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You know what one of the problems of working for the Man is? You can’t tell the Man, “Oh, I’m sorry, I know I said I’d be available to write a bunch of Webcast scripts on short notice, but I don’t think you understand just how wacky Mary Worth is right now.”

Stupid Man.

Anyway, without further ado, I present to you: Mary Worth’s five stages of grief.

1. Startlement

2. Weepiness

(Wait a minute, he gave them to her … on their wedding night? Ew! I mean … ew! Must … not … visualize … Mary Worth’s … wedding night…)

3. “If I can’t see it, maybe it won’t be true”

4. Rage

(John Voight is Mary Worth!)

5. Blank-eyed numbness

And of course, there’s the corollary: Rita’s five stages of keeping her drunk ass from being thrown out on the street.

1. Drunkeness

2. Drunken slack-jawed incomprehension

3. Drunken self-justification

(Whew! Thank God you’re all right. We were worried there for a minute.)

4. Drunken begging for forgiveness

5. Drunken eagerness to please

Where’s denial in all this, you may ask? Well, over in Mark Trail, we’re learning that denial ain’t just a river in the Lost Forest:

Boy, I can’t see anything going wrong in this scenario. You know, there’s an awful lot of Mark Trail-ian sins I’ll be able to forgive if this storyline ends with El Presidente here gone completely mad, foaming at the mouth and lashing out insanely with inhuman strength at anyone with the misfortune to cross his path. It’ll be just like the end of Their Eyes Were Watching God — though there won’t be any black people, this being Mark Trail and all. Actually, I suppose his lackey’s scheming wife might beat the doomed lunatic to death with an oar or something, saving everybody and clearing the way to that suburban split-level ranch for the evil couple. It would be the perfect crime! Except for all the biting.

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Folks, I know I’m terribly remiss in posting in a very important time in comics history (the swans! the swans!) but I’m under a mound of real-world work that isn’t getting any smaller. Posts in the beginning of this week may be sporadic and consolidory. Apologies in advance and thanks for your patience.

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Blondie, 7/14/05

So Blondie’s 75th anniversary continuity-thon is in full desperately clumsy swing, illustrating via its stumbly awkward weirdness why the strip does not generally tackle multi-day story arcs. Today’s strip intrigues me though. I’m assuming “Raphael” is either Blondie’s gay hairdresser or a Ninja Turtle who does hair styling as a sideline. The notion of a new ‘do for Blondie is also interesting. Will it be as shocking as Ma Family Circus’ sensible bob was in its day?

But I have to admit that what really caught my eye was this: in panels two and three, Blondie is sitting with her back to us and partly obscured by the sofa, and yet we can still see one of her breasts. And how many 75-year-olds can we say that about?

By the way, my jury service has come to an end. The case did not fit, so we had to acquit. Then the city gave me $30 for my trouble. Woo-hoo!