I think I have the genders of these things pegged correctly, but who knows, really
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Six Chix, 10/15/25
I genuinely love the open, slightly quizzical expression on the face of the bucket in this panel. He’s just a simple bucket! He doesn’t fully understand the complex emotional lives of the brooms and mops, here in this world where brooms and mops and buckets have faces and talk and go to bars. He’s interested in seeing how all this plays out, but ultimately he’s just waiting for the mop to stick herself inside him again, where she can get good and wet. Is that sexual, in this world? Well, it’s not not sexual, I’ll tell you that much.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/15/25
Speaking of sexuality, you’re probably wondering: sure, the characters in Rex Morgan, M.D., aren’t getting a bunch of money all the time like they used to, but are they having sex? Well, no, they’re not. They’re turning down sex so they can go work on tasks that, to reiterate, aren’t going to pay them very much, or possibly at all.
Alice, 10/15/25
Sorry I complained about Alice’s rogues gallery of baffling freaks, everybody! We’re now going to be subjected to new characters that are bone-crushingly boring and normal until we’ve learned our lesson.
71 replies to “I think I have the genders of these things pegged correctly, but who knows, really”
Mary Worth Mashups: Let’s see if any of the added Olive Reaction Panels makes you glad you woke up today.
It’s sweet that the mop is trying to help her friend the broom, who is depressed about his job covering up murders.
Rex Morgan: We can tell who didn’t use Lume and Mando Deodorants within the past 72 hours.
Six Chix:
Isn’t that an artistic depiction of Bret Michaels from Poison in the middle?
Alice:
This conversation makes “Waiting for Godot” seem action-packed.
MW:
There’s something fattening here
What it isn’t, ain’t exactly clear
There’s a ham with someone over there
Tell Mary, she’s got to beware
I think it’s time we stop
Chillin’, what’s that sound?
Everybody look who’s chowin’ down
There’s prattled lines bein’ spawned
Nobody’s right if Mary’s got it wrong
Young weirdo speakin’ her mind
Getting so much subsistence from the rind
Time we stop
Hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look who’s chowin’ down
What a field day for “effete” (wooh, ooh)
Aloud, enfeebled in their seats (wooh, ooh)
Bringin’ prongs and a-carryin’ tines
Mostly sayin’, “Hooray for our sides”
It’s time we stop
Hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look who’s chowin’ down
[bridge]
Clair-a-voyance strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you always upbraid
Step outta line, and Stan come to take you away
We better stop
Hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look who’s chowin’ down
We better stop
Hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look who’s chowin’ down
We better stop
Now, what’s that sound?
Everybody look who’s chowin down
We better stop
Chillin’, what’s that sound?
Everybody look who’s chowin’ down
[outro]
SIXCHIX: Instead of The Birds & the Bees, parents have The Mops & the Buckets talk with their kids.
MW: (sound of people in the next booth losing their lunch)
RMMD: I can’t wait til they go on their first Mundane Couples Cruise.
Rex Morgan, MILF Diver: I suppose it would have been too blunt for Augie to say, “I have to go home and rub one out.”
Luann: AI slop? *That’s* what this is about? I don’t know whether to be impressed that for once the Evansii are actually being really, most sincerely topical, or laughing at the hypocracy of them complaining about generic AI-generated art when up until now their strip has been nothing but paper dolls except when indulging Evans Senior’s fetishes (see Bets’ Catwoman getup a few weeks ago).
CS: Someone check on Batiuk, I think he’s finally had that stroke.
RMMD: I say again, and now a firm and hearty handshake!!
RMMD:
“So — you want to come in for a bit? I’ve got a wide selection of cutting tools used with a drill to create holes by removing material, and you’re more than welcome to one if you’d like to pick one out!”
Hello, Mudges, I’m in Japan. No comment other than that, and that I also like the bucket. Oyasuminasai.
Six Chix: Hats off to “The Cleaning Supplies Bar” (naah, it’d have a hip name like “Sudsy’s”) for the creative use of proportional cocktail napkins.
FC: Thel wonders if she can spare a few of the plantains she made for the landscapers for the kids.
DtM – There are so many other words Dennis could have substituted for “straw” and learned more from.
6C: Given the context, “Time to come clean” is an incredibly dirty pickup line.
It’s… it’s “rug.” Not “carpet.” You can’t sweep things under a carpet. They’re — [[swigs martini]] — they’re, like, attached to the floor. This is so easy to get right– oh, my bad, this is a Six chix, why am I even– Hey, Barkeep(er’s Friend, a cleaning product that’ll really tie this joke together), around round for me and the rest of the janitor’s closet!
MW: “When you called for help in your mind with your heart to the dogs…after the balloon we were in crashed into a tree when it was hit by a sudden gust of wind from a strong storm that seemingly came out of a clear blue sky as we were enjoying our excursion with Balloonivator Stanley and cruising high above the vast and deep forest that is far enough from civilization not to get cell phone service but still close enough for Greta and Max to sense your message in spite of the fact that you are a human and they are canines who don’t speak English even though they hear it when two-leggers talk at them as in ‘Blah blah GINGER blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah GINGER blah blah blah blah blah’ and also civilized enough to have a paved road that allowed not only Saul and Eve to drive right up to where we were but the enormous fire and rescue vehicle with all its apparatus for reaching high into the tree where we were stranded so that they could deploy the basket that carried us safely to the ground where we were able to heave a sigh of relief and thank everyone who had a hand in saving us but especially Max and Greta who deserve a special treat for diner like the one we’re enjoying in this diner where they are known far and wide for their delicious hamburgers even though we are eating sandwiches on pumpernickel as we relive our close call and marvel at your special gifts that saved us or perhaps created the situation in the first place since the weather was perfectly clear when we ascended and not one of the other balloons seems to have encountered that storm in just the same way as no other pedestrians had to dodge air conditioners falling from a building leaving me to wonder whether all those studies linking severe psychosis to a belief in audible telepathy and remote viewing miss another aspect of that derangement describing the ability to summon events as well as air conditioners and dogs as well as their owners…it’s called TELEPATHY. Or, if you prefer, FAULKNERESQUE FLIGHT OF IDEAS. Finish your first sandwich, my dear girl.”
Chix (sic): Broomy hasn’t been the same since Cinderella found her prince.
@The Quiet Man: Today’s Rex Morgan MD looks even more like it was written by Tom Batiuk in the middle of a stroke.
@els: I love it! Except if that’s a martini, the Broom is going to be short a few straws in the morning. . .
@Baja Gaijin: The flower fairies really take the insanity back to its roots!
GT I thought the previous game was going to wrap up the Very Special Episode by showcasing Tobias, leading to the school board going back on the trans player policy, but I guess they were delaying that to line up a guest artist who can draw well enough for us to tell which player is which!
MW Mary being secretly deeply into New Age woo like “everyone is telepathic” would explain her “the past is only as you remember it” bad advice – she’s victim-blaming because you didn’t try hard enough to warp reality and actually reshape what happened.
Of course, it doesn’t explain how a 14-year-old has managed to never come across the word “telepathy” before. Just how bad are New York’s schools?
MW:
“I called Max and Greta in my mind using my heart, but for the first ten minutes or so, I kept getting a telepathic busy signal. That’s why we ended up being stuck in the tree for so long!”
@Hibbleton: Or since that witch stopped riding him. (Sexual context implied)
DT: Yes, DT, your years of shoot first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and then reload have finally caught up with you. The new District Attorney wants to win cases not spend time defending suits from all of the stray rounds and answering questions about dubious use of lethal force. Again, why was LaKoyle dealing with a loan shark at all?
MW: This is the Star Wars moment, akin to when The Force was explained as a secondary effect to a massive midichlorian bacterial infection! So, everyone has a little telepathy but some are more highly developed? Maybe if all of the audience send their thoughts to the writers they’ll get our sentiments!
JP: Good – I’ve forgotten who ran off to Norway, Randy, Sam, Tom, Dick or Harry.
GT: Who is Gil barking out commands to? The field is the other way!
I do look forward to “Good artwork Chick”
But only for the good artwork, if I want a joke I have to wait for “actually funny chick” who has yet to show up.
6Cx: There’s a lot to unpack here, but I can’t help thinking about the carpet. Is it a literal carpet? Is it sentient too? Is it annoyed about having stuff swept under it or…something else? So many unsettling possibilities.
RMMD: Wow. a scene so boring that the background itself has just given up and left, along with two primary colors.
Alice: Speaking of weird background…where are we just now? It looks like this scene was superimposed over a health class diagram of what happens to sweat glands when you don’t shower enough.
@CanuckDownSouth: Olive doesn’t go to school. She visits old women.
@Baja Gaijin: All are excellent, could consider one where Olive uses her mental powers like on Cronenberg’s Scanners? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w7TOzYu5V4
RNND: “Are you sure you won’t come in? We can play ‘Mop & Bucket.’ I’ll let you be the mop this time!”
6C: It’s all well and good for the mop to be lecturing the broom, but what else is he supposed to do without a partner, a dustpan? Mop has a devoted bucket, and it’s easier to get on your high horse when everything is working out just fine for you.
Alice: There is something haunting about the trees here, their emaciated trunks twisted underneath a cloud of half-changed leaves. It’s almost apocalyptic, which adds a dark touch to the banality of the “wayward conversation”. Mister Boring has done some unspeakably horrible things to survive in this hellscape. Someday, he’ll have the courage to speak of them, but not yet. Not yet.
6 Chix: The broom’s beer of choice? Shock Top!
MW: And thus began the Cult of Olive.
FC: “Hi, Mommy! Tit, tit!”
On the day Mary Worth reveals its titular character is the spiritual successor to Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Josh features Alice. Is he afraid of the wrath of the Masters of the Ancient Wisdom? I mean, he should be, but the blogger’s code says publish AND perish.
FC: Is there a female equivalent of tea-bagging? What would we call it if Thel dragged those massive mammaries over those cookies? Of flapjacks or whatever they are?
Phantom: The Bungle Patrol!
@Charterstoned: Quiet, awed applause.
RMMD: yep, Augie is terrified about letting Summer see the short story in his pants.
RMMD-He doesn’t want to come in for a bit. He wants to come in for a long time.
MW-Later that night Mary shows Olive another kind of love.
FC-Sorry but those are for Mommy and Daddy’s special party.
There is no way an anthropomorphic bucket is going to be left alone at a bar without other patrons trying to fill him with ice and sticking bottles in him to keep cold. Or worse, filling him with booze and drinking directly out of him. Life must be hell for anthropomorphic buckets. And they can’t even cry about without those damned mop people shoving themselves into their faces to soak up those tears.
***
Does Auggie’s chin become engorged as he gets horny?
MW: “It’s called telepathy and most of the chumps aren’t awakened to it.” The waitress comes over with the check. Mary waves her hand and says, “these are not the diners you have been looking for.” The waitress walks away confused. ” I haven’t paid a tab in twenty years.” laughs Mary.
You are being pitied by your peers.
@Alex:
I love pitted pears.
@Hibbleton: What about pitted piers? I mean, they need some work, but that weathered look is nice.
@The Quiet Man:
On Luann : I don’t feel it’s necessarily hypocritical; the lowest-effort, most clip-art comic strips are the ones with the most to fear from A.I., what with how easily they’d be replaced and no-one would notice.
**********
On Crankshaft : I like the convoluted circumlocution used by Lilian so she can ask “why do they call it ‘Buck rub’ ” without using the words “buck” or “rub” to describe it. But I kinda dislike that Crankshaft didn’t do a “rub/rob” malaprop here (like, “they call it ‘buck rub’ because paying to fix the damages robs you of your bucks!”). I mean, sure, it’d be a stretch, but we’re talking about a character that once called a “franchise quarterback” a “french fries quarter pounder”, so…
6C – Nothing builds moral fiber better than a brimming glass of piss! So told the toilet brush to the broom….
RMMD – Working on the old book = wanking to cyber porn….
Alice – Nothing at all = It hurt like hell when I pissed, so I went to the doctor and long story short, you probably should be tested for syphilis….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
RMMD: If all his novel climaxes end with “No thanks, I gotta get home,” that might explain Augie’s previous rejection letters.
MW: Eh, it’s better Mary draw Olive into this rather than Scientology or NXIVM.
H&L: “Gray Away” is awfully blatant. Eh, it’s better than “Her Midlife Crisis”.
6C: Evidence that the mop is intended to be coded “female:”
~Long, flowing “hair”
~Drinking wine, something men are usually not depicted doing unless it’s a fancy dinner or a pre-20th century setting
Evidence that the mop is intended to be coded “male:”
~Refers to the broom as “buddy,” indicating that this is one guy straight talking another
~No attempt to give the mop boobs
Alice: I’m guessing Alice’s…friend? Boyfriend? Stranger she met on the street?….whatever, I’m guessing this guy is drawn more or less “normal” looking because he’s supposed to be attractive, but is he really? Or is he seen as a freak in the Picasso-esque world of Alice, like Donna Douglas in that one Twilight Zone episode?
Pluggers: After he puts his phone on Do Not Disturb, he misses calls and texts from:
1. the doctor’s office – tomorrow’s appointment has been moved up to 8AM.
2. his elderly mother – she’s having a heart attack and is driving herself to hospital.
3. next-door neighbor – there’s a pack of coyotes in the back yard.
“I wonder what’s taking Henrietta so long to take out the trash.”
@MKay: RMMD: I can’t wait til they go on their first Mundane Couples Cruise.
Dr. Jeff is ready to take them on the USS Chastity.
Rex Morgan Presents: Duke Ellington’s (I’m Not In The) Mood Indigo.
@Tabby Lavalamp: With no disrespect to Garrison for bringing up this topic, but in a fantasy novel I read, a fantasy realm where humans and anthropomorphic animals (and many other stock fantasy creatures exist) skunks are widely ostracized in that world, because of their stink (which humanoid skunk spray is 10 times more potent than skunks in our world) so they ended up an anti-social race, but they make very good cops because their spray is pretty much built in tear-gas.
MW: The fella in the next booth leans over and says “what a load of horseshit” Mary gives him the Vulcan neck pinch and he falls face first into his Thai soup. Mary says “Oops, looks like I made a pho-pas.”
MW-There is a lot we learn here. “Telepathy” is how Mary knew precisely where to go to keep Purple Drank Drunken Wilbur from throwing himself off Kelrast Kurve. It explains her always showing up with muffins at the most (in)opportune moments. And while for some of her ilk, the Power of the Dark Side manifests as lightning, the residents know to fear the storm of baking equipment when she releases her full power. Until now Olive was her Acolyte but now she is Mary’s apprentice. And one day, when Olive has attained the fulness of her powers, Mary’s throat will be ripped out by a pack telepathically commanded pomeranians, and Olive will settle into her unit at Charterstone and assume command.
And when Doctor Ed comes to euthanize the deadly yaps on court orders, he will be turned away with a gentle but firm ” these are not the dogs you’re looking for.”
@Arabella: Hot, young strong Coyotes! That’s what’s taking her so long. Earl has long been desensitized to boner-meds.
Rex Morgan: Apparently the next medical emergency Rex is going to have to tackle is ED, as that’s the only possible explanation for why Augie is going on a date with two excuses why he can’t have sex prepared in advance.
Alice: Has anyone interpreted those cave drawings in the background? All I can make out is the rear end of a cow? horse? Seems appropriate.
“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze long into the abyss, you find two characters from Rex Morgan, M.D. talking about not having sex. They’re you, to be absolutely clear.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
Alice: “Normal” I’ll give you, but “bone-crushingly boring?” The hell you say! Alice’s boss, or maybe neighbor — they’re all pretty interchangeable, to be honest with you — has shaved his mustache. Isn’t that enough excitement for one day?!
C’shaft: *sighs, sets laptop aside calmly, goes outside and screams in rage*
I know, I know, you come to Crankshaft, you expect lame puns. But everything about today’s installment is particularly horrible, from the painful reverse-engineering of the joke to the meaning of “buck rub” being so obvious that Lilian has to practically bend over backwards to question it to the bored yet pedantic expression on Crankshaft’s face in the superfluous middle panel. It’s as if Batiuk is so resentful of complaints that his strip isn’t funny that he’s going out of his way to make it as unfunny as possible.
DT: I did not have “Dick Tracy goes on a John Wick-style vendetta after his hat gets fried” on the proverbial bingo card, but I must say I’m 100% here for it.
Dustin: I’m going to humbly suggest that the writers of Dustin, a strip in which everyone is driven by barely concealed bitterness and resentment and healthy life choices are depicted as “girl stuff,” are not equipped to criticize other people’s coping mechanisms.
(“Bourbon and Bonbons” sounds like a store you’d find in a trendy downtown shopping district in Kentucky. Hell, I’d patronize it.)
HotC: Wait, there’s someone in this neighborhood known as “old man Les” who dresses as a wizard and yells at cars? Way to bury the lede, Steenz!
JP: Okay, back up. The set-up indicated that Charlotte was supposed to spend a day or at best an overnight stay at Spencer Ranch, but Abby’s acting like this arrangement is going to be for several days if not indefinitely. Can we at least clarify what the stakes are so we can know who’s not reacting appropriately to them?
Luann: If I were a Family Feud researcher asking one hundred people “Name something that proves an image is AI-generated,” I’m guessing I would get answers like “extra fingers and toes,” “typos on signs,” “warped objects” and the like. “People who are stick figures from the neck down” would be in the strike zone, unless Clan Evans happened to be in the survey pool.
MW: Originally Mary Worth hedged its bets on Olive’s “abilities,” vaguely suggesting they were some form of unconscious perception which may or may not be supernatural. But now it’s throwing caution to the winds and diving headlong into sci-fi/fantasy territory, declaring that Olive can project her thoughts into the heads of dogs because she’s God’s Specialest Little Girl. I look forward to her eventual book tour and guest appearance on Drew Barrymore.
Pluggers foolishly assume anyone wants to call them at all.
Six Chix: It’s funny because the broom is covering up his long-repressed trauma history with alcohol abuse, and he’s drinking an IPA!
Dammit, given the sexual theme of the other entries, Alice should have been a sequel to the entry Josh highlighted from July 7. What’s new, Alice, is that he wants you to leave your boyfriend and bone him instead. Lurking underneath the boring exterior is a sexual dynamo.
@TheDiva: “It’s as if Batiuk is so resentful of complaints that his strip isn’t funny that he’s going out of his way to make it as unfunny as possible.”
Batiuk doesn’t need to go out of his way to make it unfunny, it just comes naturally.
@Dick Biter: “Motorboating”?
Yeah, I’d say Thel’s ol’ “Cross your heart” is getting a workout today.
@Voshkod: I don’t know about you, but reading Faulkner always made me frantic. As does this Mary Worth plot.
Upon reflection, I have decided today’s Rex Morgan M.D. represents the ultimate dream of every comics artist and writer: to be the one to say “no” to sex, rather than the shot-down-ee.
@Charterstoned: I had to stop reading Henry Miller for roughly the same reason, because he was a little too good at getting me caught up in whatever mood he was trying to convey.
RMMD: Augie’s chin started out as Ben Affleck sized but it has surpassed Jay Leno and is rapidly approaching Rondo Hatton territory.
RMMD- “Wanna come in for a bit? How about a bridle and saddle? Cowgirl up, anyone?” Auggie, that blue tint you see everywhere is the Viagra kicking in! You think Spuds Morton would pass on an opportunity like this? But noooo it’s a school night! Maybe work on the book a little. Chapter two-“Truck Tyler to the left of me Wanda to the right- here I am spanking my monkey again!” Well, at least thirty years from now there won’t be some guy wondering if you’re his dad.