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Mary Worth, 11/5/10

Oh, no, Mary’s made a terrible mistake! By encouraging Adrian to “think for herself” and “follow her heart” when it comes to dealing with some mean lady person, she’s given her the impression that these are things she should do in all situations — even when the person who’s telling her to do things she doesn’t want to do is her future husband! Obviously there should be no back-talk to Scott. “It doesn’t matter where you go! You’ll have each other! Just have dinner at the Bum Boat with two appetizers, then go to the La Quinta Inn out on State Route 29 for a night of romance and a delicious complimentary breakfast buffet the next morning! That totally counts as a honeymoon! Now put all these non-Scott-approved thoughts of ‘faraway, exotic places’ out of your mind.”

Gil Thorp, 11/5/10

You know, usually Gil Thorp spends weeks gleefully implying something scandalous is going on and when the “something” is finally revealed it turns out to be totally bonkers and unrealistic and hilarious. That’s why, though I’d be amused if any other soap strip featured rampant marijuana dealing down at the park, I actually feel a little betrayed here. That’s it? Earnest foster kid mixed up with guys selling America’s lowest-grade illegal drug? BO-RING! Get back to me when he whacks himself in the back of the head, OK?

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Apartment 3-G, 11/2/10

Oh, say, what’s that on Iris’s left hand, which is being thrust meaningfully into our faces in panel two here? It sure looks a lot like a wedding ring to me. It seems that her projected image as a wacky, carefree aunt who (in the words of Sunday’s strip) has “adventures” instead of the “homes and families” other people have, is fake, and she is in fact nothing but a common married person. Her vaguely hipster glasses and all her talk about partying in Paris with the Situationists and ’68 are nothing but lies, and she certainly isn’t heading to some kind of bedbug-infested hostel in Bed-Stuy; she’s probably taking the train back to her suburban cul-de-sac in Connecticut, ready to curl up on the couch with her husband Irv and watch whatever iteration of NCIS is on tonight.

(Sorry, this is just my attempt to drum some interest up in this boring storyline. EVEN THE WORST SCANDAL I CAN COOK UP IS INHERENTLY BORING. IT IS IN FACT ABOUT BORINGNESS.)

Crankshaft, 11/2/10

Ha ha! Crankshaft and his old buddies have no idea that it’s already November, and that it’s election day today! They’ve probably been sitting in that booth, muttering nonsense, for days now. Nobody has come looking for them, because they’re all unlikable.

Actually, for once I can’t suspend my disbelief at this strip. Old people never forget to vote! It’s what they live for!

(And if the mere mention of “voting” has inspired you to go off onto an election-related rant, I urge you to do so over here, instead, on last election’s thread.)

Mary Worth, 11/2/10

Mary, Adrian’s heart is telling her that she should obsess endlessly over every little detail about other people’s opinions, because she can’t function unless someone is telling her what to do. She can’t stop thinking about the opinions held by other people! Honestly, it’s like you don’t even know her.

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Panels from Mary Worth, 10/31/10

After a lunch spent mostly insulting and undermining Adrian, Jill leaves for an appointment, but the Sunday throwaway panels thoughtfully give us a glimpse of her as she walks away. Curiously, as she leaves the restaurant, her face melts from the cruel mask she’s worn throughout this episode into the dead-eyed, plump-lipped look of vagueness more typical for women in this strip. Could it be that she’s been cast into the role of emotional abuser against her will? That the masochistic Adrian pays her for the public insults and cruelty to satisfy some sick urge that her “perfect” husband-to-be Scott can’t know about? And this has been going on for months or years? No wonder she looks so exhausted in that second panel.

Panel from Marvin, 10/31/10

Just about all comic strip text is done on computers these days, so the strangely smaller font on “little candy extortionists” is probably just a lazy way for the artist to cram the words into the space available instead of rewriting or redrawing. Still, it does give the impression that something’s been changed at the last minute, and I sincerely hope that this word balloon originally ended in two or three of the foulest cuss words you can imagine.

Crankshaft, 10/31/10

The most horrifying thing any inhabitant of the Funkyverse can see is of course a member of the medical profession, since they will be spending their last agonizing months of life in a hospital, and sooner rather than later.