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Mary Worth, 5/18/10

I have yet to read any of the comments you fine people have put up about today’s comics, but I look forward to any number of angry diatribes from mental health professionals about how Mary’s crockpot 30-second visualization exercises are in fact not an adequate treatment regimen for hoarding and other obsessive-compulsive disorders, and that she should instead seek help from a trained therapist who specializes in these issues. Or, who knows? Maybe there’ll be comments from people who say that, yes, this is exactly the way to break out of addictive behavior, hooray for Mary! I kind of doubt it, though.

One thing I’m not looking forward to is the inevitable crass suggestion that Mary is attempting to force Bonnie to her knees in panel two so that our poor shopping addict might sexually service her. Please! Mary simply wants Bonnie to prostrate herself and offer her the worship that she deserves, for her heroic meddling efforts. The feelings of pleasure Mary will derive from this go far beyond the sordid enjoyments of the flesh.

Herb and Jamaal, 5/18/10

Wow, this went very quickly, and with a lot of leaps of linguistic logic, from “You will rest your head on a needlessly uncomfortable object” to “God, my domestic life is SUFFOCATING ME.” But, hey, I’m not in a position to argue with whatever these two guys need to do to lay the groundwork for a camping trip full of on-the-down-low gay sex, I guess.

Six Chix, 5/18/10

This comic would have worked a lot better if the waitress had a pair of cooked human babies on her plate.

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Funky Winkerbean, 5/16/10

Oh, look, it appears that this actively offensive love triangle is moving forward, to be helped along by a healthy dose of hilarious misunderstanding. It will all end in anguish, of course, like an episode of Three’s Company where everyone dies horribly.

Panel from Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 5/16/10

Elviney’s expression of simmering rage here — the narrowed eyes, the waggling finger — is probably the most harrowing thing I’ve seen in the comics in weeks. You do not want to promise this woman gossip that you cannot deliver. She will cut you.

Panel from Mary Worth, 5/16/10

“Just remember, if you don’t need it, it’s unnecessary, and if it’s unnecessary, you don’t need it! I hope this circular logic will be a comfort to you as you lie in bed alone, listening to the credit cards’ eager whispering.”

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Wizard of Id, 5/15/10

I must give reluctant kudos to the Wizard of Id for not only acknowledging its medieval setting, but using it as a springboard for an anachronistic play on words. The modern expression “fell off a truck,” a euphemism for stolen goods, would of course be meaningless to the inhabitants of Id, who are wholly ignorant the internal combustion engine, so “fell off a wagon” is the closest equivalent; but this in turn is itself a modern expression, denoting an addict whose attempts at reformation have failed. The combination of the archaic and the modern results in a commendably multilayered gag that ought by rights to be the stock in trade of these period strips.

The Wizard of Id also holds true to its milieu by depicting human beings being bought and sold like chattel.

Mary Worth, 5/15/10

Ho ho, we’ve spent all this time focusing on Bonnie’s piddling little compulsive shopping problem, and only now does she confess that she has “many bad habits”? I can’t wait to see how Mary reacts when she realizes that she’s spent all her meddling energy on a red herring. Does she have the strength left to deal with the cross-country bank robbery spree? The ketamine distribution ring? The dismembered drifters neatly packaged in Charterstone’s communal storage space?

Family Circus, 5/15/10

Soon Jeffy’s possessed demon-hand will lead to a string of gruesome stranglings. “Now, Jeffy, tell us why you did what you did,” the court-appointed social worker will ask. “I’m sorry!” he says. “It was my fingers! My fingers got away from me! My bloody, murderous fingers!” [GENTLE LAUGHTER FROM ELDERLY NEWSPAPER SUBSCRIBERS ACROSS AMERICA]