That head’s way too big, honestly very unsettling
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Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/22/25
So with Kelly out of the house, Summer has been whining about being bored and lonely to everyone she knows, and by “everyone she knows” I mean her daughter and her two coworkers and that’s it, which is very clearly part of the problem. The way the whining went is that she would say “What if I got back into the dating scene! Ha ha! Wouldn’t that be crazy” and other people were like “Uh you know there are lots of other things you could do outside the house, right” and Summer was like “What I’m hearing is that you think I should find a man, for sex.” Anyway, I’m loving the footnote in panel two, assuring us that Summer’s first pass at finding a sex partner isn’t really ending with the guy having a stroke right there at the table and Summer just sighing heavily rather than attempting to find medical help for him. He’s just boring!
Slylock Fox, 1/22/25
Both these panels take place as part of the awful Event that saw animals abruptly become sapient and our human world violently transformed into the animal-dominated realm of Slylock and his Forest Kingdom apparatus of oppression. In the first panel, the wolf, still puzzled by his newfound knowledge of the world, is merely aping the predatory stories he’s discovered in human fairy tales about animals; in the second, the wolf is angry at the humiliation heaped upon the animal characters in those books and has decided to elaborately act out one of those stories but change the ending in an act of bloody revenge. It’s a subtle change but I trust you are discerning enough to pick up on the different vibes. In both panels, that’s a real human femur leaning up against the bed, licked clean, as evidence of the carnage that’s already occurred and an indication of more to come.
67 replies to “That head’s way too big, honestly very unsettling”
RMMD-How the readers feel when they read ‘Rex Morgan’.
MW-Jared will just sit there and make passive aggressive comments about Dirk.
RMMD: Anyone want to take bets on how long the terrible date montage will last and whether or not the guy she has a good first date with turns out to be a psycho?
Slylock Fox: tangentially related to the strip, it always weirds me out whenever I see Little Red Riding Hood and Big Bad Wolf costumes together during Halloween, because it’s really clear that the people in them just do not get what the original story is a metaphor for.
FC: An angry Billy replies; “Great! Next time you change PJ!”
The plate-licker! Can Winter please next date the plate-licker?
Wary Morth:
Doesn’t Whatsername Jaredsdater know how to talk?
SFox: In the left panel, you see one of Grandma’s leftover bones and an apple. In the right panel, you see one of Grandma’s bones and her heart.
Slylock: In the new political climate, Weber feels free to include a human femur in his children’s story art.
RMMD: I’d be amused if the footnote read: “In the Bantu tongue.”
MW: “We’ll have the steak platter, and these two losers will have the eggplant souffle.”
[Jared thought balloon] “Wow, controlling much? But I’m not going to say anything. I hate eggplant, but I don’t want be a jerk like him.”
[Jess thought balloon] “Oh for God’s sakes, grow a pair, Nerdboy.”
RMMD: Look at this chump, talking about classic cars that he restores, something that requires knowledge, skill, and dedication! Doesn’t he know the way to a woman’s heart in this comic is through roots country or neo-vaudeville performance art?
Ah well, at least when Summer winds up with her own Dirk, we’ll be able to compare and contrast how Beatty handles negging and gaslighting as compared to Moy.
@Liam: On MW: Correction, he will THINK passive-aggressive thoughts at Jared.
REX MORGAN M.D: I think the thing I’m loving is that “He’s just boring!” is suddenly considered a bad thing in the Rexverse, instead of an aspiration goal (with the incing on the cake being that the thing this dude is babbling on about, restoring vintage cars, is the obsession of her daughter boyfriend. Ha, in your face, Niki! Even the narrative thinks you’re boring as shit!)
CS: Sheesh, when Skip picks his nose, it must take him a good hour or so.
FC: Billy’s been eating his poop again.
RMMD: This guy’s on his first date too, and he’s just trying to get a conversation going. What do you want to talk about, Summer? Flower arranging? Your daughter?
JP: “I don’t think I can hate you more than I do right now.”
“I see. Well, I totally respect that. Next time, tell somebody who cares. Thanks for dropping by.”
RMMD: Pretty bold of Rex Morgan M.D. to clown on this dude for being boring when the major action in their last storyline was “old man sits on bench, and sometimes gets up from bench.”
RMMD: See, Summer? If you’d taken up a hobby, YOU could be the conversation hog on this date!
MW: Yes, Jared is Captain Sensitive, defender of the downtrodden, blah di blah blah. But can anyone truly picture his moves being anything but pure Dudley Do-Right?
JP: “…but Dad funneled his sorrow into writing his successful novel, The Chambers Affair” so I guess it all worked out. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go talk to St. Jude sitting at the table behind us.”
@The Quiet Man:
Ha, ha ha, like that’s going to happen. That’s potentially interesting, and we all know that this strip has a 300 feet restraining order against interesting developments. Basically what’s going to happen is just want we see: Summer going on boring dates, with the narration telling us there are “boring” since it’s the only way to distinguish them from the other guys in the regular cast rambling on about the same type of topic.
MW: The entrées in that place must be served on coffee saucers. It’s the only way to fit four meals in the cramped space they’re all sitting at.
RMMD: “So how about I take you home and put you up on the rack, lubricate your chassis, and give you a ring job?”
MW: Jared probably shouldn’t worry about Dirk as his face is continuing to melt…might wanna get that looked at.
I wonder what ELSE Dawn is, but not when she’s with Dirk…
MARY WORTH: Ah, this is what a master of her craft! See, an amateur would have just been focused on Dirk being an asshole. But only a true artiste would dedicate time to dive into the sniveling, passive-aggressive thoughts of an additional character so that he can be almost as almost as unlikable and insufferable as an actual abuser! That? That’s just finesse right there (chef’s kiss!)
MW: ‘We’ll both have the steak platter, and Nerdgirl here will be picking up the check for the table!’
MARY WORTH: Also, Jess has not said anything or reacted to this story in any way at all, so we can all safely assume that Jared dumped the real Jess a while ago and used her likeness to create an A.I. “love doll” faster than you can say Lars and the Real Girl, yes?
I was offended that they felt they needed to spell out what “blah blah blah” means until I remembered that this is the age of the internet and I’ve been on social media too.
Rex Morgan, MD: I know that sketching in background locations and characters is a time-saving device in comics and animation. I still want to know what the food tastes like at the Unsettling Purple Void Diner.
Marvin: The teacher shows Carl a brown kiwi and tells him it’s an orange. The teacher hates Carl.
Peanuts Begins: Charlie Brown’s a southpaw in this one (just like ’57 Chevy Guy in RMMD). He later is a righty. What’s going on here?
Rex Morgan – The estate of Charles Schulz is going to sue Rex Morgan for infringing on it’s trademark “trombone talk” for adult conversation.
Slylock Fox – Bob Weber Jr. has foreshadowed the outcome of this version of the story by including the image of a ghost Little Red Riding Hood in the picture frame. She’s not making it out alive, which, thanks to animals gaining sapience, has evened the competition between man and beast. A girl of her age should be able to differentiate her grandmother from a wolf, and now she will be subject to the Law of Natural Selection that humankind’s monopoly on sapience had previously shielded her from.
LUANN – Where can you find pleasure?
Search the world for treasure
Learn science technology
Where can you begin to make your dreams all come true?
On the land or on the sea
Where can you learn to fly?
Play in sports and skin-dive
Study oceanography
Sign up for the big band or sit in the grandstand
When your team and others meet
In the navy
Yes, you can sail the seven seas
In the navy
Yes, you can put your mind at ease
In the navy
Come on now, people, make a stand
In the navy, in the navy
Can’t you see we need a hand?
In the navy
Come on, protect the motherland
In the navy
Come on and join your fellow man
In the navy
Come on people, and make a stand
In the navy (in the navy), in the navy!
RMMD: I can’t believe I’m complimenting Mary Worth here, but when that strip did a week of “Estelle dating men from an app,” it was entertaining.
MW: Anticipating Dawn’s company later that week, Mary has purchased all the extremely expensive ingredients needed for her to prepare a 100% vegan dinner, happily imagining Dawn’s pleasure at her cooking skills and the huge effort she has put forth once again. She struggles to carry the two heavy grocery bags, shifting them in her arms as she walks home. Suddenly, as she passes by Joe’s, she spies Dawn sitting at a table with her ex-boyfriend Jared and that mute girl he’s dating now, along with some young man she hasn’t met.
“He’s really built!” Mary thinks. But as she admires the studliness of Dawn’s companion, she suddenly recoils in outraged horror as the waiter places a steak platter in front of Dawn who hungrily dives in.
Dawn and her companions jump in alarm as the window next to their table is suddenly smeared with tofu.
RMMD: “… now I’m driving a ’75 Gremlin; which I assure you, I’m not the original owner. Anyway, I hope you don’t mind giving me a push.”
RMMD: Come on, this is the most interesting person to appear in Rex Morgan for a long time. He has a passion, restoring and selling vintage automobiles! He does something with his time beyond sitting around nattering about inconsequential nothings! No wonder Summer doesn’t know what to do with him; she’s just been emerged from Plato’s cave, and is unable to handle the blinding light of the sun.
RMMD: It’s sad this strip doesn’t have the fortitude to show us a hobo licking a plate clean. It’s just going to be one dullard after another.
SF: I think they meant “ebon” as the 2nd answer, for the eternal blackness within the wolf’s maw.
I am the grandma wolf
grinning endlessly in my bed
Hanging with Slylock Fox
Shucking off human bonds
Welcome to dripping jaws,
little girl, to your death,
In comics I roam
ready to chomp on femurs
I roam I roam
A couple of years ago, “Rex Morgan MD” taught us that working on vintage cars was a smart way to become a successful professional, an alternative to college. Now, it says that vintage cars are obnoxious. Two possibilities. 1) It implies people collecting vintage cars are obnoxious and dumb, so being a mechanic is a smart way to fleece them. Which I approve. 2) The writer had a brief midlife crisis in which he started to collect vintage cars but then he realised it made him look like an asshole, so he looks back at that hobby with shame. Which I approve even more!
@Hibbleton: ???
@Charterstoned: Those question marks are me crying out loud laughing.
I had a Karmann Ghia back in the day that sometimes needed to get rapped on the solenoid to get going.
MW: Dirk ordering for Dawn is step one. Dirk taking her to a place with lady’s menus (no prices) is step two.
MW – Roast beef platters, steak platters…it’s now established that Dirk is really into platters. Later tonight, they’ll watch some King of the Hill episodes featuring Luanne Platter, then listen to “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.”
@astroboy: That would make Dawn his platterpuss?
MW: “I like being a doormat for Dirk.” Jared is definitely breaking up with girlfriend so he can “save” Dawn. I think they deserve each other.
FC: Too late, Thel. Billy already rubbed feces on the sweater with his hands.
Dustin: This strip destroys its own meta-premise. There’s no way Dustin, a person who can’t hold down a job for more than 4 hours, could afford enough coffee to be vibrating from caffeine. However, he did manage to pique the barista’s interest when he demonstrated this ability. This explains Dustin’s hair.
RMMD – I think Summer is a hottie – all she really needs are hearing aides. Tomorrow’s date – I can hear you buddy…by the way, did I mention I’ve got aides….
SFx – Let me just clear a path by kicking the human heart and femur bone of the way….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
We usually worry about how TikTok has fried the brain of Zoomers, but even lonely and bored Gen-X can become addicted. Summer cannot even pay attention to what her date is saying for more than ten seconds. Maybe he should dance or say some incredible dumb piece of misinformation to get her attention.
Nice try, “Rex Morgan MD”, but you will never top “Estelle dating a hobo”
First Dilbert, and now Charlie Brown’s teacher, April sighed. This is the last time I try to date in the funny pages, unless the Phantom is single.
DT: He wants to know if they tested for wood, but in Greek?
Dustin: Many people with undiagnosed ADHD, who have been led to believe that their difficulties with focus and initiative are the result of a lack of character and “just not trying hard enough,” self-medicate with stimulants like caffeine. Just, you know, throwing that out there.
GT: The good news is that Inma is now being drawn with a proper sports hijab, rather than the dangerously flowly scarf she’d been depicted wearing for wrestling in days past. The bad news is that she’s now also being drawn with Rodney Barnes’ face.
MW: Anybody remember Jess? You know, Jared’s current girlfriend who was put in the hospital by her abusive ex and is probably PTSD-ing hard at the very obvious red flags Dirk is waving around, and who might feel compelled to talk to Dawn about them if she was allowed to do anything other than be drawn behind Jared’s shoulder with an empty smile on her face? Remember her?
Luann: Geez, Bernice, even a moron (like Luann) knows that, as a brooding type person, Piro plays saxophone. Alan is also wrong, because he’s mistaken Piro being in a Village People tribute band for him being in the Navy.
CS: “You’re hired. I can only pay you in complimentary copies of the Sentinel.”
9CL: The only person who doesn’t seem to know about Edda’s ongoing crush on Seth is Amos, who was oblivious when Edda literally was throwing herself on Seth while Amos was present.
MW – I kind of get why Jess is choosing to remain silent. She’s the only semi-sane person in this group. I’m grading on a Worth-o-verse curve, of course.
@TheDiva: MW: Anybody remember Jess? You know, Jared’s current girlfriend who was put in the hospital by her abusive ex and is probably PTSD-ing hard at the very obvious red flags Dirk is waving around, and who might feel compelled to talk to Dawn about them if she was allowed to do anything other than be drawn behind Jared’s shoulder with an empty smile on her face? Remember her?
That vapid smile is the result of Jared dosing Jess up with the stuff he lifts from the hospital pharmacy.
@Voshkod: Jeez, it’s Summer, not April. April’s in Judge Parker, Summer’s in Rex Morgan, and January’s in Mad Men. Hell, April’s not even in Summer (so far as we know).
Jess wasn’t abused by a significant other, she was mugged. The confusion comes from the fact that Karen Moy did kind of switch that up mid-story (although it was only implied it was an abusive SO but there was no reason she couldn’t have just said it was a mugging from the get-go. Bad storytelling.)
Megacephalic lycanthropy is a real issue, and I’m honestly shocked a comic for children would mock it. What’s next, making fun of hemophilic vampirism?
@Tom: There is a computer game, based on the Red Riding Hood mythos, called “The Path”
Where there are six “red riding hoods” (all sisters with varying personalities) you can choose to play as, and you’re supposed to go down the path to Grandma’s house, and OF COURSE you enter the woods. (Which is a surreal mindf*** in itself) and each Red meets their respective wolf. Only one of them is an actual anthropomorphic wolf, the rest are various forms of toxic human predators.
One is a drug dealer, another is an abusive girlfriend, another is a pedophile, another is obsessed with controlling others, another is an…. wispy fairy thing??? who doesn’t even acknowledge the Red’s presence.
(not even the creators know what his deal is supposed to be)
I didn’t even get into the surreal stuff yet, but the massive surreal factor of this game though, leaves a LOT up to interpretation.
MW: What kind of restaurants are these where the options are a (generic food) platter? Are they eating at a retirement home?
I’m thinking the menu also consists of:
Pupu Platter
Poopoo Platter (for those with constipation – I’m looking at you, Ian)
I was going to make fun of RMMD for “dating service” but, after an incautious search which is going to mess up my ads if not my marriage,* I discovered that “dating services” are still a real business! Also Wikipedia refers to the apps as “online dating services”! RMMD retains plausibility without having to shock the core readership by showing someone use a phone.
*Kidding, my wife is well aware that if I search for something like that it’s research for a comment on the Comics Curmudgeon.
SlyF – In the first, that is a Nylabone, the offering of which is that final act of humiliation that pushed him over the edge, in the second, it belonged to grandma’s abusive ex-lover who learned the hard way that wolves are better stalkers than people and Grandma is baking biscuits in the kitchen to celebrate.
HT to T.Kingfisher
@Hibbleton: JP: “… Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go talk to St. Jude sitting at the table behind us.”
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I thought that was Jesus, wearing his glasses.
In the first panel, Red Riding Hood is flush because she realizes she is in danger. In the second panel, she is profoundly sunburned, because, in their final days of ruling the earth, among other ecological disasters, humans have destroyed the ozone layer, and most of Red’s brethren have either adopted subterranean lifestyles, or are dying of full body melanomas.
What big head you have
@Lord Flatulence:
I thought that was Jesus, wearing his glasses.
I had originally written Jesus but thought maybe the saint of lost causes would be more apt.
@Tom: RMMD: Anyone want to take bets on how long the terrible date montage will last and whether or not the guy she has a good first date with turns out to be a psycho?
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You have beautiful skin, my dear. It will look lovely, dried and stretched out, on my basement wall.
@Hibbleton: I had originally written Jesus but thought maybe the saint of lost causes would be more apt.
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Good thinking.
RMMD:
Negatives: Boring as all get-out.
Positives: Can hold a fork correctly.
RMMD. I’m not saying it’s time to cancel Rex Morgan, MD, but when you’re lifting the “silver daters” plot from Mary Worth…damn…it’s time to cancel Rex Morgan, MD
Rex Morgan: Reminder, this is supposed to be a medical drama comic about a doctor dealing with medical issues.
Slylock Fox: I almost expect Slylock and Max to pop out of the closet To Catch A Predator-style.
RMMD: What, a ’65 T-Bird? What kind of piker are you? A real classic car enthusiast will only settle for a Tri-Five two-seater bird. Even my daughter’s idiot boyfriend knows that.
On a side note, a lot of enthusiasts will bemoan why Ford ever quit making the two seat Thunderbirds but when they added a rear seat starting in the ’58 models they sold nearly five times as many. When Ford did try bringing back the two seat Thunderbirds in the early 2000s they were a sales flop.