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Mary Worth, 3/11/25

I have to admit that I’ve never fully understood the arrangement Wilbur and Mary have where Mary subs for him as “Ask Wendy” when he’s too busy travelling (or too busy masturbating nostalgically to the hot sales director from Orlando that he met while traveling). Like, is she doing it as a “personal favor,” for free, or is he paying her, and if so is he paying more or less than what he makes? I guess what I’m getting at is that Wilbur doesn’t seem that emotionally or for that matter financially attached to the column, and I’m guessing that a syndicated newspaper column that your name doesn’t actually appear on is one of those things you can pretty easily convince your bosses to hand over to another person of your choosing, especially once you tell them said other person has actually been writing it for some time. On the other hand, don’t forget that Wilbur literally won his job as an advice columnist in a contest, and I while I always assumed it was a thing where people submitted sample advice to the paper and they picked whoever was best at it, maybe it was more like the deal where you meet the Devil at a crossroads in rural Georgia and go toe-to-toe with him in an advice-writing competition, winning a new job but losing … your eternal soul. Wilbur would have a hard time being rid of that sort of job, but if he could just get Mary to sign this contract, a lot of his problems would be taken care of … no need to read the fine print, Mary…

Luann, 3/11/25

In classic Luann fashion, Luann’s terrible date has somehow morphed into a large and complex event over at The Fuse, about which I have two things to say: (a) Tiffany is right, “Transfuse at the Fuse” is a more fun way to brand this than a giant boring sign that says “BLOOD DRIVE”, and (b) Tiffany should not back down just because she suddenly noticed that this guy named “Phil” or whatever is cute, since we’ve already seen his date with Luann and as noted seen that it was terrible, mostly as a result of his off-putting personality. Stand your ground, Tiff, he’s going to read at you off of index cards, you as always deserve better!

Rhymes With Orange, 3/11/25

I mean, it’s going to break most of her, honestly — pretty much all her organs and body parts, and then she’ll die. That’s how fly swatters work: by delivering shattering blunt force onto the body of the fly.

Shoe, 3/11/25

ME USUALLY: Shoe is such a jerk. Sometimes I wish he would take a minute and reflect on his wreck of a life. He won’t like what he sees!

ME TODAY: Oh god, OK, this might’ve gotten too dark, actually

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Shoe, 3/10/25

Man, it would be concerning if you were a bird parent from a species that primarily ate fish and your son didn’t want to eat fish, especially considering that, bird-wise, the main way you get fish for your kid is to eat it yourself and then barf it up for them. I can see why you’d write a pleading letter to the editor of the local paper, though it’s pretty funny that said editor would just be like “ditch your ungrateful kid and get with a cat instead.” This may be affected by said editor’s species: Shoe is, as helpfully pointed out by a surprisingly comprehensive table on the Shoe (comic strip) Wikipedia article, a purple martin, a largely insectivore species in contrast to his fish-happy employees Cosmo Fishhawk and Loon. Everything else aside, domestic and feral cats are also one of the main predators of bird species, but the purple martin’s current conservation status is “Least Concern,” so I guess he’s not too worked up about that either.

Heathcliff, 3/10/25

Now that I’m returning to Heathcliff on the regular, I must report that it’s still following its late-era dream logic to surprising and disquieting places. Heathcliff hates dogs, sure. The local dogcatchers are a tight-knit society with their own social institutions, I buy that. Said dogcatcher community respects Heathcliff because of his aforementioned hatred of dogs, makes sense. And so they … get lower back tattoos of Heathcliff’s face? To signal all this information to one another, sexually? Yes, the chain of reasoning holds together, but if the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?

Intelligent Life, 3/10/25

I once cruelly but accurately described Intelligent Life as being “about a number of unpleasant people who are obsessed with ‘nerd’ franchises (i.e., most of modern film and TV entertainment) in the most boring way possible.” I guess I should’ve added a compliment about its one redeeming feature, which is that it’s almost never about pissing and shitting. Too late now, I guess!

Pluggers, 3/10/25

Oh, you’re telling me that a plugger will substitute lower-cost calories when the price of a favorite foodstuff goes up? Are they ever so special and financially rational? Should we tell everyone? Should we throw a party? Should we invite Professor Hal Varian, who’s written extensively on economic substitution effects?

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Mary Worth, 3/9/25

“The past only exists by how you remember it,” Mary long ago told an emotionally scarred young woman, haunted by the man who stood her up at the altar. “Keep only good memories from past relationships, and forget the rest!” says Wilbur, urging his daughter to join him in the comfortable and false world he inhabits. Ah, but Stanislaw Jerzy Lec reminds us that “You can close your eyes to reality, but not to memories,” which to me implies that the power of true memory overcomes any attempt we might make at self-delusion. That long trail of romantic failure each of you has behind you will always be there, burned into your memory, and you cannot shake it. Now, the Westons may whine that this is unfair, and ask why this Lec guy thought he was so smart. It turns out he has a pretty incredible biography with a lot of ups and downs, ranging from the time he wrote the first poem in the Polish language praising Stalin to the time he escaped from a Nazi concentration camp by killing a guard with the shovel he was supposed to be digging his own grave with. And what have the two of you ever done? Dropped a bowling ball on a guy’s foot? Had a funeral for a fish? Pathetic. Rethink your lives.

Blondie, 3/9/25

I assume this fantastic (?) joke (???) simply only would’ve worked in the multipanel Sunday format, but it honestly really bothers me that Blondie did an office-based gag on a weekend. After all, if this strip does a joke about National Dentists’ Day, you can be sure it runs on National Dentists’ Day. I refuse to suspend my disbelief and pretend to think we’re seeing action that’s actually happening on a Tuesday, or, worse, that the naturally lazy Dagwood went into work on Sunday when he should napping on the couch with his knees bent up all uncomfortably like God intended.