Having been where Tai is at the moment (so far as reading someone's horrid prose and yet not wanting to crush their clearly frail ego), I can relate. First time I've liked Tai in I-don't-know-when. Which is really important to her well-being, I know. Still…
Tai trying to spare someone's feelings contributes to our knowledge of her character.
Interesting that Marigirl doesn't measure up to Jimbo's writing in Tai's eyes.
Jimbo is apparently one of those rare geniuses of bad writing, creating something so bad, so horribly over the top that it's worth reading just to see how far he'll take it. It's apparently something like
Springtime for Hitler. You read it (as opposed to watching the entire musical, in SfH's case) because you can't freaking believe this guy got published, and you want to see what horrible atrocity he's going to do next. In a way, Stephanie Meyers's "Sparkly Vampire Tales" are like that to me.
I'm guessing that Marigold is simply average bad.
I think that Dora used to be a good, if sometimes selfish person. A while back she started to see herself as a kind of mentor to Hanners, helping her with the "Party Favours" thing and helping get her a job. She seems to have decided to take Mari under her wing too, but I think that she's being too controlling of them. I think she sometimes does things that are in HER best interests without thinking of others, and I think this is a dick move. I think she WANTS to help Mari and Hanners, I just think she doesn't know how, but assumes she knows best. For example, when Mari found out about Faye and Angus, Hanners wanted to go and comfort her. Hanners is Mari's best friend, but instead of letting the obvious choice go, Dora stopped her and went herself because she had more experience. I think that the fact she does have more experience (and let us not forget, very unhealthy experience) with relationships makes her think that she knows best and therefore can tell them how best to handle things. In some situations this is probably true, but in others, I think she does what SHE deems best, not what is necessarily best.
Who, may I ask, can do anything other than what they 'deem best'? How is she supposed to know this fabled what 'is' best? All Dora can know, as can any of us, is what she knows, not, what you, the reader know. You're asking the character to make a judgment that's impossible to her, then condemning her for it.
Dora has problems and she makes mistakes, and some of her worst problems are coming to a head right now because she's taking a chance (rather than breaking things off with Marten the way she expected to). She is certainly not a saint, although I can think of one incident that comes close to qualifying her for it, and she certainly lacks any god-like perspective that allows her to see what '
is best,' whatever the hell that happens to be. Heaven help us, don't we all?
Edit:
Super facial expressions in today's strip. I remember a crappy Eddie Murphy film where he had to negotiate an obstacle course over a bottomless void. That is the path of "constructive criticism".
Geez, can you be more general—I can only think of five Eddie Murphy films, offhand, that weren't crappy (sorry, I couldn't pass by a chance to slam EM—his film career has done far too much to me). You mean
The Golden Child.