Saturday, March 5, 2011

Mary Worth 973

I'd be a little concerned if Dawn was calling the childhood friend of Mary Worth, but because of the shortage of WASP-worthy names, Cathy is also Dawn's classmate at Local U, last referred to in 2004. She's the only person Dawn has left to turn to, the only person not yet destroyed by Twitter. At two a.m., Dawn sent out a tweet for help, but everyone replied "@Dawn: Just give in to it. There is no escape."

Today's Full Strip

20 comments:

Shmoopie said...

Up until a few days ago I had no idea that this Iris person was Wilbur's lady friend (live and learn I say!) and, like some of you, I've been wondering whether some bizarre comics-crossover with the characters from Apartment 3-G was occurring. Today Dawn yelps "Cathy" (last name "Ack!" perhaps???) during her withdrawal attack. If tomorrow she gives her good friend Blondie a call to talk things over, I'll have to consider stopping to read the funnies altogether. Like this strip isn't creeping me out enough already.

On the plus side, both panels are exceptionally well drawn today. Probably because there was no character-curled-up-in-bed-talking-on-a-cell-phone clip art available and we are witnessing somthing completely original. Kudos!

Anonymous said...

why does dawn look like shes been on a 2 week drinking bender from doing twitter. moy always has to take every story to some crazy extreme. lets check in on the honeymoon couple that should be good for some laughs moy.

Anonymous said...

Wow, I've never seen someone so strung out on electronic devices. Maybe they can turn Dawn's case into an episode on "Intervention."

heydave said...

And just following the "plot" "development" on MW makes me scream like that Munch painting.

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure this is a comics-crossover with Jack Chick. I can't wait until the Devil appears and send Dawn to tweet in Hell.

Anonymous said...

Has anyone looked for needle tracks on Dawn's arms?

Unknown said...

Carnival of Souls is a low budget 1962 horror film starring Dawn O'Thedead.

Vicki said...

"feeling 'crazy' you say? That's cuz you skip your college classes, you're too smothered by your Daddy, you eat too many wonderbread sandwiches, drink too many colas, don't get enough protein, and you're online too much!", says Cathy. "Now let me get back to sleep.zzzz"

next storyline please...what fresh havoc has Jill Black been wreaking???

katyb said...

This strip, and, I can only assume, its author, are in serious denial about addiction.

The internet does not make you turn into a fearful, baggy-eyed, insomniac lunatic.

And if your father-who-abandoned-you-long-ago-to-seek-revenge-and-find-a-killer reappears in your life as a shivering drunk, you do not make it all better by taking him home and putting him in bed.

I used to think there was some naive and dated effort at public service in these plot lines, perhaps for the benefit of older newspaper readers.

Now I think it's time to call a spade a spade.

This strip is lame and worthy of mockery.

Elaine said...

So, Anonymous, who would do this intervention? Mary? Mrs. I-empathize-because-I-also-embrace-the-world-of-electronic-devices Worth? The Interventionist is supposed to be a recovered addict - the only thing Mary is addicted to is giving meddling advice.

birdie said...

But...but...everything I needed to know about life, I learned from Mary Worth!

LOL I'm doing my best to mock it appropriately. It's getting to be kind of hard to mock it enough though. Dawn's descent into Twitter insanity while her father eats himself into oblivion may be the strip's final downward spiral from which recovery is impossible.

Even the most elderly and technophobic readers, clutching at their pearls when Jeff tried to talk Mary into a Kindle, and tsk-tsking along with Wilbur when Dawn skipped meals to tweet with her friends, have to realize this is bizarre.

Taryn said...

No, Dawn does not have track marks, but little do we know, she has Tweeted so much her fingerprints are gone. She rubbed the skin right off of her fingers.

Next up: she paints her face half blue and half yellow and declares that her hair's green and she's a tree. (See the Dragnet Blue Boy episode if you don't get the reference!)

Chester the Dog said...

Good lord, Dawn, snap out of it.

Who the heck is emailing you at all hours, smallish horses?

But on a good note, she is not on Ebay, shopping madly, like B?B?J?

Vicki said...

oh...good...grief! What 20+ something year old talks like THAT!? "I check my online accounts". And is Cathy supposed to be Dawn's age, b/c she looks like she's 37. Today's strip is just too stooopid.

kathyo said...

One on the dresser, another on the wall...just how many framed photos of herself and her father DOES Dawn have in her bedroom?

Anonymous said...

What could Dawn possibly twitter about?

Punky said...

@kathyo - good point about the number of photos. And the enormous framed photo on the wall today is the creepiest photo yet, of the two of them. Granted, Giella has purposely made Wilbur look unattractive in a younger way, to make it clear it's an older photo, but ICK. That photo is so creepily intimate that it casts an even harsher light on all of WIlbur's whiny "we never talk anymore" complaints and his pathetic attempts to take Dawn out to romantic restaurants. If I had that photo hanging on my bedroom wall, I'd be wide awake at three in the morning as well, whether or NOT I felt compelled to "check my online accounts" too often.

duckdg said...

@ Punky - I don't see what you see about Wilbur' image being 'unattractive in a younger way'. But then again I don't see how anything in that last frame makes any visual sense.
@ Vicki - My first thought too! Cathy is at least 37 and very possibly imported from a 1950's Mary Worth story, or another strip entirely.
@ katyb -Sad but true. Worthy of mockery.
"I can't stay present in anyone's company!" reads straight from an addiction self-help questionnaire. Who talks like that?

Anonymous said...

Who has a portrait photo taken of himself cupping his grown daughter's chin in his fingertips?????? I am finally speechless.

Punky said...

@duckdg You may be right. I think I might have just been so horrified by how creepy (many of us have used that word for this photo today, but there truly IS no better word) the photo was that I didn't go back and compare "now" and "then" photos of Wilbur, as unpleasant a task as that might be. He's pretty unattractive at whatever age he's photographed, let's just leave it at that.... Oh, how I hate this plot - I hate where it is going, and I hate how long it will take to get there.