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Mary Worth, 6/22/11

Today’s Mary Worth brings us a valuable lesson on how to enjoy Mary Worth — and indeed, explains one of the reasons why Mary Worth enjoys being Mary Worth. Variety is the spice of life, and thus every meddle is different. If they were all the same, what joy or texture would there be in Mary interfering in the lives of her hapless victims? No, she doesn’t know until she’s in the thick of it whether the meddlees will need to literally drink themselves into the gutter before they’re receptive to Mary’s life-molding or whether they’ll just burst into open sobbing and oversharing the minute she asks her first gingerly probing questions. Do you think Mary’s taken aback that Liza has opened up so easily? Don’t worry, Mary, I feel confident that there’s an emotional roller-coaster of insanity in your future, as Liza imprints on you as her new guru/love object and refuses let you out of her sight.

Family Circus, 6/22/11

The fact that very long-running strips reuse art and even whole gags is obviously not news. Certainly today’s Family Circus panel, which features the red-headed children dully staring at an enormous console TV that they’re way too close to has the vibe of decades-old art, although for all I know it could have been drawn last month (but surely that would have been a terrible waste of effort?). Anyway, it got me thinking about how there must be endless material to be mined from dead-eyed Keane Kids watching television and saying vaguely cute/precocious things about it, so look for this panel to appear again and again, long after most Americans have forgotten that “televisions” used to be a distinct piece of free-standing electronic equipment, rather than a series of screens built into every wall of every home, switching on and off as you moved from room to room, making sure you were never without entertainment.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/22/11

Have you ever seen a movie or TV show where somebody interacts with the main characters without speaking, even though that seems kind of off? Once an actor starts talking, they move up to a whole different pay scale, so generally there’s some financial reasoning behind it. Comic strips don’t really work on the same economic logic, though, so that doesn’t explain why Sullen McMaybepregnant here silently thrusts a note a Les before stalking off. Presumably she’s disgusted beyond words that the entire school has been inexplicably driven into a frenzy of arousal by the Les-on-Susan smooching pic that’s been making the rounds.

The Lockhorns, 6/22/11

Oh, isn’t that cute! Despite it all, Loretta still believes that Leroy will become a beautiful butterfly. I hope he does too, in the sense that I hope that his squat, misshapen husk of a body will one day split open, revealing an enormous, terrifying insect within.

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Apartment 3-G, 6/20/11

“I just rented the car” may be Margo’s best ever scheme for distancing herself from a nice gesture offered to one of her so-called friends. “Look, Lu Ann, Tommie’s the one who remembered that today was your birthday, remembered that you still lived with us, and realized you were dumb enough to want to go to the ‘psychic center of the state,’ whatever the hell that means. At first I thought it was the ‘psychotic center of the state’ and I was afraid this was some conspiracy to get me to visit my crazy stepmother in the loony bin, but I’ve been assured that this is some new age mumbo jumbo that won’t result in me being shot at, or hugged. Anyway, long story short, turns out Tommie doesn’t have a driver’s license — every time the DMV guy running the test starts asking questions, she bursts into tears — and you can’t take a cab or a subway to this shithole, so I got guilted into driving. I’ll be waiting out here thinking about something else while you commune with the spirits in there or whatever. And no hugging!”

Archie, 6/20/11

More proof that these Archies are reruns: a modern-day strip would probably feel a need to spin this into some kind of joke about writing things on Facebook walls that would only prove that nobody involved in creating the strip has ever actually used Facebook; but back in simpler times, we were instead just treated to Archie wrapping his pillow around the Veronica-signed yearbook, the better to use it as a masturbatory aid. Also of note are the industrial strength brackets on Jughead’s suspenders, which demonstrate how difficult it is the hold up the pants of someone who has absolutely no hips to speak of.

Mary Worth, 6/20/11

Mary looks like a contemplative lowland gorilla in panel two, and no wonder: she’s confronting a situation that gives rise to contradictory meddling impulses. On the one hand, she’s already been tasked with the job of meddling Liza out of Drew’s life (and, with any luck, out of town altogether); on the other, when confronted with a hysterically weeping woman in a bathroom stall, her urge is to help solve that woman’s problem, which is why she spends so much time hanging around public restrooms in the first place. Will her desire to fix everyone’s life override her goal of making things right for her not-boyfriends layabout son?

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 6/20/11

Elviney is of course Hootin’ Holler’s most unrepentant gossip, but laughing in poor deluded Hassie’s face seems a little cruel even for her.

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Mary Worth, 6/19/11

“When?” we’ve all been calling out, for weeks now, as poor Drew has the living daylights stalked out of him by Liza. “When will the meddling start? When?” Well, this is where it starts: “Drew … let me see what I can do.” Think of the all the horror passing through Mary’s vast and cool and unsympathetic unsympathetic intellect during that ellipsis. Being cruel to Liza is not an option for Drew, but he’s not afraid to farm the cruelty out. He may be off to Vietnam at the end of this thing anyway, just to avoid the carnage.

Panels from Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/19/11

Every Rex Morgan storyline begins with awesome supporting characters before eventually petering out into dullness, and this one is no exception. I’m already falling in love pretty hard with this bickering mother-daughter pair with bad emotional boundaries. Check out those icily arched eyebrows and model-quality cheekbones! I certainly hope that one of the promised loser boyfriends show up at an inappropriate time to the consternation of everyone, especially Rex.

Panel from Beetle Bailey, 6/19/11

Meanwhile, Sarge has been possessed by demons.