Post Content

Mary Worth, 6/30/22

Look, I’m not what you’d call particularly “hip” (SAYS THE GUY WHO’S BEEN WRITING A BLOG ABOUT NEWSPAPER COMIC STRIPS FOR 15+ YEARS, ENTIRELY UNNECESSARILY), but there were some things I was onto “before they were cool,” and one of them was straight-up hating Jared. When did it become cool to hate Jared? Not sure, but it doesn’t matter, because I was in before that, as I hated him on sight, with the main reason being that his whole personal brand is that he’s just a klutzy, nerdy, nice guy, but he’s actually emotionally manipulative and also was very clearly interested in Dawn romantically from the very beginning, so leaving anguished voicemails demanding that she “remain” friends with him is frankly pretty rich. Anyway, Dawn is not great but Jared is terrible, so on this occasion I am rooting for a member of the Weston family to “win” this breakup, as much as that goes against all my values.

Shoe, 6/30/22

I admit, I probably go to the “the syndicated newspaper comic strip Shoe’s character are all bird-people, but the jokes they wrote for it make it seem like they forgot about that” well too often, and now I kind of feel like I’m the Boy Who Cried Unrealized Bird-Man Joke saying this, but: a strip about a man who got laid off from a job at the mirror factory with some vaguely mirror-related wordplay isn’t very funny, but a strip about a bird-man who got fired from his job at the mirror factory on his first day because he saw his own reflection and went crazy and attacked it would, I hope we can all agree, have been very funny indeed.

Sally Forth, 6/30/22

God damn I did not have “Ted Forth gets Oedipally cucked and also regular cucked by the same hot old dude” on my list of summer predictions, but you know what? I’m here for it. Here for it.

Hi and Lois, 6/30/22

“I mean, I’m drunk right now. I don’t want to be here at all!”

Post Content

Mary Worth, 6/28/22

Has there ever, going all the way back to the ancient Egyptians, been a more perfect match between visual and narrative art as today’s Mary Worth? I’ve studied the subject and feel confident in saying that no, there hasn’t. The image of Dawn loping away from Jared in panel two is absolutely perfect, and the way her legs and arms are positioned lets you know exactly how mismatched her defiant words and her absurd running style must be as Jared watches her flee. Her muted bluish color palette and slip-on shoes somehow just add to her humiliation, for me. But then, how can things get more humiliating for you than having Jared of all people yell “We were friends before … we can be friends again!” at you in a public place where other people can hear it? Well, it’s only Tuesday, so there’s a pretty good chance we’re going to find out.

Sally Forth, 6/28/22

I regret to inform you that Sally and Ted never did get to swing with their hot new neighbor, because it turns out he was just buying the house next door to rent out to people who presumably don’t want anything to do with the Forths either erotically or socially. However, that doesn’t mean Ted won’t get to be sexually humiliated this summer, although finding out that your widowed mother has a new zaddy boyfriend with Celtic tattoos activates a very different kind of kink.

Post Content

Mary Worth, 5/18/22

Oh, wow, not only has l’affaire HelenCal ended with Ian and Toby’s past and potential future (respectively) student entanglements safely banished, but it seems the Camerons have learned a valuable lesson: namely, that performing their sexual attraction for the benefit of others is just the thing they need to rekindle that attraction and indeed spark it to new and intensely erotic heights! Look for Charterstone’s #1 intellectual academic couple to engage in increasingly public and risky erotic rendezvous in the coming months.

Sally Forth, 5/18/22

Sally Forth, meanwhile, is approaching much more transgressive territory than mere exhibitionism: no, Ted and Sally are making their first ever neighbor friend and are immediately veering into cuckoldry. Look at how Sally sweats with delicious anxiety as their neighbor moves boldly into her personal space! Ted seems to have vanished entirely after the first panel, but I assume he’s bearing the same intrigued expression you can half see on him there.

Dennis the Menace, 5/18/22

This is a profoundly sad strip. Dennis is begging — begging — his father to stop shit-talking his friends because he knows he’ll blurt all those insults out in front of them, he wants to stop but he can’t stop, not matter how hard he tries. Henry, meanwhile, looks not upset or sympathetic but bored. “Look, kid,” he’s thinking, “You’ve gotta menace these guys. I know it’s no fun, but it’s what the people want. It’s the name of the strip. It pays the bills around here.”