Snark It Up, FuzzBall!

Because shoulder hair isn’t disgusting enough…

So soon all Rex and June’s troubles will be solved:  Toots fixes stuff around the house and pays back Cousin Brook, Brook has enough money to move out.

Which still leaves Toots (and Sarah) hanging around the house.

I think this plan needs a little more work.

It seems that an icy silence (not mollified by any amount of Potato-Ade) between Bonnie and Ernie during dinner alerted Mary to the possibility that all may not be right with her guests.  But how can the Mistress of Meddle pry into their secretive lives?
No doubt it will take subtlety.
Diplomacy.
Tact.
Or just out-and-out deceit…

Could it be?  Is Neddy actually returning this century today to Spencer Farms?

Does Sam love Smucker’s?

I think I’m on to something.

In these days of shrinking newsprint and the ever-constant threat of our favorite comic strips being dropped, maybe a few ought to be combined.  Not forever, like some creepy muley-tigron-manpigbear hybrid, but only occasionally, when the situation merits it.

As an example, Mary Worth is embarking on a new storyline, and frankly, it looks dull.  If this were Sweeps Week, old Mary might be in the dustbin.

However, there’s some camera-swinging, gun-flinging action!!! over in Mark Trail, and it’s just what we all wait and pray for!  So in this case, maybe a little Mark Trail fleetness dropped into Mary’s favorite mercantile emporium will save the day:

Pretty freakin’ exciting, huh?

And speaking of action, Bonnie and Ernie actually show up for dinner at Mary’s! Is this action, or just plain stupidity?!  Only the grindingly-slow events of the evening will tell…

Rex and June Morgan have been wrangling over what to do with Cousin Brook and her Once-an-Item buddy Toots.  Eh.  Boring, responsible adult jabber.

Not without the occasional interesting visual, however…

And I have to admit that the best thing about the Responsible Adult strip on Sunday was that Rex has a Metrokane Penguin Thermal Carafe on his kitchen counter — just like ME!

I refuse to believe that it belongs to anyone but Rex!  And while I’ve never actually used mine, it’s just too cute (it has googly eyes, people! GOOGLY EYES!!) to keep in a dark, dingy cupboard.  Which I guess you could say about Rex as well.

I wonder what Rex would look like with googly eyes…

We kid because we love, Rex (*snort*)

Mike Manley is the face of the new faces in Judge Parker, a very talented artist who I think will do Woody Wilson’s stories and all those characters we know and love justice.

A few folks are a wee bit confused by a couple of characters.  Sam Driver and Randy Parker, being brunets, brown-eyed, and legal, tend to be mixed up.  I’m finding them pretty easy to distinguish between, with Sam’s longer hair and Randy’s brush cut.  Still, it never hurts to have the occasional refresher course.

Anyway, I’m a sucker for “field guides” of any sort (I’ve got a few, including ones on identfying holes in the ground, animal poop, and French cheeses.  I *don’t* think any of these are related.)

I try to avoid Luann.  I liked high school a lot, but I never saw the point of being there for 25 years, like Luann and her buddies have, nor have I thought that there were enough hijinx to last that long (OTOH, Archie has been managing that for 50 years or so).

Anyway, blonde WASPY Luann has been cast as Maria in the spring musical West Side Story and has been given pointers (ahem) by Australian-exchange student Quill.  The most useful?  An ancient Chinese fortune-cookie piece of tripe proverb:  Sing to toes, sing through nose.

Yeah.  Whatever.  Be useful, Quill. Spout platitudes.  Maybe when you go back to Dingo’s Kidney, New South Wales, you can become the Aussie version of Mary Worth.

Stimulate that economy, Mary!

No! Don’t stop! Don’t return merchandise! Don’t platitudize!

We were all clamoring for a rip-roarin’ pool party, Charterstone-style, and this just isn’t it.  Maybe we’re a little early. Maybe the weather’s still a little chilly.  But it just doesn’t seem quite right if we don’t catch of glimpse of the rare white Caledonian whale…

WTF?!?

ONE DAY FOR A CHARTERSTONE POOL PARTY?!  AND A WEEKDAY?!?

Things are just not right in Santa Royale.  Still, while Toby was concentrating on her fat-free, flavor-free Pringles, Mary had been musing over returns (“Speaking of returns…”).

Who could it be? Aldo, back from the dead? Chester, having run away from his owner?  Drew, dying of dysentery and/or syphilis? Charley Smith, ready for a new sexual conquest?  The mind reeled for about 24 hours, and then…

Platitude-slinging in a freakin’ department store?!

Oh, well, you know the old saying, when life gives you a lemon potato, make Potato-Ade take Toby shopping:

I don’t know if this one is better, with Toby licking the window:

I just like the idea of Mary taking Toby “shopping,” and leaving her in a locked car.