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Mary Worth, 1/11/22

I’ve been to Rome twice in my life, in 1999 and 2002, and by an odd coincidence both visits were at the same time as big events for the veneration of Padre Pio, an early 20th century Franciscan mystic. During his life, Pio claimed (or had claimed about him) all sorts of miraculous powers, such as the ability miraculously cure the sick and be in two places at once, and he also supposedly had spontaneously generated stigmata wounds on his hands. The church hierarchy was very uncomfortable about all this as his reputation and following grew, repeatedly forbidding him from preaching; but after his death, the church began to acknowledge his deeds, and he was beatified during my first visit to Rome and canonized during my second, which meant that both times the city was thronged with Pio’s followers. The experience really stuck with me, and made me think about how as a miracle worker he was disruptive and dangerous to the church while alive — after all, why would this simple monk have these powers, and not the bishops and cardinals who control the church? — but after his death he could be integrated into the larger church narrative about God and humanity and the church’s role in mediating between the two.

Anyway, my point is that you can already see Wilbur, so irritating to everyone while alive, beginning to follow this trajectory now that he has followed another, more literal trajectory into the ocean and his (fingers crossed!) death. Wilbur isn’t being actively obnoxious in her face at this precise moment, so Estelle is allowing herself to indulge in the fantasy that they were “in love” or whatever. Maybe by the time the search for his body is abandoned and the ship return to shore, she’ll be telling everyone she accepted his proposal so she’s really a grieving fiancee! Whatever you need to move on to your new, brighter, Wilbur-free future, we’re all here for you, Estelle.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/11/22

Wow, it’s really too bad Sarah decided to use “Doggy” as her new character in the Kitty Kop Extended Universe and not “FOOT.” If she had gone the latter route, her work would’ve attracted a lot more perverts, but also a lot fewer lawsuits, which on balance would probably be for the better.

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Slylock Fox, 1/10/22

This is at least the third time this mystery has appeared in Slylock Fox: it showed up in 2013, with exactly the same art albeit with different coloring, and had previously appeared in 2011, with different art but the same basic mystery and solution. My earlier commentary on those strips in both cases was predicated on the same scenario: that Shady Shrew had enslaved sapient silkworms and was forcing them to manufacture clothes from which he profited. But I must be mellowing in my old age, because my first thought today on reading the strip was “But wait! What if Shady has actually developed a new plant-based silk substitute, liberating his fellow animals from toil? Did you put that possibility into your ratiocination calculus, Slylock? Of course not, but Shady doesn’t need your approval! Society will hail him as a hero, at least until the plants become sapient too.”

Dick Tracy, 1/10/22

Not much to say specifically here, I just think this is a pretty good Dick Tracy fight panel, with the moody shadows and the KRAKing and BLAMing and such! I don’t really expect either of the participants to die in some baroquely violent way like in the good old days, but I won’t pretend I don’t enjoy this!

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 1/10/22

You ever get a bunch of annoying car warranty scam calls and think of a great joke for your hillbilly-themed comic strip, then remember that your hillbilly characters don’t actually have access to phones, but you don’t feel like coming up with a new joke so you just kind of work around it? Because if you did, the result would look a lot like today’s Snuffy Smith. Also, does Snuffy think that mules live forever? If so, he’s in for an extremely rude surprise, possibly soon.

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Mary Worth, 1/9/22

Oh, hey, so, uh, Wilbur died, everybody! Wilbur … died? I mean, maybe he didn’t die, I have a hard time believing they’re killing off Wilbur, but, uh, probably in real life, this would result in his death, right? You might recall that back in 2012 Wilbur already stared death in the face from the deck of a cruise ship, and later declared, correctly, that he shouldn’t be alive, so it’s possible that for the entire last decade every last one of us has been living through his Final Destination scenario, which would explain [gestures around vaguely] a LOT. Anyway, I guess his gradual shift from “Charterstone’s lovable loser” to “the least pleasant person you’ve ever met or even heard of” over the past few years was meant to prepare us for this moment, and while it may be premature to write him off just yet, I’m still starting a GoFundMe to pay Sir Elton John to do an updated version of “Candle In The Wind” for our boy.

Marvin, 1/9/22

In other death and dying news, Jenny has left her awful son out alone in the yard to freeze to death and is planning to flee to the tropics and start a new life, a plan her husband is being remarkably dense about.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/9/22

I guess nobody is going to die in Rex Mogan, M.D., but if Rene successfully sues the Morgans into oblivion for actual intellectual property theft, Rex might have to start living like a common poor person and that’d be worse than death, right?