infallible, will run eagerly into the immovable object that is Dawn Weston’s love life.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/19/12

Uh-oh, in her sad and futile attempt to finally get ahead of Rex in their ongoing dickishness contest, June has gone a little off-script when it comes to her more immediate task, namely keeping Iris off the sauce. “Hey, Iris, you sure look pretty in that funeral dress! Good thing, too, since you need to wear it all the time, seeing as everyone you ever loved keeps dying. It doesn’t show off your rack to the same advantage that mine does, of course, but then what would, right?”

Spider-Man, 5/19/12

Thanks, Newspaper Spider-Man, for neatly encapsulating your narrative philosophy for new readers. “I don’t need any amazing, exciting powers beyond those of ordinary humans to dislike that creep! Sullen, baseless jealousy will be the engine of this plot, not a superheroic battle to save mankind!”

Pluggers, 5/19/12

An archaic, failing bureaucracy is pretty much the only thing tethering pluggers to the mainstream of human society, and once that tether snaps, things are gonna get real depressing real quick.

Mary Worth, 5/19/12

The sad thing about the awkward, violent gesture in panel one is that Wilbur thinks it’s a hug.