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Mary Worth, 7/30/12

In a truly great Mary Worth storyline — of which I now officially deem this one — you can’t predict the ending from the opening days’ plots. Who would have guessed that, back when Dawn was moping around on the couch watching TV because some dumb boy dumped her, we’d eventually see her and her father clinging to a pole on a listing cruise ship, people in the background hurling themselves into the sea, as Wilbur makes peace with his impending death? The question now is whether Mary Worth actually intends to kill off the elder Weston. Usually such Very Special Deaths are meted out to particularly beloved characters, so as to pull at the heartstrings of readers; and while I love the Wilbs (so much so that I’ve given him a secret mental nickname, “the Wilbs”), my affection for everything Mary Worth is so far down a weird hole of pomo irony that I can’t guarantee that it’s a reflection of emotions held by normal humans. Still, I will be unironically sad if Wilbur dies. Don’t despair, Wilbur, you can do it! 100 yards is really not that far to swim! The Mediterranean is warm and pleasant this time of year! There are so many delicious panini on that island! HAVE FAITH IN YOURSELF!

Ziggy, 7/30/12

A few years ago, we had a minor mouse problem and our cat was completely useless in dealing with it, a fact that became clear when she walked into my office with a tiny mouse in her mouth, dropped it on the floor, and watched it run off. “Bye, friend!” she was probably saying. “I hope we can play together again tomorrow!” Later I figured out that the mice were actually being drawn to her bags of cat food, which I stored on our back porch, and as soon as I started putting those in a rubber bin, the mice vanished. So not only was she not getting rid of mice, but she was indirectly responsible for their presence in the first place. What I’m trying to say is that maybe you should listen to the bipedal talking rodent, Ziggy, he’s making a certain amount of sense.

Family Circus, 7/30/12

Nice try, Billy, but your adorable malapropism can hardly hide the fact that you are angrily raging against the majesty of God’s creation and directly questioning His omnibenevolence. A few hours in the Keane Kompound hot box will hopefully save you from an eternity in hellfire later!

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Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 7/28/12

I’m not sure what’s more off-putting: that li’l preverbal Tater is fully aware of and completely committed to his tuber-derived name, or that he’s capable of drawing a startlingly realistic potato in chalk on a moment’s notice. But most disturbing of all is Loweezy’s sinister sidelong grin in the second panel, hinting at the dark purpose behind her son’s strange name. The Potato Revolution is coming, ladies, as soon as the Chosen One is old enough to rule. Be ready for it.

Archie, 7/28/12

So based on the clothing and the in-strip technology and something someone said to me off-hand in an email once, I’ve always assumed that the current batch of Archie newspaper strips are from the mid-90s, an assumption upended by today’s references to online dating and Linux. Yes, Linux dates from 1991 and Match.com launched in 1995, but I refuse to believe that Archie comics would ever be so up on any technological trends (or indeed any trends of any sort) as to namecheck them before they could be sure that most of their audience would get the reference, which means I can’t imagine this strip running before, say, 2002.

On the other hand, the startling words are in italics, and we’ve seen the reruns updated before, so who knows what the original text was. “I spend most of my time working on my book learning.” “You give new meaning to the concept of reading things instead of interacting with girls,” says the guy who responds to all romantic advances from ladies with abject terror.

Apartment 3-G, 7/28/12

Oh, don’t worry, everyone, we’re not just going to skip over Lu Ann’s story without acknowledging it! We’re going to acknowledge that we’re skipping over it, then skip over it. Look at how excited Tommie is! “I’m too scared to go first, but it’s amazing that Margo gave me the option!”

Ziggy, 7/28/12

Ziggy can’t remember what company insures his car, probably because he just suffered a traumatic brain injury.

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Archie, 7/21/12

Whenever a pretty girl walks by, Archie is so consumed by lust that he can’t even feel, say, a weed-whacker cable tearing into the flesh of his shin.

Spider-Man, 7/21/12

Haha, Spider-Man is super-worried that Clown-9 is bent on revenge against MJ’s dumb unwatchable play, when really he just wants to steal money and get drunk like a normal person.

Ziggy, 7/21/12

Ziggy’s plan to shame-binge on fun meals has been foiled.

Apartment 3-G, 7/21/12

“Gasp!! They know my real name! I’m going to have to kill all of them!”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/21/12

Oh, the Morgans have more than $10,000 in “bug-out money” just lying around the house, by the way.