I guess you really have to … hand it to them [everyone starts yelling at me]
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Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/12/25
Say what you will about Rex Morgan, M.D., but it is straight-up killing it in the “characters make interestingly exaggerated hand gestures” department. Nobody is even close! I expect the strip to once again sweep the Handy Awards this year. (People keep telling the Academy of Hand Gesture Artistry that “handy” sounds like a sex thing and they should change the name, but they just go on and on about “tradition” while gesticulating wildly.)
Mother Goose and Grimm, 9/12/25
Ha ha, yes, The Handmaid’s Tale certainly is a cultural touchstone with striking visuals and production design elements that we can see on various billboards and commercials! Quick question for the Mother Goose and Grimm creative team, though: you know the show is about a society facing an existential fertility crisis that becomes a cult where the few remaining fertile women are enslaved and ritually raped by high-status men, right? Oh, you don’t? You don’t read my blog, huh? I know I’m mean to you sometimes, but I think reading my blog would help you out in situations like this.
Archie, 9/12/25
The Millennials are addicted to Instagram, and Zoomers have already had their brains rotted by TikTok, but what means of cybercommunication will the rising Gen Alpha embrace? Well, according to today’s Archie, which is definitely an informed commentary on contemporary teens and not a rerun from more than 20 years ago, it’s email. That’s right, folks, check your spam filter, because if you cross a teen in the year 2025 you will soon be roasted in absolutely devastating fashion in a message from lakyn13@juno.com!
56 replies to “I guess you really have to … hand it to them [everyone starts yelling at me]”
Luann Mashup: We’re all hoping for this, especially Poteet.
Rex Morgan Mashup: In the final panel, Truck sounds like someone else. Who could it be?
Garfield Mashup: Does “Garfield Minus Garfield” work?
Archie:
Wow. You can play “Wordle” on the back of Archie’s head.
FLASH! AAAAAAAAAA!!!!: “Dibs on the Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!”
MW: There are entirely too many tongues in today’s strip.
RMMD:
“Son, if I can illustrate graphically, what you’re describin’ to me is simply the ‘hand‘ you’ve been dealt. Oh. Wait a minute. This isn’t a video call.”
RMMD:
“Okay, a little off-topic, son, but lookin’ at my hand here — if we were all polydactyls, would we be countin’ in base 12 rather than in base 10?”
RMMD-“Now I have to get rid of my sister’s husband then I can really connect with her.”
FC-That must be the tree where the Evil Queen gets her apples.
MG&G: I think that’s supposed to be one of those cones pets wear after surgery so they don’t pull out their stitches, so the good news is that Grimmie’s been fixed.
Also the Archie gang should probably try it (the cones, not the neutering) (though I wouldn’t object to the latter).
Josh is being too online for his own’s sake. Grimm is not imitating the Handmaiden’s Tale, that’s just a dog cone after a veterinary operation. Unless the operation was to castrate Grimm and it links to the fertility problem, then I withdraws my objections
Chance improves today’s selection of comics with just a few words:
Archie: change “e-mail” to “instant message”
Mother Goose: make this a dog cone, and not anything to do with the Handmaid’s Tale for the love of God
Rex Parker: I dunno, make hand bigger? Incorporate 3D gif technology so it waves around in our faces?
Rex Morgan: “You can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family.” “I beg to differ.” “Okay, you can also pick a guitar. That’s how this not-at-all gross joke goes, right?”
Archie: These kids today with their unlimited phone data plans — they can email their friends about the quality of Pop’s food! And also access the Yelp app, because his food sucks.
MW: The significance of matching owner-pet outfits denoting “kindred spirits” will not be lost on Olive and Mary. Either Olive is going to acquire a dog so she can dress it in a sweater that matches her own green and black shirt, or Mary will start dressing Olive in a purple cowl-necked top.
MW: Up next: all of the birdies and little forest animals cluster around Olive as she breaks into song.
RMMD: “Thanks for your advice, Truck, but I’ve already leased a billboard that Jonah can see from his hospital bed.”
Ever thought people could brush their teeth in a fairly grotesque way? Dustin decided to show this.
Marvin: Does a shit-filled diaper lessen or increase the discomfort when Marvin is dropkicked into the next time zone?
MG&G: You know, it does make sense that in the Mother Goose-iverse, the handmaids costumes actually are veterinary cones (it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve done this joke). After all, the handmaids aren’t supposed to experience sexual pleasure, but dogs can bend around and lick themselves. You do the math.
Cory really dodged a bullet not being Trucker’s bio son! Look at that wild gesticulation! I don’t need a fancy DNA test to tell he has some Wop blood in him!
Gil Thorp used to be the ‘hands on’ king of the handy awards. I believe they even did an all hands panel in response to this blog back in the oughts. How the mighty have fallen.
“Good Cody, focus on your sister and your nephew and niece! Just learn to phrase it a bit differently, because the way you do it now is a bit creepy”
I …I think that’s just a regular E collar, Josh. I know that post from 8 years ago was about Handmaid’s Tale but this is literally just one of those cones they give dogs who have had surgery to prevent them from biting their stitches
Archie tomorrow, where Pops learns that not being on MySpace is hurting his business…
FC: I remember one particularly bad outbreak of E. Coli was caused by harvesting apples which had fallen on soil contaminated with deer crap. Not to worry, Bil’s series of humorous strips on childhood dysentery won him a Neustadt Prize.
The A in Archie Andrews stands for aol.com
As a grammar geek and connoisseur of rude humor, I approve of today’s Frazz.
JP Oh goody, we’ve gotten back to the near-anachronistic “avocado toast” reference for Idle Neddy. Now we can do another week of Alan bemoaning his caretaker responsibilities, get back to Neddy at the fridge again, go back to Alan… (repeats until the comics are cancelled by the death of all newspapers, because the writer got caught in a ‘lather, rinse, repeat’ loop)
Mother Goose and Grimm: The heck with WiFi! The heck with The Handmaid’s Tale! I want to know more about how they completely encircled Grimm’s head with that cone. I’m thinking it’s a detachable magnet, do you think it’s a detachable magnet? This would explain a lot, actually.
@Everything Is Better With Monkeys: Next, Jughead sets Pops up with a GeoCities page.
RMMD – He ain’t heavy – he’s my brother…my estranged…emotionally distant…asshole brother….
MG&G – So…that compensates for not being able to lick my ass clean after I take a dump…well…that’s what I keep telling myself….
Archie – Yeah! If you had WiFi we could tell everyone how your business is down because of that Chinese manufactured super virus, and your basement Adrenochrome side gig has fallen off to almost nothing!!! This economy is a bitch….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
Also Mother Goose and Grimm: Uh, Grimm? WiFi is a registered trademark of the Wifi Alliance, and I sincerely doubt your hillbilly signal booster there is going to meet the interoperability compliance standard to be called a WiFi-Certified device. No sir, what you’ve got there is a sawed-off WLAN cone, a.k.a. traffic pylon, a.k.a. emergency fire hydrant stand-in.
MW: Turns out that Olive was a dog in a previous life.
RMMD: “Plus, this is Rex Morgan! Unsatisfying plot endings are just what we do. Speaking of which, I…” /trails off, subject never brought up again…/
Archie: True story: my mom grew up in a small town in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia that was a little behind on the times. About ten years ago, a coffee chain opened a location there that offered internet, and for the first couple weeks customers would coming in asking for their free ‘whiffees’, which they assumed were some kind of donut.
In Rex Morgan, M.D.’s defense, this is a superbly realistic depiction of life advice being dispensed by country music artists, who are well-known for their keen grasp of emotional dynamics in family systems. [Missing panel three: “So what you want to do is fill a jug and pass it around at your next reunion…”]
@Aaron: And a bitch in this life
MW: the fact the dogs respond well to a girl who likes them doesn’t mean Olive is special. My point being…oh just fuck off Mary.
Rex Morgan, MD – Truck’s face makes it seem like he’s taking a call as he’s trying to pass a bowel movement while constipated, but that’s just his face when his subconscious mind is deep in the process of writing a country song about this tale of family woe.
Mother Goose and Grimm – The veterinary cone acts like a satellite dish and it’s concentrating the radiation through Grimm’s head. This will give him a brain tumor, which means a much shortened life, but at least he won’t be living with slow Internet, so it all equals out.
Archie – Once you give influencers free WiFi, then they will want free food to promote on their socials.
Archie: The true joke here is the corporate behemoth determined to mine the popularity of Archie comics until the margin of profit has expired. Which also turns out to have been about 25 years ago, actually.
@Aaron: …and her current one.
@Aaron: Do the dog [Not the Mary] Do the dog [Don’t be Olive] Do the dog, everybody’s doing the dog [Watch who you snoop for]
Hold yer horses, Josh. Archie and his pals, who are surely at least 16, are still zoomers. You can hear more about this on my YouTube Shorts.
Truck is giving pretty sound life advice, if your long-lost brother literally almost dies to avoid talking to you, you should maybe focus your efforts on the relatives who like you.
At least the morons in Wrecks Moregone know how to hold mobile phones. Wary Morth characters, take note.
Well, I see Josh received his check from Margaret Atwood to keep plugging The Handmaid’s Tale, even after a disappointing sequel and sixth season.
In Josh’s defense, there’s some ambiguity about how a semi-anthropomorphic dog would wear a Handmaid’s Tale hat or a cone of shame, and neither of them should involve his neck winding up there.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Don Abundio! You’re going to play golf in this rain?”
[Sign: PRO SHOP]
“Yes, that’s right”
“It’s no fun to play under these conditions!”
“But the important thing is that it’s even worse for my employees!”
[Sign: HOLE ONE]
@Aaron: Dean Spanley?
One of the things I listen to at work is people reading Reddit stories and I would not be surprised (short of him being a fictional character) to find Cody writing in Am I The Asshole. YES! Yes you are! You are a stranger to this new-found brother who has made it clear he doesn’t want to get to know you! LEAVE HIM ALONE! (Insert gif of the Leave Him Alone guy from Late Night with Seth Meyers here.)
***
I just realized one of the things I love about Archie, whether in these strips or in the actual comic books, is that it’s always written by people who haven’t met a real teenager in about two decades and have no interest in finding out what they’re into these days beyond what they can glean from brief brushes with pop culture.
Could we please refrain from using bigoted words? Nobody knows the ehnic makeup of the commenters here.
Archie – In the absence of Wi-Fi, Archie and Jughead could amuse themselves by having a long, convoluted, ultimately pointless conversation about whether “Wi-Fi” does or does not stand for “Wireless Fidelity”. Then they’ll demand free Wi-Fi so they can look up the answer on their phones.
First of all: You didn’t name this entry “Talk to the hand”*, Josh? You are dead to me!!!
Now…
REX MORGAN M.D.: I don’t know why they’re doing so much gesticulating. When you have gripping scenes like people giving Cody the same obvious advice over and over and over again, the excitement just writes itself in! No need to spice it up with overdramatic finger theatrics.
*I also would have accepted “Why-fi?”
Hey, nice to see Thing branching out from The Addams Family, but he really needs a better agent.
@astroboy: Thanks for that.
RMMD: Extra points to Truck for making hand gestures over the phone. It reminds me of a zoom meeting I was recently in, where someone was pointing at something on their screen with their finger. All the rest of us could see was their foreshortened arm, heading offscreen to the bottom.
RMMD: An aging and easily confused Truck asks Cody; “Wait, are they my grandkids? Am I Jonah’s uncle? Who are you again?”
Josh recognizing some weird sex cone before the basic cone of shame aside, how strange it is that two comics pick WiFi jokes for the same day.
MG&G. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and sometimes an Elizabethan collar is just a cone of shame.
@Bob Tice: Wordle? You could play Sudoko!