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Mary Worth, 1/26/22

I hate to say that Mary doesn’t understand even the basic outlines of the personalities of the people she spends all her time with, but I can guarantee you that, if Wilbur’s soul were looking down from heaven, he would very much not want anyone taking a stiff upper lip attitude about his death, but in fact would be achieving the angelic equivalent of physical arousal at the thought of various women weeping and tearing at their hair because they miss him so much. I’m reasonably sure that he’s taking his sweet time asking to borrow a cell phone from anyone on Party Island precisely so he can pump Mary for information about exactly how sad everyone was thinking he was dead. It certainly would be a shame if he overplayed his hand and everyone turned on him once he got back!

Funky Winkerbean, 1/26/22

Speaking of fake deaths, remember when Lisa called Les to stop him from getting on a plane, after she died, which was never really followed up on? What I’m trying to say is that Mary Worth couldn’t let us think Wilbur was dead for more than a week, but if it turns out that Funky Winkerbean has managed to fool us for 15 years, I will frankly be willing to forgive an awful lot.

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Dustin, 1/25/21

Dustin of course has a core mission of depicting the life of the shiftless, no-good kids today, as interpreted by someone who’s only heard anything about the lived experiences of any human being under the age of 35 second- or third-hand, which is how you get recurring bits like “Young people today definitely meet prospective romantic partners primarily at fern bar, right?” I was briefly intrigued that earlier this week Dustin appeared to have given up on his intermittent work through a temp agency and instead chose to join the “gig economy” in an actually Zoomer-appropriate storyline. But virtually all my interactions with people delivering for Grubhub and its competitors involve getting a text that they’ve left it on my porch, or at most waving at someone through my front window as they book it to their next delivery scheduled by their cruel algorithmic taskmaster, so I’m going to go ahead and say the Dustin creative team also thinks that “Those food apps the kids use today are just like pizza delivery, right? Probably you pay the guy in cash after he hands you the food?” Anyway, usually a strip like this would put a cutesy faux-app name on Dustin’s hat, so this is a really great opportunity for Grubhub to sue somebody.

Mary Worth, 1/25/21

I love the way that Dawn is grappling with the problem of evil — “why would God allow something bad to happen to someone good?” — and Estelle’s response is that “Oh, actually, your father’s a hair-trigger drunk, sorry if you were somehow unaware of this. It’s my fault, really, except not, if you think about it. I’m definitely crying for real though.”

Funky Winkerbean, 1/25/21

“Sorry, no, I was too busy dwelling on the fact that nobody has ever suffered the way I’d suffered, so I couldn’t be bothered to do a few minutes of token labor to keep alive some creatures that really brought a great deal of joy to your mother, the person I was ostensibly mourning, until I started having hallucinations. Anyway, in a related story, remember how you ate mostly cracker crumbs out of the couch cushions for all of second grade?”

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Mary Worth, 1/24/22

It’s definitely an interesting choice to show Wilbur’s loved ones sobbing over his death after we’ve already been shown that he’s not only very much alive but is almost certainly at this exact moment enjoying another round of yummy margaritas on a private resort island somewhere. This pushes this whole scene out of the realm of heartfelt drama into that of farcical melodrama, which frankly is a more comfortable mode to engage with Mary Worth in, for me anyway. Speaking of melodrama, you have to respect that Mary knows better than to blurt “the sea has probably claimed him” out loud, not so much because of the fatalism but because it’s extremely overwrought.

Dick Tracy, 1/24/22

Wow, I guess, the Neo-Chicago police force is “woke” now, giving officers who have been involved in an officer-involved immolation paid time off to be “in their feelings” and experience “trauma-informed self care” or whatever the kids say these days. Still, it’s nice to see that Dick has a little time to pursue some his hobbies, like eating hamburgers semi-shirtless and wandering around the woods looking for goo that used to be some guy who blew up.

Gil Thorp, 1/24/22

A guy I knew who ran a winery told me that, during Prohibition, some vineyards survived by mailing people grape juice and various other wine-making ingredients along with a note that said “Whatever you do, do not follow these very detailed instructions that we’re about to give to you, because if you do you’ll have made wine and that would be illegal.” I’ve been thinking about that a lot during this Gil Thorp teen gambling plot, where the theoretical teens who are the audience for this strip are simultaneously being set up for a heavy-handed plot where a gambling teen suffers for his gambling ways but also being educated in the mechanics of all the fun and exciting bets they can place on online betting apps that are free and easy to download!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/24/22

Ironically, this page from Sarah’s diary would become the key exhibit in the plagarism lawsuit filed against her father by the heirs of E.C. Segar.