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Archive: Rex Morgan, M.D.

50

Can I call in a wellness check on a cartoon character

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Mary Worth, 8/31/26

Hey, everyone, here’s a fun fact, if by “fun” you mean guaranteed to deliver the epiphany that oh my god I’m so old, how did I get to be so old: we are mere weeks away from the 20th anniversary of the death of Aldo Kelrast. Can contemporary Mary Worth come up with a storyline that could come close to that magic? Well, today we’re launching a new one, and I’m mildly hopeful, as it introduces two intriguing things: Mary and Ian spending time together socially and, apparently, enjoying themselves in a quite manic fashion; and some anhedonic old lady sitting in her Charterstone kitchen fuming about how nothing is as good as it used to be when she was young and had her whole life ahead of her. Not even putting oat milk on oat-based cereal (or “oatmaxxing,” as the kids call it) can bring her a frission of pleasure anymore! Looking forward to learning how she’s about to make this everybody else’s problem and nip Mary and Ian’s ha ha!ing in the bud.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/31/26

OK, fine, I guess we’re not going to get to see the scam twins try and fail to pull off a child kidnapping, but at least we’re going to be treated to a Socratic dialogue between Rene and his elaborately coiffed and mustachio’d jail buddy, in which the former attempts to explain how rating on a criminal associate entails turning them in to the authorities, usually in exchange for reducing one’s own looming criminal penalties, and is quite different from activating family networks to dissuade a loved one from a course of action that you don’t believe they’re equipped to handle.

Pluggers, 8/31/26

You could definitely have done a panel with this caption where the plugger is cheerfully strolling ahead with a measured pace, just like many older heavyset adults I see every day do. But we’re in the late Pluggers era, so instead we have to look at this, a “fun” comic in which a plugger is clearly in genuine distress.

142

Honestly surprised that toilet lid isn’t carpeted

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Pluggers, 8/29/26

The key to unlocking this scene, to my mind, is the cobwebs. Pluggers now spend all their pooping time doomscrolling just like the rest of us, but unlike the rest of us are letting their long-abandoned late ’00s Reader’s Digests moulder, unread, untouched, and unloved, which really raises questions about when the last time anything in that bathroom was cleaned in general.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/29/26

Against all odds and the pressures of the very fabric of their reality, the scam twins were on the verge of talking themselves into doing something interesting like kidnapping Sarah. That’s why the strip had to call in the big guns, in the form of their grandpa Lyle Ollman, inventor of the Ollman Technique, the self-help/brainwashing process now being marketed as the Mirakle Method. I don’t know that we’ve ever actually seen the Technique/Method in action, but based on today’s strip it seems to mostly involve an old man berating you to get your life together and maybe go back to community college, which is frankly a little underwhelming.

Beetle Bailey, 8/29/26

I genuinely enjoy Beetle’s silent body language here. “I’m just gonna … I’m gonna go eat these chips in my bunk, I think.”

157

Ominous developments

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Crankshaft, 8/19/26

The last time Crankshaft and Harry Dinkle started an adventure together, Crankshaft looked real cherry but it ended up with Harry confronting the truly depressing circumstances of his father’s death. Now Ed has shown up at his place of work to drag him off on some other journey and he looks pissed, so maybe this time will turn out to be more fun for Harry, or maybe Crankshaft has just decided to murder him and put him out of his misery.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/19/26

At one point the scam twins were thinking about kidnapping a child, but then they realized that would not only get them in a lot of trouble, but also make this strip dangerously exciting, so now they’re trying to negotiate down to an acceptable level of plot development. I love the idea that squatting is too much of a commitment to bother doing. Like, most people squat just because that means they get to live someplace for free, but in the Twins’ conception, they’d be squatting for revenge, which means they’d have to stick around even if it turns out that the Morgan house has bad vibes or is unpleasant to be inside (it definitely does and is).

Beetle Bailey, 8/19/26

Hey, General, I just want to point out that the U.S. has fought in, like, several wars in the time that you’ve been an officer. Heck, there’s one going on right now! I know what you mean is that you want to have been in one of the cool ones, not the cringe wars we keep finding ourselves in lately, but still, I feel like you shouldn’t be quite so vocal on this point at the office if you don’t want to find yourself abruptly in the field.