Saul Wynter has moved out of his apartment, the better to share his storylines with Eve Lourd (Halloween screen name, Eve Gourd). It seems like he’s got fewer obvious stories to tell, though. He’s got a new pet, a new outlook on life, a new bride. I’d like to think he has more stories left, since he’s got that charm, but if he didn’t it’s not like his life story would feel unfinished.
I hope here to get you up to the end of October 2023 in Karen Moy and June Brigman’s Mary Worth. If you’re reading after about January 2024, or any news about the strip breaks, I should have a more current and relevant essay at this link. Thanks for reading.
Mary Worth.
6 August – 28 October 2023.
Saul Wynter’s dog Greta was saved from the dogfighting ring. The people to thank here are Eve Lourd, and her dog Max, who did persistent searches. Also the dogfighting guy who left Greta’s cage unlatched so he could go be a drunken lout or something. Also Greta for running away. Last on the list: Mary Worth, who told Saul Wynter, correctly but without evidence, that his dog was stolen to be a bait dog.
So you understand why the strip then spent about sixteen months of Dr Jeff praising Mary Worth for the dog rescue. Also to Mary Worth saying oh, she’s just an ordinary person with particular skills in turning salmon into beige polygons. But yes, if only everyone could be like her.
Saul Wynter’s story got a new chapter starting the 21st of August. On a date at the beach he proposes to Eve. She accepts. What the heck, there hasn’t been a wedding in this strip since … earlier this year. All right, but it was a long time since the one before that.
Mary Worth happens to see the two shopping for wedding rings. It’s no surprise she spends most of her days hovering around the wedding ring store. She’s invited to their courthouse wedding, a small affair attended by the minister, the happy couple, Mary Worth, and someone appealing their ticket for having an unkempt lawn. “It’s all native flora, it’s better for the environment,” they say. They have a Mark Trail Sunday page for support and everything.
But Saul and Eve come back home, to toast each other. Saul speaks of how he never imagined marrying again.
The 17th of September saw the end of that story and the start of the current one. A large, mustached man named Keith Hillend is moving in to Saul Wynter’s old place, now that he and Eve are going to be sharing storylines. He’s engagingly befuddled by Mary Worth’s insistence on helping and inviting him to events and delivering surprise packages of beige shapes. All she can get out of him is that he’s a retired Marine and cop and that he hasn’t got any family.
Mary Worth’s not even out the door when who knocks on the door but family? Sonia Fabar presents herself, claiming to be his daughter. Mary Worth excuses herself so she can go make Tex Avery eyes at the family crisis to come.
Is there a crisis, though? They both like root beer, after all, and Kitty Fabar is someone he knew twenty years ago. She explains a bit of herself: she’s studying to be a social worker and she wants to learn how to stick it to ‘The Man’. Particularly the military and the cops. Hillend is aghast. Without the United States military some of those Latin American nations might go a century or more without a right-wing coup. And without a cop, who are you going to have shake their head sadly and say if they find your bike they’ll return it but it’ll be five business days before we have the form your insurance company wants for your claim? Sonia storms out, wanting nothing to do with a violent, oppressive killer.
Hillend, for his part, is devastated to learn he has a daughter, and the daughter hates him. He finds Kitty Fabar and meets her for lunch. She reveals she kept him out of Sonia’s life because he would want to marry her. She didn’t want to marry at all, or marry a Marine who was already married to his job. Hillend tries to argue he had the right to know she was carrying his child. Kitty leaves, saying this was a mistake and she’s sorry Sonia contacted him.
And that’s the gentle but legitimate relationship drama as it stands now, the end of October. Will Sonia come to see there are good cops who aren’t actually on any police force anymore? Will Hillend come to see why marginalized people have reasons to distrust the part of the State with guns and a code of silence? We’ll see over the next several months.
Dubiously Sourced Mary Worth Sunday Panel Quotes!
What great things did people not say, but that Mary Worth’s Sunday page said they said? Here’s the recent lineup:
- “Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.” — Aesop, 6 August 2023.
- “The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.” — Albert Schweitzer, 13 August 2023.
- “Anyone can be a small light in a dark room.” — Miep Gies, 20 August 2023.
- “To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.” — David Viscott, 27 August 2023.
- “My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.” — Winston Churchill, 3 September 2023.
- “If you find someone you love in your life, then hang on to that love.” — Princess Diana, 10 September 2023.
- “No matter how hard the past is, you can always begin again.” — Buddha, 17 September 2023.
- “I want you to be concerned about your next-door neighbor. Do you know your next-door neighbor?” — Mother Teresa, 24 September 2023.
- “Be curious, not judgemental.” — Walt Whitman, 1 October 2023.
- “Most things in life come as a surprise.” — Lykke Li, 8 October 2023.
- “You can disagree without being disagreeable.” — Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 15 October 2023.
- “Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die.” — Alfred Lord Tennyson, 22 October 2023.
- “The other night I ate at a real nice family restaurant. Every table had an argument going.” — George Carlin, 29 October 2023.
Next Week!
John X. Who is he (The Phantom) and what is he up to? Even Lee Falk doesn’t know, so what chance do I have explaining Tony DePaul and Jeff Weigel’s The Phantom, Sunday continuity? We’ll see next week.
Another Blog, Meanwhile 