I just want to comment that yesterday I spent a great deal of time reading about the Costa Concordia disaster. The images and stories were harrowing. After reading so much, I considered not commenting on our current Mary Worth story, but simply boycotting it until it wraps up because it is clearly in awful, awful taste. But you know what? I'm going to do my best to post a running commentary and allow readers of this blog to post their thoughts because I find that when I read Mary Worth in a vacuum, without our support group, I just end up getting even more depressed. Life is brutal. So despite the fact that 32 men, women and children died six months ago in the real life disaster, we're going to follow Karen Moy's story and enjoy the ride as much as possible, even if that isn't very much. Also, thanks to faithful reader Sandi Ego for referencing this Vanity Fair story in yesterday's comments section.
Unbelievable. And to think that Karen Moy is actually being paid for submitting this blatant ripoff; profiting from the loss of 32 lives. I'm surprised that King Features accepted this storyline, and also that the newspapers aren't pulling the strip.
ReplyDeleteWanders, thank you. I had considered boycotting it too, but it is better to let Moy know (and I assume she reads this blog) that we consider this to be in disgustingly bad taste.
ReplyDeleteI think she owes her readers an apology.
Maybe we ought to switch our attention over to Apartment 3-G, where Nina has finally given birth after a three-week labor, during which her helmet hair remained firmly in position and her white shirt unsullied.
ReplyDeleteAnd what does she do as soon as her new baby is handed to her? Leap up to kiss her husband, leaving the baby unsupported on a chair!
--Beagle Vet
Thank you for the boycott. It's bad enough that we have to endure cliched, dragging, debilitating storylines and inept, below-amateur, ugly drawing, but to be faced with such a blatant and tasteless rip-off is more than I can take. This blog is the only thing worth reading about this comic strip.
ReplyDeleteDo you think that M&G are actually, in a supremely misguided and woodenheaded way, attempting to Heighten Awareness re: this tragedy?
ReplyDeleteI am not excusing them/it. I simply cannot imagine any other explanation for this strip's current storyline. Can anyone be so completely oblivious and lacking in sensitivity? Again...ick.
Gee, I thought I was the only one who thought the story line was in questionable taste.
ReplyDeleteI doubt that you will find criticism of this storyline outside of this blog. And as for a boycott, who would notice?
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing Moy is trying to emulate the TV show Law and Order which often closely mirrored current, real life, tragic plots and wove them into the storyline. And remember, Moy isn't trying to be funny about it, I believe she thinks she is being dramatic - we're the ones who add the comic commentary.
ReplyDeleteI don't feel that the current storyline is in bad taste. Remember when everyone was ripping away with jokes during the kidnapping storyline? Lots of kids are kidnapped every year (nearly 1 million are reported missing each year), many are killed and some end up like Elizabeth Smart. But I don't think that storyline was offensive or in bad taste either. Same goes with Liza's stalking, or Ted Confey's scamming. After all it's just a comic strip. It's fiction. People need to lighten up.
I was a victim of ID theft a few years back and it sucked trying to repair my finances and clean up the mess, but if Moy wanted to make a storyline on ID theft I didn't find it in bad taste, I found it amusing.
Life is brutal. There is tremendous troubles and tragedy in the world every day, most of which we don't hear about (e.g. over 100 people die each day in traffic accidents in the US - why are those deaths deemed less tragic or less important to cover in the news than the 32 who died in the Costa Concordia?). We can choose to be happy and enjoy life and laugh at the world or not. I choose to be happy. Right now I have a good job, a healthy family, good friends, and a nice house to live in. The way I look at it I don't have any excuse not to be happy.
Reading this blog and the funny comments each morning brings a smile to my face, it's a nice way to start out the day. I really hope Wanders continues on with the blog. In fact I plan to again kick in some money for the blog as a token of my appreciation. Keep up the good work Wanders.
Brian G.
I'm glad I happened to sit down with a stack of magazines to catch up on some reading last night. I was stunned when I read the accounts of the disaster and realized Karen Moy was using this as her Mary Worth story template. It's hard to believe she couldn't make up her own tragic accident to snap Dawn out of her clinical depression.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, I agree with much of what you say. But it would appear, according to the Vanity Fair article, that Moy is lifting actual dialogue from the survivors verbatim accounts. That seems to be very objectionable and disrespectful.
ReplyDeleteWanders is right, we are a kind of support group for each other. If our commentary on this storyline reflects a more hard-edged satire than usual, we are directing it against Moy and Giella. They (Moy more than Giella) deserve it. No disrespect is intended for the victims of the Costa Concordia.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, do Italian sailors really dress like that on duty? Seriously, I'm just asking. I've been on Norwegian, Greek, Dutch, and English lines, and never saw that kind of costume.
The last time I saw sailors dress like that was on the Nautilus.
ReplyDeleteI, too, agree that this story line is in terrible taste. And Moy doesn't even have the decency to locate the story, which reeks of moral plagiarism, outside of Italy. The kidnapping, ID theft, stalking, scamming, etc., plots were generic, almost like warning PSAs. This story line is not generic; it deals with real people involved in a real tragedy. Shame on you Moy.
ReplyDeleteI just had to do it; i sent off a couple of emails to King Features and Hearst Publications (do you REALLY think Moy reads this blog?). We'll see where it goes.
ReplyDeleteGood idea, kathyo.
ReplyDeleteI do think Moy reads this blog, though. We've been pretty much the last holdouts who still read her goofy strip. How could she not want to know what we think?
Of course, she does live in a different universe, so maybe not.
I agree with hia5 and the others...the generic plots are just not offensive in the way this one is. (Mary's smug reference to 9/11 was in poor taste, too, but this one is REALLY over the top!)
ReplyDeleteI just don't understand if Moy thinks she is doing the real story a service by making this plotline -- or maybe she wrote this years ago and it's just a sick coincidence.
ReplyDeleteI remember emailing Tom Batiuk once when I heard murmurings about Lisa being killed off. It was still very early in the story and I asked him to spare her. (What can I say? I still read the strip because it brought back childhood memories and I liked Lisa.). He responded that the storyboards were already in and even if he wanted to change it, he couldn't. I don't know Moy's deadline, but I suppose it could be a warped coincidence. I highly doubt it, however.
ReplyDeleteI'll still keep reading, but if they kill off Wilbur, Mary isn't going to be enough to keep me reading. It's Mary and Wilbur that I stick around for.
Ripping off headlines is in poor taste enough, but you KNOW that Moy is going to segue into #@$@%@$ stupid self aggrandizing through her idiot kite-flying sandwich eater and nosy busybody biddy to preach some godforsaken moral to all this.
ReplyDeleteGag.
After thinking things even further, and yes, I know that's dangerous in santa royale, I'm even more miffed that this whole thing started out as a whiny Dawn getting her own special "snap out of it" treatment!
ReplyDeleteSocial commentary is one thing. Hitting us over the head with a version of reality to prove one's own "point" is unconscionable.
This is my favorite paragraph from the Vanity Fair article. I hope it gets incorporated into the story:
ReplyDeleteThat night, on the far side of the island, a 49-year-old hotel manager, Mario Pellegrini, was pointing a remote control at his television, trying in vain to find something to watch. A handsome man with a mop of curly brown hair and sprays of wrinkles at his eyes, Pellegrini was exhausted. The day before, he and a pal had gone fishing, and when the motor on their boat died, they ended up spending the night at sea. “The sea is not for me,” he sighed to his friend afterward. “You can sell that damn boat.”