The legacy of Aldo Kelrast lives

Back when I got The Washington Post daily, one thing I did every day, even if I didn't glance at the majority of the paper, was read the comic strips. Back in ye olden days, I started reading The Comics Curmudgeon, which is still going strong and still a great read. Josh introduced me to a number of comic strips and frequently covers the somehow still-ongoing legacy strips that are comic strip soap operas. I ignore most of them, but for some reason have become engrossed by Mary Worth.

Mary Worth is a classic soap opera. Storylines are bonkers and also take forever. For example, it's wrapping up a storyline that began in early March. The strip is set in Florida, I think; Mary Worth is an older lady lives in a condo complex called Charterstone and storylines mostly revolve around hijinks of the other residents; she usually pops up to give advice. Sometimes the storyline revolves around her (most famously in the days of her stalker Aldo Kelrast [yes, his last name is an anagram of "stalker"]), but usually not. The sad sack who frequently takes the spotlight is Wilbur Weston--balding, overweight, living alone with a fish, but somehow also the writer of an advice column called "Ask Wendy." His love life often provides fodder for the strip. He's kind of awful, but still manages to get a lot of girlfriends, so kudos to you, Wilbur!

In this current storyline, Wilbur recently took a vacation to Cancun, where he found a ladyfriend named Belle. Belle then shows up at Wilbur's doorstep and promptly tries to kill Wilbur's daughter Dawn, eat Wilbur's fish Willa, and then try to kill Wilbur and Dawn after Wilbur got upset at the potential fish-eating. Wilbur and Dawn were saved at the last moment when Belle's brother shows up to take her away, saying she's gone off her meds. The best part of this is that her brother looks exactly like Wilbur, just slightly taller and slightly thinner. It's amazing. Dawn comments on it, but...that's it. Dawn and Wilbur then spend a week consoling each other (Dawn is just coming out of a brief abusive relationship herself). 

I'm not sure if other legacy comics strips go this hard. But there are enough storylines like this in Mary Worth that even now, long after giving up my daily Washington Post, after giving up my weekly Post as well, I will invariably go to ComicsKingdom.com to see what's going on. I never really watched soap operas growing up, other than a couple seasons of Sisters, if that counts. I guess this is how I make up for it. A guilty pleasure? Sure. I love that it's still being made in the year of our Lord 2025.

If you want a really deep dive into this, including an interview with Mary Worth's current writer and artist, you need to check out this entry on The Comics Journal. 

“I do find that readers seems to enjoy the... wackier stories more?” [writer Karen] Moy told me. “I think Wilbur is a character that readers both love and hate. He’s kind of like George Costanza in Seinfeld, where readers are fascinated by him, but they can’t stand him. Some readers said that they would like to see him killed off three times a year. What fascinates people about this particular story is just Wilbur himself.” 

I can't argue with that, honestly.

No, tax-free shopping does NOT make up for it

Today's Frank & Ernest really amused me. Though I think they should've added--and I'm sure others on the East Coast will agree with me--something about having to pay the stupid tolls and getting stuck in the toll traffic. Delaware. So expensive!

Ben's looking for some fireworks

I like reading the comics on holidays to see which comics address the fact that it is a holiday, and see which choose to ignore it. I don't have a preference; I just find it interesting. Today, it seemed that most comics ignored that it's Independence Day. But what really amused me was that not one, but two strips decided to commemorate the day by making a "Ben Franklin was a horny beast" joke:

Frank & Ernest

and Mother Goose & Grimm

It's not that I disagree with the characterization, it's just really funny that that's how the artists decided to acknowledge the holiday. Screw your work on the Declaration, Ben! You were a hound! Happy 4th!

(Apropos of nothing, the Frank & Ernest Ben is cuter, don't you think?)

Shut it, Barry

There are any number of comic strips I read that frustrate me. One the many is Curtis, and the thing that frustrates me every time it's featured is when Curtis's little brother, Barry, gets Curtis in trouble for something he didn't do. And this happens a lot. So I was happy to see this strip from yesterday: This is possibly the first time that the mother actually believed Curtis and scolded Barry. Seriously, Barry just pisses me off. It's probably because I'm a younger sibling, and know that a lot of older siblings feel like the younger sibling always got away with everything growing up--which totally wasn't the case with me and my sister. In any case, I wouldn't mind Curtis getting away from his mom and whaling on Barry with that tennis racket.

Just don't get me started on the stupid little invisible lizard thing that shows up and wreaks havoc. WTF is Ray Billingsley on?

Technology and classic comics do not mix

Is anyone else disturbed by the latest storyline in Garfield? Jon got a laptop (making Monday an odd comics day, between Jon getting a laptop and Dithers firing Dagwood via e-mail in Blondie), and now Garfield is using it to communicate. Today he was in a chatroom with other cats; yesterday he actually typed "Feed Me". This totally freaks me out. I mean, I've not infrequently thought that it would be helpful if my cats could communicate with me directly, but something is wrong with Garfield being able to type. One of the questions about this strip is whether Jon understands Garfield's thought bubbles. But Garfield doesn't need thought bubbles! He can just type out his snide comments!

Of course, virtually all of them will boil down to "Feed me," "I hate Mondays," and "Yay! Lasagna!" So maybe it doesn't make such a big difference.

Give me Red and Rover any day

I'm a pretty faithful comics reader. I read pretty much all of the comics in the Washington Post; in thinking about it, one of the reasons I still subscribe is because it's so much easier to read things like the comics in paper form than it is to read them online. (I admit that I do read Mary Worth online, but that's a subject for another post.)

One of the strips I find most frustrating is Mutts. It follows, not surprisingly, a couple of dogs. The thing that makes it so frustrating is that it can be a quite good strip. The artwork is great, for one thing. And there are sequences like the current one, with a bunch of Beatles puns (starting on Monday). I can't resist Beatles references. A recent sequence played off of The Big Lebowski. It's cute, and inoffensive, and funny enough.

But it has a tendency to try to pull the heartstrings, with weeks of "shelter stories"--animals asking for homes (example). I understand that it's an important cause, and the thought of animals in shelters totally gets to me. (I'm not even going to mention that commercial with Sarah McLachlan that plays the song "Angel"--ack! Nothing makes me change the channel faster.) Do people actually change what they're doing because of this comic, though? It makes me feel oddly guilty, which is both stupid and annoying, because I can't adopt any more animals, and I already give money to animal shelters. And I just have this image of people being guilted into adopting a pet that they shouldn't have.

I don't know. Maybe I'm overthinking it. But it doesn't make those "shelter stories" weeks any easier to deal with.