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Mary Worth, 5/31/11

I ran into a friend of mine at the supermarket yesterday and he asked me, because I’m “that guy” now, what was new in the comics, and because I embrace my role as “that guy,” I started waxing rhapsodic about the stalkertastic action in Mary Worth, and for the first time it really occurred to me that the strip may be actively trying to recapture the stalky magic of Aldomania 2006. They’re going to have to really amp up the crazy to top that legendary storyline, of course, but today’s installment is promising. Liza will apparently go to any length to prevent Drew from breaking up with her, and if that means arranging an impromptu surprise birthday party for him on a day that is very much not his birthday, then so be it.

B.C., 5/31/11

As noted, neo-B.C. is putting way too much effort into gags like this, which were transparently created as excuses to photocopy some clip art and then call it a day. Today’s installment is actually an example of how trying too hard actively lessens the strip’s quality. Since beloved B.C. character Grog is a subhuman dullard and almost certainly illiterate, it would have been more realistic to portray him as continuing to stare dumbly ahead for two panels, rather than react with horror at the thought of a small business and all the precious but desperately hocked items within going up in flames.

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Mary Worth, 5/28/11

Oh, well, this isn’t terrifying at all. Just Dr. Drew thinking about how he needs to explain to Liza in excruciating detail how “breaking up” works, while, unnoticed, Liza, who has managed to surreptitiously burrow under Drew’s flesh, bursts out triumphantly, like Athena out of Zeus’s brow. Only stalkier!

Spider-Man, 5/28/11

Yes, Spidey wasn’t able to save the one Dr. Morbius loved — you know, Martine? The one who was a real, actual vampire? I’m not vampire expert (nosferatologist?) or anything, but I’m pretty sure that one of the scary things about vampires is that they’re mostly immortal, and can only be killed in a certain limited number of ritualized ways, and none of those ways are “being dropped off a building.”

Lockhorns, 5/28/11

The Lockhorns may fight all the time and hate each other so, so much, but that doesn’t meant that they don’t share some pastimes. For instance, they enjoy going down the park and making snide comments about the way the Kids Today dress, all the while looking very much like they want to kill themselves.

Family Circus, 5/28/11

This would just be run of the mill Keane Kids Saying The Darndest Things if not for the look of genuine embarrassment on Barfy’s face. Ha ha, no resident of the Keane Kompound can escape the omnipresent crushing body shame!

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Mary Worth, 5/23/11

There are a few signs that maybe you have spent too much of your life writing blog entries about the comics! One is when you get a mysterious email that says “How are you today? I see that you own the domain name: joshreads.com. I am writing to let you know that the domain name rhinospeed.com is for sale. I am contacting you to gauge possible interest in this exceptional domain name” and you think HOLY GOODNESS WHAT IS THIS ABOUT HAVE I DROPPED THROUGH THE RABBIT HOLE? but then you remember that you actually wrote a blog post about how fast a rhino can run, five years ago!

Another sign is when there’s a flashback in Mary Worth and you remember the events being flashed back to and then you think to yourself, “I don’t think this is an accurate depiction of this long-ago and hilarious episode,” and then you look it up, because of course you have this very comic, three and a half years old now, on your blog as well, like you’re running some sort of alternative to the microfiche machine down at the library (do they still have those?).

ANYWAY! Let’s pretend that flashback panel two in today’s strip isn’t just cobbled together from misty memory by the Mary Worth creative team (because that would mean that I have better recall of Mary Worth and/or better access to archives than they do, which is kind of horrifying to contemplate) but instead represents Dr. Drew’s memory of the events. If we think about it from that perspective, a side-by-side comparison becomes rather interesting!

You’ll note that Drew remembers rather precisely a number of minor details — what color shirts he and Dawn were wearing, and the colors of the coats of the horses, for instance. But there’s one quite striking difference, and that’s Drew’s face. One assumes that the earlier strip, on the right, shows how Drew would appear to an objective observer — with a rounded, boyish face — whereas the panel on the left shows his own self-image, in which he’s square-jawed and manly with impossibly sharp cheekbones. How vain we all are, in our minds!

It’s also worth nothing that, in Drew’s memory, his non-Dawn girlfriend Vera has terrifying melting nightmare eyes, but the less said about that the better.

Gil Thorp, 5/23/11

Over in Gil Thorp, the cuts to the school district’s budget are proceeding at high speed! But haven’t they already economized enough? The Chicago font on that sign indicates that it was probably printed on the district’s only computer, a Mac SE/30 purchased in 1991 or thereabouts.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 5/23/11

Oh, hey! Have you been wondering what’s up in Rex Morgan, M.D.? Well, what’s up is that Rex and June are apparently talking themselves into cashing in Berna’s lottery ticket and then fleeing the country.

Hi an Lois, 5/23/11

In non-soap news, today will be remembered as “the day Hi and Lois left Trixie outside to die of exposure.”

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On a more serious note, thanks to everyone who let me know about the death of Crock cartoonist Bill Rechin at age 80. I’ve been pretty savage with Crock here but he was by all accounts a really sweet guy and is a big loss to the comics community. In the grand tradition of syndicated cartooning, the strip will of course be carried on by Rechin’s son Kevin, a phenomenon that I can’t even work myself up to rage against anymore. It’ll be interesting to see what Crock 2.0 is like.