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Mary Worth, 10/22/15

You guys! Remember beloved ancillary Mary Worth character Olive, from last year, who had angelic visions and also some kind of cysts that her terrible parents tried to have removed by a doctor who Olive hated and feared, so she fled to the pool but Mary saved her and then her parents were like, hmm, maybe we shouldn’t have our daughter operated on by a guy literally named Dr. Kapuht who’s also a junkie, and then Mary told her that she should always act on her most powerful delusions, which she claimed were the result of some weird tummy-brain rather than divine revelation. Olive and her terrible parents moved back to New York, and Mary was extremely cagey about coming to visit, which makes sense because normally grown adults don’t fly across the country to hang out with, you know, children they aren’t related to. But, whatever! Santa Royale is dullsville now that Toby and Ian aren’t getting divorced and lord knows Mary doesn’t want to spend any more time than she has to with Dr. Jeff. Hopefully she’ll take the time to let Olive’s parents know she’s coming out; it’d be awkward if she arrived at their apartment and interrupted their near-constant sexing.

Apartment 3-G, 10/22/15

“Good news, Gaby! Your daughter, who may or may not be responsive, will probably recognize your voice, despite the coma that she may or may not be in!” Wow, it’s a good thing that a medical professional with a great bedside manner is delivering this news. Thank goodness Tommie stopped Eric from running in all half-cocked.

Bizarro, 10/22/15

I’m actually not 100% sure on what the joke here is supposed to be, but I think Bizarro artist Dan Piraro lives in Los Angeles, and it’s possible that he saw the same … duck? goose? waterfowl of indeterminate species? … that my wife and I spotted last month in Echo Park that looked so much like Donald Trump that she was moved to take a picture:

I hope you enjoy this as much as I do.

Shoe, 10/22/15

Look, Perfesser, I know Skyler is a ward whose presence in your home and life you barely tolerate, but he’s a bird about to hit puberty (pu-bird-y?) and if you don’t have this talk soon he’s going to try to fuck some bees

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Gil Thorp, 10/21/15

Wait, so, they’ve already broadcast the first episode of this reality show without having figured out how they’re shaping the storylines going forward? This makes me actively angry. Reality shows shoot hours and hours of footage over weeks and only then start sifting through it all to figure out how they’re going to shape what appears on screen. That’s how you create gripping drama out of the minutia of everyday life! You don’t just shoot a few days and then throw something together and then (and here’s the worst sin) let the subjects of the show watch it and then try to figure out what comes next! This why we should be mad at Holly and her crew: not because they’re being mean to Gil or whatever, but because they’re demonstrably bad at making a reality show.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 10/21/15

Sure, Snuffy and his clan are notorious lawbreakers, but can you really judge them, considering that the legal system in Hootin’ Holler is notoriously corrupt? Here we see the community’s only magistrate auctioning Snuffy off to whichever flatlander for-profit prison will pay him the largest kickback.

Mary Worth, 10/21/15

“Time to catch up with my emails…”

From: web@theorganicgrocer.com.sg
To: Mary Worth Subject: Dear Winner

This is to Notify you has the lucky winner of this year lottery. Your e-mail address attached to ticket number: 7-1-8-36-4-22 under agent ID: 18 and lucky ball number 7363789,which subsequently won you the lottery in the 2nd category.

“Oh my! This is very exciting!”

You have therefore been qualified for a lump sum payout of One Millions (£1,000,000) Great British Pounds(GBP) which amounts to $1,500,000.00 (One Million,Five Hundred Thousand United States DOLLARS) in cash, drawn in your favour, as the soul beneficiary and covered with the highest level of Insurance policy called the IRREVOCABLE GUARANTEE OF PAYMENT BOND.

“Irrevocable guarantee of payment bond! That sounds extremely official.”

Due to mix up of some names and winning number, we ask that you keep your winning information confidential until your claim has been processed and your money remitted to you, in your perspective country. Because this is part of our new security protocol to avoid double claiming and forgery of winners identity in this program by some unscrupulous persons.

“Yes, yes, that sounds very sensible. Can’t be too careful!”

Your winning will be delivered to you personally upon visiting our lottery headquarters in London, however,you must first stop in PORT HARCOURT,NIGERIA, in order to complete vital paperwork to avoid tax in both the united states and England. Please reply to this email in CONFIDENCE for more details.

“Hmmm. Maybe it’s time for me to make a trip.”

Crankshaft, 10/21/15

At last, this is what this dull mayoral campaign needs to liven it up: huge hellpits forming in town, threatening to swallow up the citizenry! Which candidate can stop the complete implosion of Centerville’s surface area, leaving the whole municipality just a gaping maw into the awful hell-dimension that lurks below the Earth’s surface? Certainly not Ralph Meckler! Why, he fell into the first one, just minutes after it formed! VOTE MAYOR KANE: the only candidate with the experience to defeat the Mole-Demons.

Dennis the Menace, 10/21/15

“What happens if my insides become my outsides, in a great rush of blood and viscera?” Step aside, Dennis: there’s a new menace in town, and he’s arrived with a flourish of nightmarish body horror.

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Faithful reader CaptainNovolin brought my attention to this column from Joe McQuaid, publisher of the New Hampshire Union Leader, which has an important and depressing nugget of A3G news contained within:

Because it doesn’t happen very often, it rattles me when I am right about something.
…
The first one I got right was actually due to the Lady of the House, who is right more often than she is wrong. She had been telling me for quite awhile that the Apartment 3-G comic strip in our daily paper was long past its expiration date. She said the story line made no sense and the drawing had deteriorated.

When I took a look, I knew she was right but I still delayed doing anything because I hate to get yelled at by angry comic-strip readers. When I finally dumped 3-G I guessed I wasn’t going to get a lot of complaints.

I was right. I actually got more complaints about the first strip we tested in its place. I have since heard from my industry sources that 3-G is going to be discontinued by the comic syndicate later this year. Wow! Ahead of the curve!

This is, obviously, extremely sad to me. I think all of us know that the soap opera strips aren’t necessarily going to be around forever, but I was heartened to see that the syndicates seem to be supporting at least some of them; new artists came in to Judge Parker, Rex Morgan, Mark Trail and Gil Thorp in the past few years, after all. But there was continuity within those transitions: Judge Parker, Rex Morgan, and Gil Thorp all kept their same writer as the artists changed, and James Allen over at Mark Trail had been assisting Jack Elrod for some time before taking over. I wonder if what’s happening at Apartment 3-G is that both artist and writer are planning on leaving, and the syndicate isn’t interested in retooling the strip completely.

It’s sad because of all the soap strips, A3G seems most ready for the sort of total reboot Dick Tracy got a few years back. A light drama about three young women professional women living in New York, having adventures and romances? I’ll be a lot younger of comics artists and writers would jump at the chance to tackle that in a contemporary way, and it could be really interesting to do so.

Anyway, apparently James Allen has thrown his hat in the ring, and, heck, writing this strip has always been my secret dream. It’d be great to see actual young women on the creative team, though. Could it be you? Let’s dare to dream and/or petition King Features!