Nerding Day: Dr. Anthony King, Hollywood Love Doctor

Every Dr. Anthony King, Hollywood Love Doctor short heals my heart. Not the way romance intends, mind you. More like an organ donor that likes drifting. My new aorta’s as light and free as our era. The writers skimmed the definitions of love, women, and therapy and forgot them before the title. What more can I ask? Thank you, Toby/Minoan. After Pin-Up Pete, I knew you were perfect tutors in love.

Love is mostly car accidents.

After driving and dating around Manhattan, that tracks. If you love Crash as a sound effect, welcome to Nirvana. Specifically, The Lover Who Had No Face, the sanest King story. We’re speeding by it first, because King just fixes a gold-digger’s guilt dreams. King’s like Doctor Strange, with vaguer powers and twice the ego.

Carla married rich, and pays income tax in her mind. She shares her travails while King patiently waits to talk.

A normal night, when therapy’s novel enough to carry a solo comic. The problem’s less the Fullmetal Alchemist wall of eyes and hands rending Carla’s mind, and more her imagining another man.

Rough. After inflation, an imaginary princess carry’s 2.5 orgies. Dream cheaters go to real court. Her perfect parents died in the wreck above, so King lets her off with condescension. Cured of her lust for solvency, Carla is delighted to discover her husband’s now penniless. They ride off into penury together.

Hey, that’s sweet. Absorb it before it melts into selfish rage.

Ralph’s indigence is just a bit! A prank between trusting life partners. Partially to teach Carla for having night terrors, but mostly because King loves lying. It’s Hollywood Psychiatry’s main feature. I’d say gaslighting, but that word’s so mutated it might be a number now.

Again, just an opening lap. I’m here for the doctor’s A-game. Look at these amateur scores:

Next story.

We didn’t do the cover, did we? Or pre-preamble? I couldn’t let them slow us down. King’s skills demand immediate attention: that’s why doctor’s in the title twice.

Ignore that couple’s strange premarital hug–the Hollywood Love Doctor is already narrating. Get used to that.

King’s wordy. Extra wordy. Prolix. Talky. The type that turns anything into 2000 words.

Last week, that approach made me want to chew glass. But like most standards, that fades with charm. King sounds like an egoistic alien, and I treasure every word. Mostly to exploit him, but that’s also part of love. Like the love between a doctor and a patient that doesn’t know they’re being studied. King gaslights (original flavor) a pop actress for her safety.

It works! He’s got a good face.

The justification: random bouts of shrieking hysteria. A few themes recur in King’s practice. This time, a new movie–the one institution worth more than marriage–is at risk. Rest assured, King would strangle Hippocrates mid-session to get Jok3r in theaters.

Better fix that. A producer could get hurt.

The source of his fraud powers? Honesty and science. Remember: Hollywood Love Doctors wield real stories and real emotions, unlike Boston Self-Realization Doctors or All Polling Analysts. Using real fake romance, King extracts Linda’s backstory.

Hold the fucking what? When did he…how did he…is everyone in L.A. a car murderer, car victim, or both?

Her costar did it? Sure, that’s Showbiz Mystery #4. But I don’t understand what–

Got it, King’s a wizard. Forget basically or pretty much. Hollywood psychiatry can divine any off-panel truth. It is magic. This comic follows a magic person.

The case is closed.

Like gaslighting, the phrase “I don’t understand” has evolved. Factually, I understand this turn. I can explain the literal events, and outline the Martian logic. But I don’t understand. A fine round of therapy.

I’m guessing you like words, enjoy extremity, or hate your brain. Enjoy guessing the next ailment:

“Who Am I?” centers amnesia, a plot point that’s fresh if you have amnesia. Now it’s struck King’s private legion of extras. Mary’s life and engagement are perfect, save a totally blank past. E.g.: extra perfect. I don’t recall how that Jim Carrey flick went, but memory wipes will hit the streets like that thing the CIA did.

She does fine in the workplace, where sense of self is dead weight. And crushes dating, without past failures to repeat or overcorrect.

Doctor Anthony King injects himself into…too wordy, mulligan. Dr. King steps in to…no, that feels wrong. Mulligan. King steps in to fix another couple. By changing everything about the bride, and buying the groom a Vegas getaway. I’d jab at the fifties, but we may lose the high ground next week.

Sometimes, the Psychiatrist Supreme steps back and lets patients speak.Through him. He brainjacks them with Shadow Psychiatry and relays their story. I’d throw stones, but we might merge the FCC and Woke Content Detector.

Mary throws away a free reset for dead parents, the name Monica, and a nightmare ex. He’s a bit like King in a much worse suit.

Again, on par for ethics. Last round, King redefined physician-patient privilege. But look at that suit. You can try purple pinstripes without the clown paint. But it’s a half-effort, and justice hates slackers. Monica fights him off, putting us halfway through. Time for a car accident.

Flip a coin.

Tails! Fred eats pavement. Crashes are mandatory, but Dr. Anthony King, Love Doctor has some surprises. I’d have bet my savings that Monica reset her memory the NASCAR way. Instead, its survivor’s guilt for a jaywalker/sex pest/fashion disaster. Shows what I know. But I called another twist in 2008, so I’ve still got a career.

Anyway, it was a prank. Again.

King can’t abide by manipulating women. He rolls up his sleeves, cracks his knuckles, and springs into nothing. But now Monica has a fresh set of confusing trauma for her new life. And dead parents. We really skim past the dead parents in this one.

But I’m lollygagging. I should already be engaged to our next story.

As archmage, the doctor’s mastered real stories and emotions. Can he defeat a fake paraplegic? Will I ever type another sane sentence? Can a human adult live off Barebells without getting scurvy? Yes, no, and here’s hoping.

Meet today’s patient/opponent. Vickie suspects her movie star husband of cheating, after a few public dates with other people. And embraces a unique strategy.

Extreme? Sure, if your spouse doesn’t have reality warpers on speed dial. As for King: Classic mistake. By assuming Vickie wants painless dignity, he’s put the ball in her court. But how does she fake so well?

First, meet her two days ago, struck by Envy Most Foul.

Now meet her a week ago, struck by a Wall Most Standard.

Finally, meet her struck by an Idea Most Borderline.

The crashes might win me over. Enough Fords become coffins for me to give a PSA rope. They’re not going for that, even a little, but a generous call might save my brain.

Note: the premise is the second most insane part. The asylum jewel is that we don’t go one panel without underlining that she’s full of shit. Drama’s secondary to hysteria awareness. We’e committed to the demolition derby. I’m waiting for a manosphere version of Grave Digger to show up. He doesn’t have the swagger or lats, but he does have an army of worms.

Until then, we’ll have to settle for Ken giving cheating a college try.

Another jape! If you’ve taken Psych 101, you’ll recognize King’s strategy: hire a stooge to dry hump a fake paraplegic’s husband, watch her leap up to throttle him, and take your stooge out to dinner. Man, Psych 101 was nuts. I’m still on probation.

It works! Why wouldn’t it work? Madness is law.

That’s Doctor Anthony King, Hollywood Love Doctor. Thanks for reading!

A quirk of this lane: after picking a topic, my own outline’s often baffling. I don’t doubt someone with my description plucked “Too Fat For Love” from the pile, but the results defy my mortal brain. Then the title drop hits.

The doctor’s soliloquy stands out this round. Like anyone after your donation/heart/vote/subscription/quark of digital attention, the stock sympathy makes the plug worse.

This one writes itself in your head. But our master’s in the details, and those hit like the title. Let’s put down our shame forks, tighten our girdles and read Too Fat For Love. Dr. Anthony King, Hollywood Love Doctor’s tilt at being serious. Maybe it works out.

Our lead, Dorothy Drake, feels her work lacks a certain dignity.

Nonetheless, she draws the admiration of her peers.

Yet finds it difficult to take herself seriously.

My point is this panel is wonderful and sucks. How often does lazy intent pie a noble excuse in the face, while exposition marches along to the side? Every day, figuratively. Seeing the pie is special.

This panel’s my Campbell’s soup can: I’d promote my version as true art, recruit a like-minded cult, and hide from vengeful shooters forever. You’re all invited, aside from the shooter. Try a rally.

The fanboy’s her director, Richard. Dorothy detects hints of attraction in “I love you.” Their date thrives until the arrival of BullyTron X: Blonde Configuration.

Standard morality play so far, which is tough news for morality plays. Then, Dorothy crashes out of life immediately. After a lifetime in L.A. media, Dorothy’s never met a shallow actress. One insult convinces her Richard obeys pity instead of proximity and headline-friendly nepotism.

Delicate situation. Let’s get King in there.

Nevermind, Anthony’s out of his depth. Still, he lands on a sober plan: change everything that got Dorothy this far. Comedy’s just a step above injecting frosting for a living.

Anthony mind-tricks her backstory out. Dorothy’s troubles have a simple 1-to-1 root: divorce. Each relationship Doc’s healed so far was a fitness program. By magicking her childhood down to swingsets and dolls, King builds a slimmer, more acceptable psyche.

Thought bubble technology never reached King’s world. He gives stilted narration to the Star Gods, who reward him with suppressed lawsuits.

Then he mind-tricks her weight out.

From here, Too Fat For Love tries to have xylitol paste and eat it too. A battle lost after the title Too Fat for Love. Dorothy’s soul counted all along, unless you include total reversals in her career, relationships, and Wolverine costume.

It’s simple. Cynthia’s opinion doesn’t matter, but she was too hard on Cynthia, but Cynthia’s less famous now, so Dorothy wins. Richard falls in love with her, but he already was in love, but thought she looked like a perfumed brick, but it’s about what’s inside. Moving, really.

Finally, the doc gives her a straight answer: “I did it. Welcome back to humanity.”

She’s fixed! Let’s check the scoreboard.

Lacking in Ford-on-Wall action, and heavy on charm school myths. But I had fun with all five. Their eager insanity demands that I rock along. Of course a Hollywood Love Doctor exists. Of course the walls of reality mean nothing to him. He needs six-page answers to lifetime problems. While keeping the pills off-panel.

Enjoy your stress-free week. I wrote a few thousand words of this in the sky.

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