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Mary Worth, 1/8/07

MARY’S GOING TO VIETNAM! MARY’S GOING TO VIETNAM! MARY’S GOING TO VIETNAM!

“In person” even! This is too important to take care of via teleconferencing or astral projection!

For some reason I keep thinking of the song “Old Hippie” by the Bellamy Brothers, which my mom loved when I was a kid. It contains the following line:

“Then they sent him off to Vietnam on his senior trip.”

Mary’s sort of doing the same, although her senior status means that she’ll be shouting at locals both because she thinks they’ll understand English if she does and because she’s going deaf.

There are so many awesome possibilities to this plotline that I’m practically overbrimming with joy at them, even though I know that this is Mary Worth and thus only the most boring ones will actually occur. But still, it’s fun to imagine: Will Mary end up lost in a jungle and have to feed herself by hunting and fishing? Will she be kidnapped and forced to work in a Nike sweatshop? Will become a committed Marxist and come home determined to spread Communist revolution in her condo complex?

Better, and actually somewhat plausible: Will she discover that Dr. Jeff is living comfortably in a foreign medical staff compound, is totally startled to see Mary, and when she starts describing how she was brought there by a powerful dream, begins backing away in wide-eyed terror?

In other news, I think it would be funny if Toby were serious about her New Year’s resolution. It’s a little-known fact that last year she helped negotiate an end to Nepal’s Maoist insurgency; this year she has her sights set on just settlements in Sri Lanka and Nagorno-Karabakh. But Mary doesn’t care about that kind of do-gooding nonsense, as she’s made clear in the past; she just needs a damn date to the damn Bum Boat.

B.C., 1/8/07

Johnny, diarrhea jokes make Baby Jesus cry.

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Archie, 1/5/07

More proof that Archie’s text is created by a joke-generating computer: In what context would any actual biological life form use the phrase “Why aren’t you out there hustling?” The only one I can imagine would be in some ’80s teen comedy in which, due to a hilarious series of misunderstandings, a snooty, stuck-up rich guy who’s never worked a day in his life has to coach a band of misfits to the state basketball championship. Oh, sure, at first they make fun of his patrician patois and attempts to talk “street” — “Fellows, why aren’t you out there hustling?”, “I say, that slam dunk was really quite smashing!” — but then they’d explain to him that in certain semantic contexts “bad” can mean “good” and soon enough they’d come together as a team, win the inevitable slobs vs. snobs title game (against the coach’s alma mater, natch), and learn the true meaning of friendship.

An alternative interpretation: The “coach” is actually Archie and gang’s pimp, and he wants to know why they aren’t out there “hustling” and making him some money. The less said about that scenario, the better, but it’s worth noting that such activity could indeed scuff up Svenson’s floor.

And speaking of the wacky Scandinavian janitor: usually overalls are not the garment of choice for those who want to showcase their trim physique, but Svenson’s are awful tight in the rear end. OK, I’ll stop.

Gil Thorp, 1/5/07

You know, despite all the internal dissension that’s clearly troubling this year’s Milford girls basketball team, I think it’s a safe bet that, like the great strife-torn Oakland A’s teams in the ’70s, the Lady Mudlarks are going to do just fine in the standings. Any team that has a player for whom an over-the-shoulder, no-look fling at a basket more than thirty feet away is an “easy two” should take care of the competition without too much fuss.

People criticize the Gil Thorp art, but I’m kind of in love with the strip’s crowd scenes. I like the expression on the faces of Bald Trench Coat And Black Turtleneck Guy and Person Of Indeterminate Gender Wearing A Fur-Trimmed Jacket And Hat Even Though He Or She Is Inside. “Hey, Overbearing Basketball Mom, we’re trying to enjoy the game here, so shut up! Also, if you’re trying to amplify and/or direct your voice, putting your thumbs behind your ears is probably not the best technique.”

Judge Parker, 1/5/07

Oh man, I refuse to believe that the Judge Parker gay-baiting election storyline, which only got started in late August, can possibly be over already. I mean, this is Judge Parker: five months of real time is equivalent to, what, twenty minutes? I’m assuming that by “best friend” Sam means Reggie’s doughy lawyer Roy, who, if there’s any justice in this world, we’ll get to see on the business end of a Celeste-wielded microphone when the beans are inevitably spilled.

Perhaps it’s Roy who’s been leaking Reggie’s campaign materials to faithful reader Wille Thompson. Here’s a flyer that sadly will now never be used:

Mary Worth, 1/5/07

Any Jungian will tell you that dreams are not meant to be taken literally: they instead offer guidance through metaphors. Thus, we should not interpret Mary’s vision to mean that Dr. Jeff is drowning in some malarial Southeast Asian swamp; instead, we should understand that the true barrier to deeper intimacy in their relationship is the good doctor’s terrible incontinence.

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Apartment 3-G, 1/3/07

So, in case you weren’t paying attention, Eric Mills broke Margo’s heart by jetting out of town mysteriously, then just as suddenly set it aflame again by showing up on Apartment 3-G’s doorstep on Christmas in a particularly pointless bit of plotting whiplash. Margo must be getting inured to the pleasures of hot monkey sex romance and such, though, because it isn’t having the same softening effect on her personality as it did a few weeks ago. I love her completely pointless outrage in panel one. “Mr. Gibbs? How dare he have a WASPy, monosyllabic last name!”

Mr. Gibbs has been nothing but avuncular and pleasant to Lu Ann throughout the long Adventure of the Haunted Studio, but that facial expression in panel three pretty much screams, “Hello ladies! Looks like all those hidden cameras I installed throughout this firetrap are about to pay for themselves after all!”

Crankshaft, 1/3/07

You know, today’s Crankshaft is a good example of the strip’s subtle but fierce misanthropy. Because at first you’re grateful that they switched the expression around and didn’t actually show you the mangled corpse of a deer embedded into the hood of this car, but then you realize that he’s implying that somewhere there’s a terribly injured animal running around, with a huge chunk of metal and glass and plastic hanging out of a bloody wound in its side … well, Crankshaft is kind of mean-spirited, is what I’m trying to say.

Mary Worth, 1/3/07

Is this the bitchiest Mary Worth ever? “Yeah, Agent Orange, terribly moved, blah blah blah … but what about MEEEEEEEE????? What about MY NEEDS????”

Who is Mary talking to, exactly? Yesterday’s omniscient narration box noted only that she was calling “Cambodia.” Perhaps she was connected directly to King Norodom Sihamoni, who, being a constitutional monarch, has little better to do with his time than to take phone calls from agitated biddies.

Slylock Fox, 1/3/07

I’m not sure what’s funnier: The cheery, innocent look on the face of the megamagnet-wielding security goon, or the expression of sheer, heart-stopping terror on the face of our innocent traveller — perhaps literally heart-stopping, as his pacemaker slams into his sternum, drawn inexorably by this fiendish device. If I had to guess about the origin of this little drama, I’d wager that a certain cartoonist had his precious collection of gels and liquids confiscated by some jackbooted thug while he was traveling over the Thanksgiving holiday. Well, you crossed the wrong gel aficionado, Mr. TSA Man! I bet you felt pretty foolish when you opened up the paper and found that you had been named and shamed in today’s Slylock Fox!

One Big Happy, 1/3/07

The countdown to Ruthie’s inevitable stabbing frenzy and subsequent trip to juvie begins … now.