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Mary Worth, 8/4/15

I’ve gone through a lot of fads and obsessions over the eleven (!) years I’ve been writing this blog, but Mary Worth is, and always has been, my lodestar. A quick peek at my stats shows that fully a quarter of the posts I’ve ever written discuss this strip. And you know what? It deserves all the attention. Today’s strip, in two efficient panels, encapsulates everything great about it: the overblown narration box, the crazy dutch angles in panel one as Ian pulls his hair out in consternation, and Toby’s twisted rage-face making her look like she’s planning on slitting Ian’s throat with that X-Acto knife. All this drama, of course, is turning on a relatively minor dispute, which could be resolved in one of several wholly acceptable ways — Ian could apologize and reschedule, Ian could cook something simple himself, Ian could explain his own error and ask the University Director what kind of takeout he’d like. But no, the Camerons have mutually and angrily decided to spin a terrible web of lies, in which Toby will attempt to pass off restaurant takeout food as her own, for literally no good reason at all. We can only hope this all unravels terribly and violently over dinner and Ian’s quest for academic advancement is ruined, ruined, but no matter what I am salivating to see what comes next, just as Ian probably is at the thought of takeout food.

Judge Parker, 8/4/15

Judge Parker’s joys are more subtle, but still worth savoring. Obviously when Sam’s close personal new friend (with whom he will never interact again, not once) gave him a skeet gun as a gift, it was a $20,000 Italian skeet gun. Unlike Sophie, I have no desire to Google anything about skeet gun models or their cost or nation of manufacture, so I’m just going to enjoy Sam’s rapid change of heart between panels one and two. “Hey, Sophie, this’ll be a chance for us to bond, and … wait, it cost how much? Yeah, keep your grubby hands off my high-quality, luxurious gun.”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/4/15

Speaking of class war, I too like my whiskey neat, and one of my go-to jokes about that is to say “in a glass” when people ask me how I like it — a joke I will now immediately stop making after seeing an addled British aristocrat say it in a soap opera comic strip. I’m pretty sure our put-upon servant is wearing gloves so that he doesn’t leave prints when he eventually throttles Avery.

Hi and Lois, 8/4/15

Having Lois’s head stick appear in front of the bottom of Dot’s word balloon is an interesting visual choice, but the fact that said word balloon covers up the house shutters makes it look like Lois is sticking her head right through that window. Anyway, I’m focusing on this minutia because I don’t want to deal with the fact that Hi and Lois’s long marriage is riddled with lies and deception.

Pluggers, 8/4/15

GOD DAMN IT PLUGGERS I’M NOT A HUGE FAN OF THE BIG BANG THEORY OR ANYTHING BUT IT’S BEEN ONE OF THE HIGHEST-RATED SHOWS ON TV FOR EIGHT YEARS. THERE’S NO WAY IT CAN BE DESCRIBED AS “THE LATEST” ANYTHING. EIGHT GODDAMN YEAAAAARRRRRSSSS

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/1/15

Oh, boy, as noted by Uncle Lumpy, deranged industrialist/nanny-marrier Milton Avery is back in the strip! When we last saw Milton a few years back in a plot I seem to have not covered in particular depth, his heart was on the verge of exploding because of his tightly wound business asshole lifestyle. After being vaguely threatening towards Rex for no good reason, it turned out that his real worry wasn’t over his heart, but his brain, which he was convinced was failing him. “You don’t have Alzheimer’s Disease until Rex says you do,” Heather declared, and I don’t remember if Rex weighed in one way or the other but today it’s pretty clear that he has Alzheimer’s Disease, or at least some other flavor of dementia. Looks like we’ve already found the excitiment of this new plot: can a senile and extremely wealthy man’s legal team keep him out of jail after he stabs a household employee to death?

Heathcliff, 8/1/15

Ha ha, yes, phones certainly do have a soporific effect that can smooth out conflict but also the passion of a life truly lived in the moment and OH MY GOD WHY IS THERE A PHONE IN FRONT OF THAT WEDGE OF SWISS CHEESE? Is the cheese alive? Has the Heathcliff creative team decided that, since all animals, predator and prey, are fully sapient in the strip, why not extend this to inanimate objects? Is every Heathcliff panel full of individual consciousnesses embedded in everything, fully aware, unable to communicate, and screaming?

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Mary Worth, 7/27/15

Welp, the good news is Adam and Terry are finally out of the water, but the bad news is that’s all the Pool Party we get this time around. However, the great news is it looks we’re starting Ian-centric story arc, and those are the best.

“University Directors” are usually directors of something, like athletics or media services. We don’t know what Hilton Berkes directs, but judging from how hard Ian is sucking up to him it must be pretty important. Maybe UCSR got tired of all the Ian-related accidents, lawsuits, and media embarrassments and appointed a full-time Director of Professor Ian Cameron to shadow him day and night and tell him what to do. That explains Ian’s enthusiasm — he’s hoping the guy will give him real-time sex guidance during his next squalid, doomed attempt to make love to his wife.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/27/15

OMG you guys it’s beloved ancillary Rex Morgan character Heather! Heather used to be Sarah’s nanny, until she married captain of industry Milton Avery way the heck back in 2004. Since then, Heather has overcome every obstacle put in her path, while Milton has strangely declined in both mind and body. It’s pretty clear she’s been poisoning him to take over his empire, and she’s going to keep at it ’til it stops being fun.

Apartment 3-G, 7/27/15

Say, you know who else is making a new beginning? Lu Ann! What, did you think “Margo,” how can that be, do you see Margo anywhere around?

Anyway, Lu Ann wants to make a new start, so obviously the first step is to give somebody her share of the apartment, but the Professor somehow won’t let her do it. Now, the three women somehow collectively own their building. So I don’t why Papagoras has any say in the matter, unless he directs her life like he’s Hilton Berkes or something, or all Svengali-like got her hooked on drugs. Which he totes could do, he’s done it before.

Blondie, 7/27/15

Hey, you know those lazy comic strips that end with one character telling another one how funny their joke was? Well, this is the passive-aggressive inverse of that, and it’s no better.

— Uncle Lumpy