The funnies are still funny online - Los Angeles Times

The funnies are still funny online - Los Angeles Times: "IT WAS EITHER A GENUINE sign of the end times or proof that hipsters can get into anything, but this summer and fall Aldomania sparked a national 'Mary Worth' craze.

In case the above sentence makes no sense to you, 'Mary Worth' is a 68-year-old soap-opera comic strip about a nosey, passive-aggressive widow who is now (and always has been) about 68 years old. And Aldomania was a fan eruption over Aldo Kelrast, a Captain Kangaroo look-alike who was stalking the strip's titular heroine in a plot that was at once surprisingly suspenseful and deliciously bizarre.

The Palm Beach Post published 2,100 words on the phenomenon. Fans snapped up Aldomania T-shirts that proclaimed, 'I refuse to believe you prefer to be alone' — one of the stalker's dafter pronouncements. The morning after a dejected Aldo drove off an ill-placed cliff, bottle of cheap hooch in hand (no, really), there were three tribute videos posted to YouTube.com by 9 a.m.

These are not even the heights of the passion 'Mary Worth' inspires, nor is 'Mary Worth' the only comic that gets this kind of attention. Not long ago, I thought I was pretty much alone in my deep affection for Margo Magee, a sexy, manic and amoral publicist living in the oddly chaste bizarro-Manhattan of 'Apartment 3-G,' another long-running soap strip.

But that was before I started comicscurmudgeon.com, where I analyze, deconstruct and mock the comics. This site, which I thought would merely entertain my close and indulgent friends, receives about 13,000 visitors and 200 reader comments, every day. I say this not as some sort of sad boast about my 'mad blogging skillz' but to point out just how much gleeful energy there is in the comics community."

Comics Curmudgeon is one of my favorite daily-visit blogs. Check it out!