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Some sad news for folks who are longtime fans of Mary Worth (which, I assume, is all of you): Joe Giella, who was the strip’s artist for more than 20 years before he retired in 2016, passed away this week at the age of 94. A lot of people out there remember his lifetime of work in superhero comics, but we Curmudgeons know that Mary Worth is his greatest legacy. His successor June Brigman posted this heartfelt note on her Facebook:

Cartoonist and friend of the blog David Willis posted a long Twitter thread of his favorite Giella Mary Worth panels and I really do urge you to go through it, some truly delightful stuff here. He will be missed but it’s also great that he got to enjoy some years of retirement!

Meanwhile, please enjoy this comment of the week:

“In March all red-blooded American men are required by law to at least pretend to be experts on college basketball, but Paul’s one-upping everyone else by going full paternal with it. No longer content with just one biological son, Paul will daddily daze the entire NCAA. Chew on that, people who say single-parent homes aren’t a danger to society!” –jroggs

And your runners up! Very funny!

“Snuffy gives the parson an orange can cozy rather than an orange hat or orange jacket because of the harsh economic realities of Hootin Holler: when parson Tuttle gets mistaken for a bear and shot, he’ll be there to scoop up the collection can, and he wants to make sure it isn’t shot up, too.” –gardenornament

“I found this group called ‘Not One More Vet.’ Turns out there are way too many veterinarians! You should retire!” –Peanut Gallery

“If Dr. Ed really is depressed it’s his nephew’s fault, you know. That kid was the one all bummed out about the job. Then he talks to Ed, and Ed catches depression. What if Ed infects Estelle? Oh, she’d be a huge downer. They need to find that nephew! You have to kill the head vampire to cure everyone else!” –made of wince

“The way the Doc is yelling and Bil is crying I figure ‘flu’ is their agreed upon code word for gonorrhea.” –Hibbleton

“I’m sorry that Daddy has the flu, kid, but the facts that Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne had a son in violation of his monastic vows, that his son still somehow lives over 1300 hundred years later, that his son has studied to become a doctor and a general practitioner, and that his son actually does his own medical billing instead of sending you down the hall to talk to the ‘ladies in billing,’ is the real story. We truly do live in a time of miracles.” –Voshkod

“I’m more worried that Keanes’ doctor makes him undress for a flu test. Next week’s panels are drawn by the courtroom sketch artist.” –Donny Ferguson, on Twitter

“Oh come on. There’s no way five Milford players know who Kareem is. At least one of them would say something idiotic like ‘Gordon from Sesame Street! What the hell?’” –KMD

“Ok kids, for starters, the most important thing in basketball is to be 7′2″. What? How can you expect me to help you if you aren’t willing to even do that? Goodbye, losers!” –cheech wizard

“Say what you will about Gil Thorp, but the strip is rendering its readers the ultimate daily comics service: the opportunity to be smug about knowing a celebrity the youngs do not. This will sustain their righteous snit for weeks, I tell you!” –pastordan

“Uh oh. Looks like Dr. Ed has mistaken a bottle of horse liniment for beer.” –Charterstoned

“Oh, that’s his LEG. I thought he was holding a burlap bag in the same hand as his beer for some reason. To put the cat in? Before pitching it in the river? There are easier ways to quit the profession, Dr. Ed!” –Twinkles the Elf

“I know that Ed is talking to his cat, but I think it would be pretty funny if it were revealed that he worships a pantheon of ancient Norse gods. I mean, something is going to get in the way of his relationship with Estelle, can’t it be something fun?” –pugfuggly

“‘Going physically to work to ask for the current day off‘ joins ‘dating Beetle’ in Incomprehensible Shit Miss Buxley Does.” –nescio

“Maybe coffee is the solution to every plugger problem. You just have to be creative enough to see it. Just imagine how much happier that rhino man would have been if instead of taking his TV to the pawn shop, he had thrown a cup of hot coffee into the face of the pawn broker, robbing him while the poor beast-man recoiled from second and third degrees burns to the face! Look out world! Pluggers have hot coffee, an increasing lack of regard for the welfare of others and lots of problems that need solving!” –Lionheart

“Snuffy and Barlow have been bitten by paralyzing spiders, who even know are fashioning their bodies into bait traps for flies.” –Schroduck

“Coffee? Coffee? Boy, the Duct Tape people and the makers of Bisquick are going to be absolutely furious when they see this.” –Old School Allie Cat

“Remember what I did last time you were here? I moved the furniture into awkward positions, and now we have to live with it!” –BigTed

“The ‘living it up’ version of this cruise seems to be having a drink on the balcony lounge chair while wearing jorts, so I am going to assume that no one involved with this creative team has much experience with ‘living it up.’” –Drew Funk

Remember: If you want an ad-free version of this site sent to you every day via email, for $3 a month you can become a Comics Curmudgeon newsletter subscriber! And if you never want to see banner ads on this site, and want to get cool comment-editing features to boot, for the same low price you can become a Comics Curmudgeon website subscriber! And if you just want to give me money directly, you can put some scratch in my tip jar, or back me on Patreon! Thanks to all for your support and readership!

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This week’s top comment won’t drive all the snakes out of your peaceful island, but it will make you laugh:

“I’m so glad that Slylock does the dopey, overly earnest ‘sitting on a chair backwards to be cool and relatable’ thing as he ‘raps’ with the kids about ‘the degenerate facial features of the lower, criminal types.’” –Dunkelcopter

These runners up will also do the trick!

“So Herb and Dag play ping pong Matrix-style, jumping off walls and defying the laws of physics to win a best of five. Has this never come up before? Seems more interesting than that office bullshit.” –pugfuggly

“I choose to believe the women are just trying to coax the two guys out of the poorly designed horse costume. Their jobs suck, but they are definitely marriage material.” –made of wince

“I thought Dagwood was saying that he had single-handedly turned Facebook around, and you know what? That would be a much better film than the real Social Network. ‘A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what is cool? Do you? Please tell me, I haven’t kept up with popular culture since the 1920s.’” –Schroduck

“Count Weirdly’s are the only human fingerprints on the can. The others belong to an aardvark and a banana slug. And when it comes to crime, who’s guilty? That’s right, the humans. You think I’m going to accuse Mayor Barbara Banana-Slug’s son of stealing? Come on now, this was why we fought the war in the first place.” –The Ghost of Jarrod

“The effort, the brainpower, the tens of seconds that went into the name of that restaurant: (salad) chef’s kiss. I say this with complete sincerity: This is my favorite thing on the comics page in years. Everything about it is perfect. The name ‘Salad Town.’ The salads themselves, indistinguishable from the flowers on the table. The fact that the name — again, SALAD TOWN — was clearly both conceived and written on the window while the proprietor was drunk. Salad. Town. I’ll never get over it.” –els

“Someone was listening! Someone was actually listening to my sermon! Maybe being a priest is for me after all!” –RogerBW

“You can really tell Dagwood and Lou are up on current trends by how they are reading a newspaper.” –Drew Funk

“The good news is that the time travel experiment was a success, and I brought back this miraculous piece of medical technology. The bad news is that I’m not actually putting the stethoscope in my ears, so it’s not actually doing anything. The worse news is that a stethoscope, even if used correctly, isn’t going to help with your missing hands. The even worse news is that I have a pair of iron gauntlets I’m going to weld on to your stumps. The worst news is that we have no anesthesia. But the best news is that you’ll be known as Eddie Ironfists in the new Edda!” –Voshkod

“I prefer to think that Dagwood and Sandwich Guy (I don’t remember his name and I frankly don’t care to) are just sports illiterate and don’t understand any sort of physical activity besides eating. ‘Baseball? I don’t know what that is but y’know what I do understand? Stuffing my fucking face.’” –ectojazzmage

“No, of course it doesn’t make any sense for Hootin’ Holler to have a golf course, but just as the Magicians’ Union requires every professional magic act to include at least one card trick, the cartoonists’ union requires every comic strip to have at least one golf panel a year. You wouldn’t want John Rose to be accused of scabbing, would you?” –Rube

“Mommy, it used to be a cookie! At least when it went in the mouth end anyway.” –2+2=7

“Oh… you didn’t mean your actual heart … you want something to deaden the emotional pain. Why that’s easy, Barney, I got all kinds of cure alls for that. Most of them contain opium, so if you see the Feds pokin’ around, shoot first, and say, ‘Am I being detained?’ second.” –Old Man Shadow

“So this is what a plugger’s hook-up dating site profile looks like? At least it’s direct.” –jroggs

“Randy Parker has turned into … Legal Chameleon, Cavelton’s newest superhero! No capes, no masks needed. His disguise is his background, with his ethics, opinions, and complexion all changing to match his surroundings!” –Charterstoned

“Pluggers don’t need your hoity-toity French philosophers to know continuity of self is an illusion! The rapid decay of their body teaches it much more efficiently, and they didn’t even have to read Althusser.” –Lark L

“Mentioning a specific moment in time near Ida Noe will activate her curse, transporting everyone in the room to see Waldo Wallet lose a game of ‘Give me five, up high’ to the legendarily gangly Abraham Lincoln before pitching forward into the horse-turd-filled muck of 19th century Gasoline Alley.” –Mantipath

“It’s wild what goes through their digestive tracts, judging by the way they’re standing.” –nescio

“‘A giant leprechaun…’ So Dagwood gets confused by average sized Irish people?” –Tabby Lavalamp

“I didn’t initially see the clock over Leroy’s head, and just assumed that he was extremely unhappy that people were glad to see him. Now that I see the clock, I stand by that interpretation.” –Vice President John Adams

“Memo from corporate: the good news is, we’re getting that high-rise Manhattan office with a window that looks out over the city. The bad news? Rent is so much that we can only afford one desk for all six of you, plus a digital clock from Five Below.” –Handsome Harry Backstayge, Idol of a Million Other Women

Remember: If you want an ad-free version of this site sent to you every day via email, for $3 a month you can become a Comics Curmudgeon newsletter subscriber! And if you never want to see banner ads on this site, and want to get cool comment-editing features to boot, for the same low price you can become a Comics Curmudgeon website subscriber! And if you just want to give me money directly, you can put some scratch in my tip jar, or back me on Patreon! Thanks to all for your support and readership!

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Folks!!!! Are YOU in or near Los Angeles right now? Do YOU want to hear Josie Riesman, author of the upcoming Vince McMahon book Ringmaster, talk about the early days of Wrestling Internet, plus hear yours truly do a deep dive into Celeb Heights Dot Com, a website that, like mine, was created in 2004 and is still going strong, plus some other jokes? Well come on down to the Clubhouse in Los Feliz for the Internet Read Aloud, TONIGHT AT 7 PM!

Here is the Facebook event! Don’t miss it!

Your comment of the week is so good that it’s impossible to miss!

“I refuse to believe that, no matter how boring it must get at Estelle’s house, a dog and a cat would sit in chairs intently listening to her monologue her way into polyamory.” –Tabby Lavalamp

Your runners up? Also fantastic!

“The former Walther Geldbeutel dimly remembered hyperinflation, yes. And what he’d done to stay alive as a young man in Berlin. He wasn’t proud of it, but at least, like everyone else, Gertie didn’t know his shame. Or did she? Would she have to die like the others?” –RogerBW

“…And the award for ‘Least-Hilarious Quote From A Comedian’ goes to…” –Victor Von

“I’m not surprised The Perfesser looks so dejected: it’s the 21st century, yet no one has created a bong that can fit a beak.” –nescio

“Listen to this on-line review of our practice! ‘Cheap signage, poor use of typeface, decent kerning. Try something that doesn’t look pasted on, and maybe a nice serif or two? And they killed my cat. Two stars.’” –Voshkod

“I can only picture Henry headed to work in shirt and tie, overly-short dress pants, and a briefcase. That work attire screams hipster barber, or maybe artisanal cheese sales. But they’re a single-income family, so that is probably more like marketing/communications for a start-up that makes software for barbers and cheesemongers.” –Old School Allie Cat

“Ugh, is there anything worse that when someone holds out their phone to make you look at their family photos? Well, other than when they try to get you to read the daily Hi and Lois.” –jroggs

“Only in the dying comics published in the nearly-dead printed newspaper is there a contemporary American high school sports team boasting a head coach, a couple assistant coaches, and all its community media devoted to it, claiming it needs to raise funding. The fourth panel is Gil pocketing a green wad, saying Thanks for the ‘retirement fund,’ suckers!’” –Bobby+Sneakers

“Nearly — gulp — fifty years ago, my best friend was obsessed with Charles Lindberg, among other things. His father, an American history prof, scored him an authentic aviator cap, complete with goggles. Even for 1976 or 1977, it was a rare find. I offer this for those of you who would like to identify precisely how out-of-date Gasoline Alley is.” –pastordan

“That expression of Blondie’s in the first panel is the face of a woman whose husband has just turned her down for sex by demonstrating that he’s very busy reading a magazine.” –Thelonious_Nick

“Look, Dagwood, you’ve worn a shirt with one giant button in the middle of your stomach for some reason for like 90 years now. It’s a bit late in the game to pretend ‘there are buttons,’ plural.” –Dan

“‘It’s whatever.’ Man, even a year ago I’d have made a joke about how this strip is written by some kind of AI teenspeak bot, except with the rise of ChatGPT, we now know that AI can do everyday vernacular much better than that. I guess in a way it’s comforting to know that Gil Thorp gets written the traditional way, by half-remembering a phrase they heard on the MTV some years back.” –pugfuggly

“As they leave the office, Dr Ed gets into his Porsche convertible and looks back to Steven; ‘Listen kid, you don’t drive a car like this by arranging flowers for a living. Now get back in there and put down [checks notes] Mr. Pickles!’” –Hibbleton

“If you find yourself wearing a lilac jacket over a mint green shirt (but white cuffs, somehow) with a powder blue tie, you’re well beyond self-care.” –Schroduck

“Dr. Ed seems not to have figured out the Doorknob Principle.” –Charterstoned

“In fact and in truth, Uncle Walt died in 1983, surrounded by family and friends. Everything you have seen in the forty years since then has been the final hallucinations that passed thru his mind in the last fleeting seconds before he slipped away. How do I know? I’ve been dead since 2010.” –The Real Skeezix Wallet

“It makes sense because Walt never washes his hands. By the way, that kid’s got the ‘Spanish flu’ now.” –Peanut Gallery

“Abe Lincoln’s coffin was buried ten feet deep and encased in 4,000 pounds of concrete. However, he was not cremated. So if you REALLY want to shake Abe Lincoln’s hand, and you’re determined enough, there’s no need to settle for half-measures.” –Steph

“I haven’t been a teenager since the 1980s, so maybe things are different now, but it seems that teenagers wouldn’t have the kind of disposable income to waste on NFTs — most of them, anyway. Who are these friends of his who are throwing this kind of money around? On the other hand, Alexander debuted as ‘Baby Dumpling’ in the strip in 1934, which would mean he’s turning 89 this year. That’s certainly old enough to not know a bad internet-based investment from a good one, and if the other 89-year-old kids in high school are as sharp as he is, then I’ll believe they’re using their reverse mortgages to load up on lucrative NFT futures.” –Larry McAwful

Remember: If you want an ad-free version of this site sent to you every day via email, for $3 a month you can become a Comics Curmudgeon newsletter subscriber! And if you never want to see banner ads on this site, and want to get cool comment-editing features to boot, for the same low price you can become a Comics Curmudgeon website subscriber! And if you just want to give me money directly, you can put some scratch in my tip jar, or back me on Patreon! Thanks to all for your support and readership!