ummm, what?

well, the hemingway complex has not blogged for awhile (hope we have not lost our 2 readers forever!!!!), lulled into a stupor by days and days of the same cryptic, non-plot-advancing, non-revelations from mary worth. today's strip shocked the h.c. back into blogging by its very anti-climactic-ness. like, is that the best meddling you can do, mary worth? the h.c. thinks not!!! that was a sorry excuse for meddling. an un-respect-commanding threat to call security, then asking donna if that's ok? the h.c. expects more meddling! the h.c. would also like to see less too-small-sweatshirt-wearing, but that may be too much to ask. mary best step up her game, and pronto. otherwise, what was the point of the last month? that one non-event in her childhood inspired her to half-assed, ineffective quasi-meddling? the h.c. is unimpressed. where's dawn and what's his name?

WHAT?!

Oh my god, this is the dumbest thing the Hemingway Complex has ever read! What an outrage! All this time we've been waiting for the true story behind Mary's lifetime of meddlesomeness, and this is it? It doesn't even make any sense! It's like, I am who I am because of this formative experience in which nothing actually happened, though I will intimate that something horrible befell Cathy! Mary, you f-ing blueballer, let Toby go back to the party which has already lasted a month and see if they've gotten out the burgers yet.

nothing to explain! at all!

ok, the hemingway complex was very patient on this one. even didn't make fun of sad mary for a few days. but sersly? maybe you're finding it hard to explain because there is nothing to explain! it's a straightforward idea that even a dunce could understand. you said in the first panel, and in one-two panels per strip for the past trillion days!!! toby is like, please stop explaining! by the time we get back to the charterstone pool party - it will be summer and the fat guy will have eaten all the burgers!!!! god!

ummmm

soooo....basically this is too sad for even the hemingway complex to make fun of. nothing funny to say about sad kids being overwhelmed by a nice gesture. still waiting for the root of the compulsion to meddle however. does someone being nice to you = meddle in the lives of others? who knew?

tough times

Oh, I see. She meant that her home was literally broken. Judging from that front yard, that's because it's in the middle of a flood.

Continuing: whaaaat?

I know that the authors of this strip, Moy and Giella, are working hard at learning to draw children appropriately - no midget adults, no bulbous heads. But something doesn't feel quite right about these two panels. It's like listening to someone with a speech impediment singing along to their Walkman.
But it's nice to see that somebody gave these kids a miniature playhouse, complete with toy-sized trees. Apparently they had those at the turn of the century.

lost in the space/time continuum with dungarees on

Uh-oh. I have a bad feeling about this. We're still headed toward "How I Learned to Meddle" by Mary Worth and the mark of doom is on that little girl. What tragedy is going to befall Cathy?

The Hemingway Complex has a children's cookbook from the 80s wherein the Flash goes to a potluck dinner. Beforehand he prepares a cake in nanoseconds. The cooling-down stage is accomplished with mighty breath that looks quite a bit like what Cathy and Mary are doing to that dandelion. Only, where from that illustration we end up with cake, in this one a flower is defoliated with the children's Napalm breath and we end up with some sort of gem.

As far as the bewildering timeline eveidenced in this strip, I feel it's important to note that Mary's character first appeared in 1939, at which time she was supposed to be sixty years old. From her activities and sporty pantsuits it seems she is now supposed to be about 65 years old. In any case, Mary would have been a child at the end of the nineteenth century. So what's with the jeans and ponytails?