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Mary Worth, 11/15/05

Yeah, reciting lines from a play! Or, you know, incredibly stilted dialogue from a lame soap opera comic!

OK, so because I am a little paranoid and self-important (aren’t these two sides of the same coin?) I wondered if “Josh” — who shares my name and hair color and penchant for trashing the dialogue in Mary Worth — weren’t a subtle homage to my greatness from the soapmeisters at King Features. I floated this theory to Mrs. C., who was with me until the part when I noted that this Josh was a workaholic.

Anyway, lots of good action in this strip — in motion line form! Watch out, Josh, Jane’s got a pointy nail heading right for your eye! He responds the only way he knows how — by grabbing her on the upper arms and rotating his freakishly oversized shoulders back and forth, hoping to somehow calm her down or at least induce motion sickness. Actually, with the big shoulders and the vibrating, it kind of looks like he’s wearing David Byrne’s big suit from the “Once In A Lifetime” video. Except this being Mary Worth, it’s been dyed electric blue for the occasion.

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When we last saw Wilbur’s beau Iris, she had mousy brown hair, a Victorian governess’s vocabulary, and some sort of black goo all over the middle of her face:

Since that time, we Mary-watchers have been on a magical mystery tour of honeymoon babies and drunken, clingy houseguests. But what’s Iris been up to? How’s she reacted to the incarceration of her two-time loser of a meth-dealing son?

Mary Worth, 11/7/05

Well, apparently she’s feeling better. Not only has she had some deep cleansing work done on her pores, but her hair’s been peroxided up like a Ukrainian mail-order bride’s. Yes, she’s been transformed from gloomy to sunny by a little Miss Clairol and a lot of the love of a good man!

By which I mean Wilbur.

Who appears to be stabbing himself in the throat with an undersized matzo ball. Or possibly a kumquat. It’s hard to tell.

Either way, he’s a real winner.

Apparently Iris and Wilbur’s relationship has advanced to the point where she feels free to correct him on his life’s work. Wilbur’s sour face in the first panel isn’t just a result of his accidentally jabbing himself in the Adam’s apple with some indistinguishable bite-sized taupe morsel: it’s reflective of his advice columnist M.O. “Yeah, it seems like your marriage is pretty much doomed.” “Peer pressure is tough when you’re a kid; if you want to have friends, you’re just going to have to drink, smoke, and put out.” “Gosh, your life doesn’t really sound to me like it’s worth living — have you considered suicide?” Perhaps his beblonded lady friend will help him turn that attitude around. Will he follow her advice — or reconsider his union?

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Mary Worth, 10/27/05

If Mary and Jeff’s eternal platitude-laden ramble was free verse, then Mr. Weston’s poignant consideration of this letter this week has been as restrained and precise as a haiku. You have to admire the savvy visual sense that went into composition here: rather than illustrating the sad tale of marital woe that’s being detailed in this missive with representative scenes or episodes, the artists have forced us to stare at Wilbur’s bespectacled, combed-over melonhead all week. Presumably his furrowed brow is meant to convey both the compassion and the wisdom that he’ll soon be bringing to his response. His empathy for others is so boundless and magnetic that, like St. Francis, he draws the little birds close to him as goes about his ministry of meddling.