Post Content

Dilbert, 10/3/05

This punchline is undeniably funny. However, it just emphasizes a sad and all-too-obvious fact, which is that Scott Adams cannot be bothered to do the kind of detailed drawing work that would really drive home the hirsuteness of the pointy-haired boss’s knuckles. For that kind of loving craftsmanship, we need to turn to Charterstone’s plush leather beanbags:

Even in this low-quality graphic, you can see the layer of lustrous, manly fur that coats Jeff’s forearms. Even his bizarre, gut-and-pelvis extruding posture can’t distract from the fact that Dr. Cory is a charter member of the league of hairy-armed Mary Worth characters. Mary’s libido must be trapped under an ice cap the size of Greenland if she can keep turning away this virile, hairy he-hunk.

Post Content

Mary Worth, 9/30-10/2/05

This is how Mary Worth’s alcohol-driven storyline ends: not with a booze-fueled, police-intervention-requiring bang, but with a sober (or, perhaps, dry drunk), platitude-drenched whimper. As Rita and Vic motor off in his Mood Car (like his suit, it shifts from melancholy blue during the goodbyes to hopeful brown as they head towards Rita’s new small-town hideaway), I can’t help but wish that we had seen a little more cussing and public humiliation of Mary and Jeff, and a lot less forgiveness and overcoming of adversity.

Nevertheless, things do seem to have wrapped up awfully neatly. Rita even now has a substitute Fay to smother with affection and make freaky puppets with; this will save her from liquoring up Vic and forcing him to sire some mutated incest-child on her in order to fill the emptiness that Fay’s death has left in her codependent soul. We’re probably not meant to contemplate the many, many loose ends (Will Rita relapse? Won’t the suffocating atmosphere of small-town life leave her with nothing to do but drown her sorrows in the bottle? Does the interlude at the Women’s Shelter prove that Mary hates and fears poor people above all others? Is Dr. Jeff finally going to get laid?) so instead I’ll just pose this question to you all, on the subject of “inappropriate” quotation marks: why do aphorisms one (“Your future depends on many things, but mostly on you!”) and three “To live in hearts we leave behind is not die!”) get quotes around them, but not number two (“Only time will tell!”)? Perhaps Mary’s mind is so cliche-o-riffic that she can’t even tell the difference between platitudes and her actual thought process anymore.

I would be remiss without showcasing this comment on Friday’s strip from Dennis Jimenez: “I like the soul shake there in panel two. The sistas at the women’s shelter must have taught ’em that. Right on!”

Post Content

Mary Worth, 8/25/05

I think JEFF IS IMPATIENT because you’ve been going out for years and the nights are still ending with a chaste peck on the cheek, Mary. Rita is just the latest excuse you’ve been able to throw into his horny path. I don’t think even your pink-psychedelic-starfish-t-shirt-and-pleated-baby-blue-skirt combo is going to dissuade him from his quixotic goal. He’s already at home, surfing the Internet with his one-handed, 19-key keyboard, looking for dirt on Rita to get her out of the picture. Maybe if there were a little more action going on, he wouldn’t need a one-handed keyboard, if you know what I’m saying.

By the way, if you want to see ol’ Dr. Jeff busting a move on Mary, check out this entry on Smitty Smedlap’s blog, Subdivided We Stand. Very disturbing.

Wouldn’t Wilbur the bald-headed advice columnist be a good person to consult for guidance in this situation? Perhaps; but a look over at Gil Thorp reveals that the legendary Marty Moon, insane with grief over the failure of his charity-based romance, has cut off one of Wilbur’s hirsute arms and is having someone slap him in the eye with it:

All this drama has been having a negative effect on Apartment 3-G’s Lu Ann over the past few days. Especially the head part of Lu Ann. Watch out, everybody, she’s gonna blow!