Starting the week philosophically
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Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/15/26
I genuinely love that Mae Mae and this lady from “the media” are having a respectful argument by making statements that are as close as possible to flat, unadorned statements of fact. There’s no big secret here: Mae Mae quit Hollywood years ago. She’s just working in a cafe now. But consider: She’s famous, and her disappearance was a mystery. Well, she was famous, but now she’s just a regular person — albeit, as one cannot deny, a person who was once the top box-office draw in the world. It really lets us quickly and efficiently see that the dispute has arisen over the question of what constitutes a “mystery” — must there be some inherently complex or surprising “solution” for something to qualify? or is a mystery simply a thing that many people want to know, but do not? — and whether “famous” is a permanent or temporary quality. Looking forward to everyone getting epistemological closure on this by Thursday at the latest!
Garfield, 6/15/26
Look, Garfield hates Mondays. Fundamentally, bone-deep, he hates them. And that’s not just because he needs coffee to pep him up after the relaxing weekend — it’s because Monday is a truly cursed 24-hour period, and nothing should bring him joy on this, the worst day of the week. That big smile in panel three is a betrayal of everything that the Garfield brand should stand for, and it makes me sick.
42 replies to “Starting the week philosophically”
MW: Does this mean Dawn and Tommy will become fuck buddies?
Garfield: Why is the Excitement Fairy wearing knee pads… ooooooohhhh
JP: Aaaaaaannd cue CIApril barging through the door, a huge gun in one hand, a huge knife in the other. “Sophie! We need to go, NOW!” she bellows before disemboweling everyone in the place, including Reena the Token POC Bestie. It’s called WRITING, people!
CS: I think I figured out why Crankshaft is here despite having absolutely nothing to do with the storyline. Have we ever seen Lillian drive? Are we supposed to believe that she had her license revoked (or she voluntarily relinquished it) while Crank ‘I’ve never met a mailbox I didn’t run over’ Shaft still has his?
Phantom: What, Schmelon Schmusk just flew the Nomad around for a few hours and is bringing him back right where we started?!
RMMD “I guess you could say that I’m famously unfamous?” /reporter’s head explodes/
Garfield Well it’s taken nearly 50 years, but Garfield has finally reached its ‘Great Gazoo’ stage. Its a sure sign that this strip will be canceled by, oh, 2046?
CS: I find this strip stupid, unrealistic and irritating. I don’t believe this vain, pompous buffoon would leave his father’s trumpet to gather dust in the attic . It would either be on display or had been shoved up his pompous ass.
JP: is this when a girl with a dragon tattoo enters?
RMMD:
“Now hold still, Ms. Starr, while Bryan Cranston here adjusts the camera.”
FC: What, a week of little Billy, age seven, taking over the strip? Good, now I can ignore it and all comments on it this week. It’ll add minutes to my life.
RMMD — Can’t wait to see how the Rex version of Sullivan’s Travels comes out–oh, right, it’s just going to peter out in irrelevant platitudes and nonsensical statements. But canonically, won’t some kind of visit to the Morgan clinic be required–we haven’t seen Rex’s pissy face for some time. . .
Garfield:
‘Like most of ny ilk these days, and what with inflation being what it is, I’ll give you a dollar for every one of your teeth that I knock out with this wand of mine!”
Garfield: This strip makes a lot more sense when you realise that it’s a hasty rewrite. Originally “excitement” was “excrement”.
RMMD: Throughout this storyline, I was imagining Lorna Starr as a well-regarded B-list character actor. You know, the kind of person who’s always good in a supporting role and maybe one day makes you think “Huh, whatever happened to her? Let’s check her IMDB”, but maybe only had one or two leading roles. A Tilda Swinton or a Marisa Tomei, if you will. Now we’re learning she was the top box office draw in the world??? We’re meant to believe that Julia Roberts or Angelina Jolie or Jennifer Lawrence disappeared for a decade and then became a waitress, and no-one noticed???
Garfield:
“And speaking of ‘excitement,’ New York City registered 63 arrests, five assaults with a weapon and two burned municipal vehicles following the Knicks’ win Saturday night. Imagine what it would have been like if they’d lost.”
Will the Excitement Fairy provide antidepressants if coffee doesn’t do the trick? Or cocaine?
That’s fantastic news! I’ve been looking for something by Josh, and a novel about Rex Morgan sounds like exactly what I need this week.
*sigh* Spam at 13
@The Quiet Man: re: Phantom – no, they went from Nomad’s prison (Guantanamo? anyhow, US-controlled) to Fake African Country to start the Python pickup operation
@CanuckDownSouth: This is what happens when you let ChatGPT write your spam, is a sentence none of us ever thought we would write when joshreads.com opened up, twenty-some years ago.
Garfield – I have it on good authority that Rand Paul is the Excitement Fairy. Well…that’s what I heard….
MW I am absolutely *terrible* at interpersonal relations and even I know “friendship = ask Y/N and shake on it” isn’t how it works, it sounds like some Jasper Fforde-level insane detail of alternative-human society
CS Batiuk should just write the darn graphic novel already, he clearly wants to tell a story that doesn’t give humour or interest in daily bites.
RMMD: Yes, people who are famous never, ever disappear back into obscurity as times and tastes move on without them and/or they themselves decide to move on from that stage of life. That’s the way things work, isn’t it?
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Yes, now we yearn for the days of handcrafted Spam by a human who at least spent 30 seconds eyeballing the page. *sigh*
Rex Morgan, M.D.: [Deep breath] According to Catholic theologian and philosopher John F. Haught, mystery emerges from the profound experience of simultaneously butting up against unanswerable “limit questions” arising from such fields as science, ethics, criticism, politics and logic and experiencing some deep, inexhaustible ineffable power promising us a hope-filled future. [Exhale] In Rex Morgan, M.D., mystery arises from the big GO AWAY I’M RETIRED sign on a Hollywood star’s mansion. God lives in the future, the star serves coffee. It’s really the same, if you stop to think about it.
Phantom: I understand that there is a terrific rivalry between the Gravelines and Boomsby Prison shuffleboard teams.
Garfield betrays everything about Garfield except for selling out. Expect a Folgers® endorsement next Monday.
FG: Notice how Empress Aura is in the room so she can get a good look at shirtless Flash.
@Ukulele Ike: #22: Not anymore. Stripeybutt and the Bandar Army freed the best Gravelines players, leaving them to fall back on the junior varsity team.
Blondie: Blondie calls Dagwood, “Hot Stuff.” The medical community says, “Meat Sweats.”
Garfield: The missing fourth panel has Garfield tossing the searing hot coffee back into the fairy’s face and mumbling, “Well, that was exciting.” Now it is on brand.
Rex Morgan, MeDia – Say what you will, but the detail on that camera is next level. I’m married to a videographer/editor and much like this guy, he has sported the bald and beard look. This is lovingly drawn. Obsessively, lovingly drawn.
C’shaft: Harry’s dad wanted to be a famous band leader, but was stuck playing third-tier gigs in Ohio. Harry himself wanted to be a big band conductor like his dad, and wound up an eternally frustrated educator. It’s a good thing Harry never had a son, or the poor kid might have would up aiming to be a high school band teacher but settling for running the machine at Montoni’s karoake night.
DT: “It’s a classic film noir starring Joseph Cotton, Alida Valli and Orson Welles, but that’s not important right now.”
Dustin: “Seriously, dude? I’m an egotistical middle-aged man who expects the entire world to revolve around my needs and tastes, and I thought that was over the line.”
Luann: Maybe people in the Luannverse just mature at a much slower rate than we do. It would explain why Luann is nineteen but acts like a twelve-year-old, and why her ten-year-old campers behave like they’re in kindergarten.
MW: “But remember, my friendship is entirely dependent on you never, ever saying or doing anything I disapprove of, so be careful!”
@TheDiva: Dinkle had a daughter, Halle. You’ll never guess what profession she is!
RMMD- until just a few months ago, she was sitting in her mansion feeling bored. Not much of a mystery, just lazy journalism.
“You’re… kinda boring, aren’t you? There was nothing scandalous and no addictions were involved? Mystery solved, Rene*, let’s pack up and see if we can save any of this in editing.”
*The cameraman is a different bald guy named Rene in the Morganverse.
***
I appreciate that Mondays are normally an actual malevolent force in Garfield’s life because he’s a non-human pet whose owner works from home so there’s no other way for him to differentiate it from any other day. You know, I’ve never considered this before but I don’t think Jim David put much thought into Garfield hating Mondays beyond giving readers something to empathize with.
GARFIELD: I initially read, “excrement fairy.” Don’t drink it, pussycat!
RMMD: The real mystery is that no one, but NO ONE has appeared to notice Mae Mae’s physical change. The world did not suddenly stop body-shaming, especially when it comes to celebrities.
MW: O, be ye gratified, Tommy! You have achieved the Dawn Weston Level of Worthiness! Huzzah!
RXMD: Mud comes in and starts to glower at the crew, only to realize it’s a purty lady folk who’s interviewing Mae Mae, and backs away respectably.
Plot twist: In panel 4, Garfield discovers that the coffee is decaf. Curse you, Monday!
Garfield:
“What’s new, fussy cat? — whoa, oh, oh, oh!”
“W-who are you?”
“The Tom Jones Fairy!”
Rex Morgan: “The media has shown up at the motel.” They were really hoping for some kind of Norman Bates situation, but this will be fine for a 30-second clip after the third commercial. (And yes, the Hallmark Channel Christmas movie people are working on three different versions of this story as we speak. Because that’s the real answer to the question, “What happens to Hollywood actresses after they disappear?”)
Slylock Fox takes place on the edge of a black hole today. I can’t figure out why else the shadows from the sun’s rays are getting bent like that.
Blondie: Cookie, the youngest, was born 80 years ago. I guess it is about time Hot Stuff and Blondie got busy.
BG&SS is missing a punchline. I mean, moreso than usual.
Pluggers have never left anything the fridge for two months, and have yet to develop the self-protection skills of figuring out what noxious growths are inside a Rubbermaid by what it looks like through the plastic.
RMMD: Wait, which one of them is Rex Morgan? I’m thinking it’s probably a guy. Is it the guy holding the camera?
“OK, you want the truth? Hollywood is a fickle whore that drains you of all that makes you, grinds you into a paste for public consumption, and wrings you dry like a dirty washcloth. Now, roots county music, that’s where the action is. So don’t watch movies! Listen to roots country.”
Today’s Rex Morgan was brought to you by the Roots Country Music Association of America.
@TheDiva: You remind me of the sweet story about Angela Lansbury — after Murder, She Wrote took off, she could always be relied on to provide a cameo role for any has-been actors who needed a few hours of work to keep their Equity insurance. I sometimes wonder if that was the real story behind the Dean Martin comedy roasts, or the celebrity guests on shows like Password and Match Game.
REX MORGAN M.D.: “I was famous. I’m just a regular person now who does regular person things like sign autographs and pose for pics for strangers and live out of motels that I then have the money to buy outright. I quit because I hate the attention, which I had no problem leveraging to ‘save’ my friends motel and to get people to swoon all over me at the expense of jobs efficiency. Besides I work at the cafe now, because normal people work tiring, menial, low-wage jobs even if they have the means to make their dreams come true and do anything else. Good thing you guys are just as lazy as I am and didn’t come by for the big rush at breakfast, eh? Boy that would have been some interesting b-roll, eh, as people wait out the door for hours of this small, one-star cafe attached to a dumpy motel in the middle of nowhere just to have ‘non-famous-person’, me, serve them runny eggs and cold stale biscuits as is totally normal and typical. Anyway time to return to the motel room I live out off and might possibly own, because that’s just what ordinary folks with no extenuating circumstances do!”
REX MORGAN M.D. (2): I think Lorna/Mae is planning a congressional run soon, because she seems to have locked on to the political PR formula that even of you’re an elite country-club patron using taxpayer money for your insider trading scams, you’ll still be classified as an “ordinary American” if you just profess a love of NASCAR and UFC (greasy diner food and roots country) while dressing up in mom jeans and flannel (looking frumpy in outdated waitress uniforms.)
REX MORGAN M.D (3): Also Lorna/Mae Mae is doing some Dawn/Tommy style revisionist history here. She didn’t “quit” Hollywood as much as she stopped being an actress. She certainly didn’t quit Hollywood “years ago”, because she was still being a reclusive weirdo in her gigantic mansion (as any “regular person” does) until a like, two days ago, when she decided that cosplaying in the Roots Country theme park that Glenwood has become would just the thing to escape the relentless eye of constant fame, even though last week established that she kinda liked it, but now she’s back to resenting it again because the malicious entertainment media is politely and respectfully asking her for info instead of just beaming admiringly at her while she serves them super-dry pancakes.
Also note to dumb, little Lorna/Mae Mae who is either too naive or hypocritical to understand her own story, but the “mystery” is because when the top-grossing, super-famous actress is suddenly disappear for a while and then reemerges as a minimum-wage service person, the assumption is that she done fucked up her career and savings and is down-on-her-luck. After all the wait staff trying to break into the business certainly wouldn’t stick around and be “ordinary people” if they got a regular gig. And it’s a mystery because why explain things (like Lorna Mae Mae is doing right now and could have done all along) using the various media formats celebs have at their disposal when you can just do your Norma Desmond impression at your gigantic mansion all day just to be extra? (Ironically, simply telling her story would have been the most “normal person” thing Lorna/Mae Mae has done on this stupid arc.)