I have to admit, I groaned out loud when I saw this morning's first panel thinking this story might actually be about Wilbur's sense of abandonment, and not an elaborate tour or June Brigman's Beautiful Italy. Because making this a story about Wilbur would be about the worst thing that could ever possibly happen in the Worthiverse.
But then...
Thank you June Brigman for not even attempting to recreate Botticelli's Birth of Venus in ink, but only rendering the most minimal representation. Unlike this image from the Phantom last week.
Perhaps June thought she would have made this blog un-family friendly. But here at MW&M, we fear no art:
Irony is Officially Dead today.
ReplyDeleteWilbur feels abandoned after his daughter goes on ONE TRIP after he's been leaving her behind for a series of solo sojourns? And he "struggles to concentrate on his columns"? I'm sure, since he's fobbed one of them off on MW for aeons now, and we've never seen him work on any other.
And Dawn, full-time part-timer at Slowly Junior College, is "engrossed in study." No kidding.
Wow.
ReplyDeleteWanders, excellent post today! You are at the top of your game. Dare I say, It's a work of art?
-- Scottie McW.
June did a very accurate representation, considering that Dawn and her class are touring the famed Paint by Numbers museum in Tuscany. How I wish we could hear Harlan’s lecture on how well Mrs. Minnie Detweiler of Topeka, Kansas stayed inside the lines in 1956.
ReplyDeletefauxprof, I don't know if you checked this out, but apparently Dawn would not have had to travel to Italy and leave her poor, abandoned father alone in order to visit the Paint by Number museum. It exists online! https://www.paintbynumbermuseum.com/lobby Fabulous!
ReplyDelete@LouiseF, no matter how ridiculous I try to make my snark, reality outdoes me. Next we’ll hear from Mrs. Detweiler of Topeka!
ReplyDeleteYou just knew someone would google this.
ReplyDeleteWe can ask Deb Detwiler at Topeka's Caldwell Banker if she knows where her sister is.
https://www.coldwellbanker.com/Coldwell-Banker-Griffith-%26-Blair-American-Home-3048c/Deb-Detwiler-212897a
Wanders, you nailed it today, and everyone's comments are right on (and hilarious zingers). A top of the hat to all of you!
ReplyDeleteI guess traipsing off to Antarctica and then frolicking with and getting taken by a grifter while leaving your college-age daughter on her own are not points against self-satisfied father Wilbur. No wonder he's struggling with his column. I can't think of one thing Wilbur is qualified for. He would even fail at taste testing muffins because he'd just keep swallowing them indiscriminately.
Dawn is wearing the same clothes she wore to the airport. That explains the small valise she packed last week - traveling light, apparently. (Wilbur's polo looks very much like what he wore to the airport, too. He probably doesn't know how to do laundry.)
I've struggled for years to save enough money for a trip to Beautiful Italy, and Dawn Weston gets to just pack up and head over there with nary a care. Life IS brutal.
ReplyDeleteThe only explanation I can think of for the size of Wilbur's arms is that Mary's Muffins are really heavy. There's no way he's been inside a gym. Muffins curls, however, might explain them.
ReplyDeleteYep, Gina, Wilbur seems to have an unexplained source of income. He can't be doing all that well as a part-time columnist for a suburban newspaper.
ReplyDelete@Tim, judging from his uncharacteristically barren arms, my supposition is that Wilbur occasionally harvests his arm hair, spins it and then sells the resulting Wilbur Wool (cf. to Mary Muffins) Hair Shirts for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
ReplyDeleteIn June's rendering of the painting, I see either a longer-haired Dawn or a young Mary on the half shell, with Toby attending on the right, and Iris and Tommy floating in from the left, entangled in an unbreakable mother-son bond.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think I know what Dawn's thinking as she gazes at that scallop shell: "Reminds me of the Bum Boat."
ReplyDeleteWhat Harlan isn't telling them is that this rendering was actually done by Bandro Sotticelli who runs the paint by numbers school that Mrs. Minnie Detweiler of Topeka, Kansas went to.
ReplyDeleteWilbur is sitting moping by the computer trying to get motivated in his job. The boss at the Santa Royale Pennysaver doesn't have the heart to tell him that his column was replaced by Sudoku when he was in Columbia gallivanting with Fabiana