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Mary Worth, 7/27/09

Faithful reader Baka Gaijin has been agitating for folks to come up with a nickname that will forever serve as a shorthand for this Mary Worth plotline; I’m always hesitant to prematurely elevate any plot to Aldomania status, but today’s first panel, in which Charley lunges forward ravenously as his purple-jumpsuited lust-object-of-the-moment hesitates coquettishly on the threshold of his badly decorated apartment, goes a long way towards convincing me. I have no idea why he’s assuming this particular position — presumably one of his previous conquests told him that his chin and his chest were his best features, so he always tries to lead with them, and damn the consequences to his posture. Also of note is the bizarre perspective in this panel; it’s as if we’re watching our lovebirds through a camera mounted on Charley’s ceiling. That’s probably because we are watching them through a camera mounted on Charley’s ceiling, and the whole sordid coupling will be uploaded to CharleysLoveDen.com in short order.

Meanwhile, in panel two we get a hilarious view of Delilah crossing her fingers behind her back. Because everyone knows that if you keep your fingers crossed as you methodically work your way through the Kama Sutra with some dude who isn’t your husband, it isn’t really cheating.

Judge Parker, 7/27/09

But hey, Lawrence, even though seeing your wife making a pass at stripey-shirted Charley may make you question her judgement, look at this way — at least he isn’t, you know, a horse.

Gil Thorp, 7/27/09

OH MY GOD GIL THORP’S STALKER IS … uh … this guy? Whom Gil apparently recognizes (‘You?”), meaning that he’s probably a beloved character from the past, but maybe from before the current artist took over, which is why none of us can recognize him? And even when we’re talking about characters drawn by the same artist, it’s kind of hard to tell all the teenagers apart? See, Gil Thorp team, there’s a reason your characters are referred to as something like “five foot eight left guard Dan Grabowski” the first twelve times they appear in the strip. On plus side, though, this strip does present us with the image of Coach Kaz pedaling up the street all stealthy-like on his silent ninja-bike (a low-rider? maybe? please?), which is deeply pleasing to me.

Apartment 3-G, 7/27/09

Oh, I can see where this is going: Eric refused to put on his hat to protect his ears from the frigid Himalayan air and caught his death of cold, just like my mother always warned. Fortunately the young lama has his magical Buddha powers to protect him.

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Sally Forth and Marvin, 7/26/09

Hey, guess who’s a fancy intellectual elitist book-readin’ guy in addition to the writer of a suburban middle-American comic strip? Ces Marculiano, that’s who! The opening lines of today’s Sally Forth are also the opening lines of Thomas Pynchon’s 760-page modernist classic Gravity’s Rainbow, and a tiny bit of high culture is slipped under the skin of comics readers everywhere.

But really, does Hillary’s soliloquy (good name for a band: “Hillary’s Soliloquy”) really challenge our settled, comfortable mindset the way Pynchon’s novel did? Consider this: despite the myriad kaleidescoping themes covered by the book, if you ask most people who were assigned to read it in college English what they remember about it, the first thing they’ll come up with will probably be the shit-eating. And what strip spends more time contemplating the symbolic meaning of poop than Marvin? Today’s installment is a particularly fine example, in which the title character, an absolutist on the subject of free will, insists that one can only truly demonstrate maximum personal autonomy by walking around with so much putrefying feces in one’s pants that it attracts swarms of flies. So, sorry Ces, but I think you’ll have to push the boundaries your art further if you plan to smash bourgeois sensibilities.

Mary Worth, 7/26/09

Two word-pairs you probably never anticipated seeing in juxtaposition: “Mary Worth” and “booty call.” I particularly marvel at the one-word-per-panel thought-ballooning sequence that serves as this strip’s centerpiece. Is it just an attempt to stretch limited action out over a longer Sunday strip? Does it instead represent Delilah’s grim determination to find succor in the worst way possible? Or does it simply indicate that she thinks … very … slowly?

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Mary Worth, 7/24/09

Friends, there is one and only comic from today’s funnies worth looking at, and that is this Mary Worth, so I shan’t distract you with other, lesser, strips. Instead, I’m going to leave Delilah’s face, twisting in rage and surprise into something not-quite-human, up here for you to enjoy for the rest of the weekend. It seems that Lawrence has tired of her baffling attitude towards their marriage and has hung up on her with a savage CLICK. Outraged, she’s going to march right out there and try to have her way with Charley, who unfortunately isn’t particularly attracted to cubist works of art.