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Mary Worth, 9/23/07

This week’s object lesson in How Not To Dump A Lady has all in all been pretty satisfying. Admittedly, it could have been much more demented, but, seeing as this is Mary Worth, we really ought to be satisfied with a big smack and some pointin’ and quotin’, and Vera angrily driving off in her tiny, tiny magenta car. And of course there’s still more to come in this plot. Maybe Drew will set the next chapter in motion by doing a little thinking as he stares mournfully after Departing Girlfriend #2: “…wait, ‘that kind of drama anymore’? Didn’t she say that all of her drama was with her brother? Hmm, dodged a bullet there, Cory…”

Apartment 3-G, 9/23/07

As Mary Worth’s drama has hit the afterburners, Apartment 3-G has uncharacteristically spun its wheels, running out the clock with stupid dates involving ancillary characters when we all know that the epic Spurned Margo Moment Of Truth is coming eventually. Presumably King Features feared that if both strips were at maximum awesome simultaneously, the comics-reading public wouldn’t be able to handle the excitement. It looks like we won’t have much longer to wait, though: as soon as she determines that one of the voices she hears is Eric’s and the other belongs to a human female, all portions of Margo’s brain will shut down except for the little red throbbing one in the corner marked “KILL”. Nora’s Majestic Noble Tears power will be no match for Margo’s Savage And Repeated Punches To The Face And Throat fighting technique.

And say, let’s check in with today’s out-of-context suggestive Rex Morgan, M.D., panel!

Panel from Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/23/07

Jesus, Rex Morgan, M.D., can’t you at least make this kind of challenging for me?

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Mary Worth, 9/20/07

Well, the slapping seems to be over (for now), but Dawn continues to give Dr. Drew the tongue-lashing of his life (and not in a good way). While Dawn may be the younger of the two ladies vying for Dr. Drew’s affections, this co-ed definitely has an edge over her competitor when it comes to brains: she’s keeping up a blistering stream of accusatory rage while spoiled rich girl Vera is still scratching her chin in total befuddlement. (“Wait … does this girl … know Drew somehow? There’s something fishy going on here … but what?”)

Dawn’s invective is so powerful that she doesn’t even need to waggle her fingers to add quote marks around the key terms. The significance of the quotes around “working” is obvious enough, but I’m a little puzzled about “new girlfriend.” I mean, Vera is Drew’s new girlfriend, right? If only there were some kind of quote-mark expert we could consult to parse the meaning…

Well … now … you don’t have any proof of that, Margo! Jeez, that girl’s totally out of hand.

Mark Trail, 9/20/07

I don’t pretend to understand what exactly this trio of boneheaded duck-lovers is doing in the third panel — building an elaborate system of dikes around Shirley’s nest? Trying to bail out the entire swamp? Nor do I know exactly how we went from “Shirley must be protected from sinister, heartless developers” to “Shirley must be protected from an entirely natural flood that would have washed away her nest whether the mall was under construction or not.” But I do know who’s pulling the strings here. It’s not Shirley herself, as I had guessed earlier, as she’s proven herself to be about as smart as you’d expect an animal with a walnut-sized brain to be. No, take a good look at Mark’s smug bastard of an editor in panel one. He’s realized that the mouth-breathing reading public is eating this duck drama up, and as long as he can drag out the drama, his magazine for outdoorsmen will be flying off of the supermarket racks faster than all the celebrity gossip rags combined. Look for him to give Mark a series of increasingly bizarre and improbable orders to keep the story going. (“OK, I think you should carry the eggs over to the food court. No, not inside the Ruby Tuesdays! Are you insane?”)

Beetle Bailey, 9/20/07

I, uh…

I thought today’s Beetle Bailey was pretty funny.

Ha! They all had to go to the bathroom!

What?

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Mary Worth, 9/18/07

OH SNAP DR. DREW GOT SERVED! That slap is no mere blind lashing out on Dawn’s part; her right fist is cocked in panel one, but she’s clearly chosen to go for the open hand to maximize the humiliation factor. She neutralized Vera in panel one with a quick pinch to the jugular, so clearly she’s a woman who’s in total control of her hands in a situation like this.

This is clearly the most exciting Mary Worth since Aldo plummeted to his death, and keep in mind that it’s only Tuesday. Things in Santa Royale always escalate over the course of the week, so by Saturday we’ll have achieved near-stratospheric heights of either wanton violence or emotional despair.

Apartment 3-G, 9/18/07

I have the uneasy feeling that this new A3G subplot is taking place in a weird parallel universe, where there’s been some effort put into establishing Ruby’s character and showing that Professor Smooth Operator has been eyeing her from afar for some time. Maybe all those deleted scenes will be on the unrated special edition DVD. As it is, all we can really hope for is an outraged Gina spotting Aristotle two-timing her and making with the slap attack.

Gil Thorp, 9/18/07

Wow, Marty Moon appears to be about ready to fall asleep in mid-sentence in panel three. He can’t stay awake for even a single quarter of Mudlark gridiron action! In his defense, Gil Thorp football is really confusing and boring, and he’s probably pretty drunk.

Mark Trail, 9/18/07

“Yes, maybe we’re in luck! Of course, it will also come out that we spent millions in bribes to get permits to allow us to build an enormous mall so close to a flood-prone lake that even a few inches of rain will put the Banana Republic under a foot of water. The press will also probably get wind of the fact that the development company’s CEO and chief counsel are chalk-white undead zombies. But at least this damn duck situation will be taken care of!”

Pluggers, 9/18/07

I don’t have the spiritual strength to go hunting through the archives, but I’m pretty sure that this Plugger panel, in which a polka-dotted boxer-short-clad Rhino-Man clutches his massive gut and peeks at the scale with trepidation, has been used before. Of course, given how many Pluggers jokes boil down to “Pluggers are fat”, they could probably run it once a week or so.

Dennis the Menace, 9/18/07

Wait, did Dennis dress up in a quasi-Hawaiian garb just so he could deliver this fun fact about the word “aloha” to Mr. Wilson in style? Here’s a hint, kid: Themed costume + fascinating trivia item = levels of menace so low as to be undetectable by even the most powerful scientific instruments.