Post Content

Mary Worth, 3/30/10

Longtime readers know that, while I may dabble with your Luanns and your Blondies, my heart belongs to Mary Worth above all. Thus, the beginning of any new storyline in this strip is a moment of great giddy excitement for me, even though “Wilbur meets his bastard not-son” will be hard to follow up. So far, we’ve gotten Mary foisting her friendship onto a pair of standoffish neighbors with her patented brand of hospitality. (I’m referring specifically to Patent No. 3087330, “System and method for establishing interpersonal relationships via taupe, oblong food-like products.”)

Bonnie and Ernie seem happy enough in panel one, contemplating the “nice spread,” the hilarity of the constituent shapes and colors of which I cannot emphasize enough. Who wouldn’t be all smiles when confronted with a big bowl of whipped potatoes, a tray of whipped sweet potatoes, a bowl of steaming whole unpeeled potatoes, another square tray of unpeeled potatoes, a tiny square tray of something white (eggs?), and a bowl of some mushed up vegetable of some sort? Mmm mmm good! But in panel two everyone’s facial expression has suddenly taken a turn for the grave, as if “getting to know [other humans] better” is something Bonnie and Ernie simply don’t do. Why? What terrible secret do they hide? This is why Mary Worth is so exciting! Because someday, in the next six to ten weeks, we’ll find out, and it will be blander than we can possibly imagine!

One sort of delicate point that I feel compelled to bring up is that Mary’s new friends are both pretty profoundly unattractive, even by the standards of a feature in which ol’ cross-eyes is the resident beauty. Since this strip is about as subtle as a frying pan beating you about the head and neck, forever, obviously their appearance reflects badly on their character; they’re no doubt going to be revealed to be perverts or scam artists, or monsters pieced together from human corpses and reanimated by a crazed scientist eager to play God.

Hi and Lois, 3/30/10

It’s all too appropriate that our blue-haired librarian is wearing a pink scarf. Thanks for destroying everything that’s good in the world with your terrible library, Fidel Trotsky-Tsung!

Spider-Man, 3/30/10

“And let’s hear it for lounging around the house in your underwear and high heels! And for cowardice! Sweet, sweet cowardice!”

Slylock Fox, 3/30/10

In panel one, a delightful band of puppies wants nothing more than to frolic and play with this laughing child. In panel two, the lad is about to be torn limb from limb by a vicious pack of feral dogs.

Post Content

Prince Valiant, 3/28/10

A couple minor setbacks in the inky gloom is all it takes for Val to ditch Aleta and high-tail it back to the surface: “Hey, Arn, I tried, all right?” No matter, though — these guys who seemed so scary back in October come off up close like cranky grey Smurfs or tiny Burghers of Calais or something.

And while it’s sad to see Aleta’s slow-mo trail-marking striptease come to an end, under the circumstances a “loss of prudence” may be exactly what she needed.

Slylock Fox, (panel) 3/28/10

Sly, enraged that inamorata Cassandra Cat prefers his well-endowed rival Buford Bull, lashes out with yet another flimsy, jewelry-related pretext for jealous revenge. I ask: who’s the real heel here?

Only Max notices actual thief Reeky Rat, whose hiding place is becoming his tomb. “Squeak!” “Squeeeeeeeeak!”

Comics for Kids?—I think not!

The Lockhorns (panel), 3/28/10

Loretta corresponds online with Darkness Itself, who logs off in haste and horror.

Mary Worth (panel), 3/28/10

In an otherwise undistinguished recap of the week’s non-events, Mary vents her disgust and resentment at Bonnie and Fine Ernie Johnson, with their to-themselves-keeping, intrusion-resenting, arrogant lowness of key. Just who the hell do these people think they are?

Hey, yeah, still me. Heh, heh: y’know, Josh, amirite? Monday for sure, I’m told.

— Uncle Lumpy

Post Content

The Comics Curmudgeon Spring 2010 Fundraiser

Today is the final day of the biannual fundraiser — so if you haven’t already, please join me and and your other fellow readers in supporting Josh Fruhlinger’s fine work here on the Comics Curmudgeon. Act now — thank you!

Click above to contribute by credit card or PayPal, here to contribute by check, or here for more details — Thanks!

Apartment 3-G, 3/26/10

Hey, it’s Dr. Skully “Chemo” Bryant, by all appearances — and against all odds — still alive! In a fit of dementia last September, Bryant turned over his lucrative psychiatric practice to medical impersonator Aristotle Papagoras, who quickly transformed it into a walk-in narcotics dispensary and Love Shack, setting the Bobbie Merrill story in motion.

Today, Dr. Bryant makes good his commitment to locate Merrill’s medical records, showing Papagoras that words like “professional” and “oath” still mean something to somebody in his business any more. The records had been filed under Bobbie Merrill’s married name, which was …. Which waaaaaaas …?

Anton Chekhov is famously reported to have said, “If in Act I you have a pistol hanging on the wall, then it must fire in the last act”. Well, faithful readers, we have our pistol, and the clouds are gathering for the final act — but whose will it be?

Hägar the Horrible, 3/26/10

It’s funny because that’s what the word means! Seriously, aren’t we approaching some kind of limit on what qualifies as “wordplay”?

Mary Worth, 3/26/10

Mary, already in her priestly garb, calls from outside the compound on her burner cell, but her chosen sacrifice evades the trap. Honestly! Salmon squares it is, then.

In panel two, Toby dashes off a landscape while her portrait of Ian dries.

Slylock Fox, 3/3, 3/19, 3/26/10

“I see. Well, let’s go back up to 30 milligrams and see if they stop.”

— Uncle Lumpy