Nostalgia, drugs, etc.
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Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/9/26
As predicted, the scam twins (who are named Jean and Jane, I don’t think anyone predicted that) are indeed the nieces of notorious non-twin scam artist/Rex Morgan, M.D., antagonist Rene Belluso, who I guess really is just going by “Jimmy” now. Remember how he got extremely hit by a car and super-duper injured, back in January of 2024? Well, he’s still walking with canes today, in July of 2026, probably at least in part because of the substandard medical care he’s been receiving in prison. Anyway, this got kind of dark pretty fast so let’s move on to the next strip, shall we?
Mary Worth, 7/9/26
Speaking of beloved characters from the past, you might think that this is Tommy’s beloved old crackhead pal Vin, but apparently it’s some similarly stubble-headed guy named “Reno.” You can tell the difference because Vin was outgoing, effusive, and eager to share his drugs with his good friend, whereas Reno is aloof, standoffish, and makes you do the work of coming to him and asking respectfully if he has any drugs to sell. Anyway, you can always make jokes about Tommy’s drug problems! It’s never too dark!
Pluggers, 7/9/26
Speaking of drugs, I used to make jokes about pluggers getting high when talking about the Pluggers panels that revolve around prescription meds, but then someone admonished me about this and pointed out that most prescription meds aren’t mood-altering or addictive and many people need to take them and you shouldn’t conflate them with recreational drugs. Which is fair! But check out the pinpoint pupils on this she-plugger today. Most pluggers are only taking the prescription drugs they need to keep their failing bodies alive, but this plugger in particular is definitely packing a bunch of fun pills on her vacation. She’s extremely zooted right now, before she’s even left!
186 replies to “Nostalgia, drugs, etc.”
“Geez, Tommy. Couldn’t you have called first so I could tidy up a bit?”
Pluggers:
You’re a plugger when your failure to label (a) your pills and (b) when you should take them turns each day into a pharmacological smorgasbord.
MW: You can tell Reno is bad and unredeemable because he is ugly and he smokes.
Mary Worth:
“Reno! — how many times do I have to tell you that smoking cigarettes isn’t good for you?”
Of course the crack alley is next to the pawn shop, with the sliding door, that still has a doorknob… Are we sure that Tommy isn’t high right now?
Beetle Bailey vs Six Chix : “Anyway, thank you for keeping me company while my wife is out shopping for shoes.” “Oh, it was nothing. I like it better when people thank me for my service when I actually did them a service!”
************
Rex Morgan M.D. : this is only MILD nephewism. Jean and Jane would need to be joined by a triplet named Joan, and do that gimmick where they all share the same dialogue split into three speech bubbles to actually hit TRUE nephewism.
(Would they use different names as RENÉ’S nieces rather than Jimmy? Like, they’d be Rachel, Roxanne and Raphaëlle?)
RMMD:
“See that prison guard over there? Let’s the three of us have a kaffeeklatsch in which the two of you describe your ongoing scams to me, so that he and his eavesdropping colleagues can listen in a conversation in which there’s no expectation of privacy!”
MW: Tommy tries calling his sponsor, Susan Reed, but unfortunately she’s baked to the gills herself.
RMMD: Jimmy, Jean, and Jane? Between all the J names and Ollman’s failed self help cult, it’s clear Rene and his nieces are the only escapees from some sort of religious compound. No wonder they’ve turned to a life of crime.
MW: I don’t care what Moy writes, I refuse to believe that Tommy would throw away his sobriety based on the words of Wilbur Weston. Tommy’s going to drag Reno to Charterstone to show Wilbur what a real addict looks like.
Of course Reno could just work at the pawn shop and on a smoke break, but this is Mary Worth. He’s definitely going to try and sell Tommy drugs.
RMMD – Medical Expense Management Tip of the Day – Avoid the high cost of medical expenses and recovery therapy by shifting them to the pubic dime….
MW – So…Reno is what, seventeen? And a National Honor Society member, to boot….
Pluggers – Travel Tip of the Day Save packing space by buying your Depends (TM) at a Rite Aid (TM) at your destination….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
MW: With a flourish, Mary sheds her clever “Reno” disguise and saves Tommy from himself.
BB: They REALLY wouldn’t believe Zero if he told them that Bigfoot manscapes.
GT: I LOVE the way this strip makes us use our minds by leaving out 75% of every plot.
9CL: Is it supposed to be noteworthy that those smirking exhibitionists aren’t wearing underwear?
MW: I wonder what prompted Santa Royale’s descent into squalor. That’s bankruptcy-era Detroit levels of disrepair we’re seeing today. Did Mary drive all the mom and pop meddlers out of business?
MW: “I shot up with a man called Reno, just to watch him high.”
Pluggers: This is the face of a Plugger who just got contacted on Facebook about a money-making opportunity to bring some “perfectly legal” Adderall pills on her vacation to south-east Asia, and who is about to spend the rest of her life in a Thai prison.
I’m not sure if we’ve ever seen this partiular Plugger before. Could she be Andy Bear’s patrty-loving sister, coming into town for a drug-fueled visit? Will Andy fall into the geriatric druggy lifestyle? Will he have to hock his TV to get money for ecstasy? Stayed tuned!
GT: You know, it’s economical not to have a storyline because then you can just draw people saying things! – Crow T. Robot
Luann: “Ahhh, kids these days!” — Example number who gives a crap?
S4th: The worst part of these ‘unstuck in time’ plots? The characters spend more time sitting around agonizing about how to get home (and now making meta-quips about how often this happens to them!) instead of going and having the wacky adventures. Ces, if you are *that* out of ideas, just retire!
JP: Speaking of which, Neddy is proposing a TV show about a woman who did crimes, but wants to go straight but her past won’t let her. Must have been easy doing a ‘ctrl-A’ replace of ‘April’ with ‘Ann’!
Well, you assume Rene “Jimmy” Belluso is a non-twin scam artist, but Jane and Jean are his nieces, after all, so they’ve got to come from some sibling relation. What if Rene/Jimmy has been pulling his part of an incredible “The Prestige”-style lifelong con this whole time? Won’t you feel silly then!
Either that or he’s secretly their real father and just no one has ever bothered telling them.
MW-“Vegas, baby, Vegas! What? We’re not shouting out the names of cities to gamble in?”
RMMD-“I’m somebody’s girlfriend.”
@Rosstifer: No, but the AI Brigman employed to create the cliched art to go with Moy’s cliched writing might be.
Luann – tomorrow, a snide remark about avocado toast.
Pluggers – pluggers have so many pill bottles because they take the “talk to your doctor about…” part of all the ads they see as a commandment.
@Liam: Next Unca’ Jimmy is going to tell the twins about being ‘Bass Taped’.
By the way, what modern prison has visitors just sit at an open table that any convict could easily leap over in a bid for freedom? Shouldn’t this be at one of those booths with the telephone receivers separated by bullet-proof glass?
@Anonymous: Their names would either have to rhyme (Huey, Louey, and Dewey), or be a bad joke (Daisy, May, and June), or the same name with only a vowel change (Pipeye, Pupeye, and Poopeye).
On a side note, what kind of sadistic parent names a kid Poopeye?
MW — Tommy had been hoping to find the hip and faux-glamorous dealer Vegas, but he’ll settle for the seedy, smoking, bare wall, anachronistic metal garbage can Reno. . .
RMMD — “It’s taken a while for you to heal from your accident.”
“It could be worse. The only non-prison doctor in town is Rex Morgan.”
DT I find the throwaway lines more interesting than the wake-me-up-when-they-understand-computers plot – in a world with known aliens, the Lunarians like the Moon Maid, what _would_ the X-Files-hommage “Skully” be a skeptic about?
CS “Oh right, comics are supposed to be the *funnies*, better toss in an offbeat detail like a snake charmer in my depressing familial abandonment Wall of Text story”
GT Looks like the artist used the break to find the time to properly render that double chin and put the “is Mimi _supposed_ to be overweight now that she’s divorced Gil, or it that just bad scribbled head outlines again?” questions to rest.
@Lauralot: Or, Tommy buys the drugs and takes them back to Wilbur’s apartment to show Wilbur he’s no longer a user. Dawn hugs Tommy and they leave for their evening at the mall for the teen dance-offs. Left alone, Wilbur’s eyes drift to the drugs on the table….
@The Quiet Man: nope, looks like phones and glass are for max security, not everywhere. A quick check shows that there are prisons with supervised rooms for multiple inmates to meet visitors, e.g.: https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/visitors/in-the-visiting-room/
Rex Morgan, M.D.: Shame about the crutches, but it’s nice to see Dr. Thaddeus S. Venture has returned to the small screen. Any bets on whether Jean and Jane originated from a slug in Hank’s vat?
@Ken: Maybe what with the Panel2 frown Tommy is looking for a dealer to punch to show he’s no addict (or Brigman _wishes_ this is what she’s about to draw and the frown is hers:)
Mary Worth: Ehhhh…I’ve seen better depictions of criminals in the Chuck Colson prison comic book.
Pluggers: I was going to make a joke about how Pluggers spend more packing meds than clothes because they wear Hawaiian shirts all the time anyway and just throw some stuff in the suitcase, but then I got distracted about what kind of flowers there are on Mrs. Bear’s shirt, and whether they’re maybe not flowers at all but the faces of horrible squid monsters on the attack and now I’m wondering which pills I took this morning
MW: Say it ain’t so, Reno! Did you fall on hard times after the Hong Kong Cavaliers kicked you out of the band for your excessive drug use? We all saw you wipe your sugar boogers in the end credits of Buckaroo Bonzai!
@CanuckDownSouth: But Rene Belluso is the Moriarty to Rex’s Sherlock! The Sideshow Bob to Rex’s Bart! The Reeky Rat to Rex’s Slylock Fox! He should be trussed up like Anthony Hopkins in ‘Silence of the Lambs’ and his visitors have to pass multiple layers of security!
MW:
“Reno!”
“Listen, I changed my name to ‘Carson City,’ man!”
“Capital, capital!”
@yo go re: Because their mother brought many a gentleman caller to their home, the twins call many men “Uncle”.
Rex Morgan, MD: It’s good that Jane pointed out that JimRen’s injury is slow to heal. Otherwise, I might have assumed it was just Soap Opera Strip Time in action, where things that happened months ago in the strip might have happened days ago in the story, or vice versa.
Every time I forget someone’s birthday, I assume it’s a problem with Soap Opera Strip Time.
RMMD: By the way, let me throw in my own “as predicted” gloat, for a comment a few days back saying that Rene would be badly injured and using the girls as his instruments of vengeance against the Morgans. I have to deduct a couple points — I said he’d be in a wheelchair, here he’s on crutches — but I’m on target so far. Now all we need is, as @Bob Tice predicts above, for the three of them to gloat about how well Jimmy’s revenge scheme is going, right in front of the guard.
Mary Worth is turning into a Chick Tract quite rapidly.
FC: “No need. Since the repeal of the Mann Act, couples no longer have to produce a marriage license when we cross state lines.
Mary Worth: Tommy hasn’t been in the Cracked Walls District in a while. The new overflowing trash cans are so much nicer than the old ones!
GA: “Ava Luna! I see that you’ve been by the Willy Wonka factory for some chewing gum!”
@The Quiet Man, RMMD: His Jimmy Kimmel to “Win Ben Stein’s Money”‘s Ben Stein!
Jean and Jane get loose change from passers-by while giving them nice music to listen to. Uncle Jimmy accidentally helps people with his stolen self-help plan, giving them their money’s worth. This family is just really bad at scams, aren’t they? I wouldn’t be surprised if the twins are actually good musicians and they recorded their own playing for the love of the game.
***
“Finally, I own my own business! Sure, it’s in a run down alley so I probably won’t get much drive-by business, the door has a door knob so it’s not particularly accessible unless I leave it hanging open, and I don’t get a dumpster out back, just a garbage can right by my door, but it’s MINE! Seedy Ally Brigman is going places, baby!”
@Victor Von: Just another day on Salsipuedes Street.
RexMo – It’s sweet that they’ve died their hair “Jumpsuit Orange” in solidarity with Uncle Jimmy.
PLUGGERS: Susan Reed: “Wait, ‘Pluggers‘? I mean to send these submissions into Smugglers! Whoops!”
The Phantom: “the drone was brought down” “Err, that is a feature, not a flaw, I meant to do that.”
Dick Tracy: So Sam and Ann are backing up an actual gamer agent? How will Dick and his gun can get into the plot?
Judge Parker: “So the pitch is sort of criminal equalizer who wonders the earth getting into adventures but as a woman”
Rex Morgan: Applause! Bravo! Rene / Jimmy appears! How small is this state? Jimmy’s penitentiary is within easy driving distance of Jordan’s restaurant.
Pluggers… have lots of shoes? I don’t even know anymore.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Let’s get away from that old lecher”
“Not yet…”
“I want to see if his buddy drowns!”
@Pozzo: I think she might be an otter? She kind of looks like one. (I’m not saying that because of my username)
I don’t remember Rene getting hit by a car, but I DO remember him about to get whacked by the Mafia but didn’t for some reason… Rene can never die.
Prices at Tommy’s first dealer, Vegas, got too high (not unlike Tommy), so he’s moved down to Reno. At this rate, he’ll be hitting rock bottom and seeing old Battle Mountain in stall three of the men’s room at the bus station (nominated as the Armpit of America by the Washington Post in 2001! (the armpit being Battle Mountain, Nevada, that is, not stall three of the men’s room at the bus station (which was declared the taint of Santa Royale, California by Wilbur Weston (although people still aren’t quite sure if he meant it as an insult (Wilbur’s not sure either)))) by the end of the month.
When going to a Plugger nudist colony, pack a lot of drugs because you’re gonna see a lot of naked Pluggers.
@treetown: How small is this state? Jimmy’s penitentiary is within easy driving distance of Jordan’s restaurant.
Glenwood had some financial difficulties early on, and agreed to both the Maximum Security Prison and the Toxic Waste Conversion Plant, siting them both downtown adjacent to the Coal Power Plant.
(SimCity reference for those who don’t want to bother with google.)
@Voshkod: You do know that some of us are compelled to count the parentheses when you do that?
High & Lower: Chip should have told her he was doing well in the bush leagues.
Sick Chicks – I first read that sign as Six Nine and almost liked today’s strip. Then I read it correctly. Crisis averted.
@Ken: Yeah, I won’t mention how many times I double-checked the open v. closed parens.
MW: What the hell is going on with the walls in panel two? It’s like Tommy wandered into the bad side of the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
RMMD: It would be interesting if the twins really were scamming people to pay for Unca Jimmy’s medical bills, giving them a level of ethical ambiguity and raising the issue of prohibitively high medical costs leaving people in dire financial straits. Alas, this is written by Terry Beatty, a man who saw Les Miserables and assumed Javert was the protagonist, so the twins are cacklingly evil grifters who eat well on their ill-gotten gains and anyone who can’t pay Rex Morgan’s bills deserves to be a cripple.
@The Quiet Man: It’s one of those white collar prisons for white people.
Mr. Jimmy and the kids are a little busy right now, so if you have any more questions, talk to Gislaine Maxwell. She’s getting a massage in the spa next door.
MW: “Reno!”
“Vegas!”
“Carson City!”
“Henderson!”
“Sparks!”
“You win. Let’s try Utah next. Provo!”
GT: As the old proverb says, find someone who hates you the way Rachel Merrill hates Mimi.
@Little Blue Bicycle: Needs more Pahrump.
@Ken:
That sort of free for all zoning actually makes sense for the RMMDuniverse!
DT: “Just don’t ask about her relationship with her partner, we do not have time for that.”
C’shaft: It’s like the joke about the guy who cleans up after the elephants, if it were pointless and unfunny.
Dustin: Leave it to Parker and Kelly to look at a product primarily designed for people with mobility issues–including a not-insignificant portion of their own demographic–and think, “Those lazy good-for-nothing kids today, they won’t even bend over to tie their own sneakers!”
GT: So Emily wins Coach of the Year but nobody attends the ceremony because they’re all at White Male Protagonist Gil Thorp’s wedding, because Emily deserves to suffer for some reason.
Luann: Good to know Bernice has found her own people (ie. the most boring yet somehow insufferably smug people on the planet).
MT: Okay, I understand this is a rushed affair but we need to get on the same page here, people! Happy’s outfit says “formal black tie event” and Gail’s says “drive-through Vegas wedding.”
Dustin “Well, I suppose I could increase my activity level by putting one of them up your sarcastic ass”.
LUANN: Hey speaking of scams, my new faux job is comic book psychic (“The Boomer Whisperer” they’ll call me….)
@treetown: On JP – ‘Hmm, we need more of a group dynamic. Can you include a muscular black man who wears lots of gold chains, another guy who acts like Cosmo Kramer most of the time, making crazy sound effects and so forth, and have them drive around in a cool-looking van? Oh, and we need a talking dog, or at least one we can hear the thoughts of!’
Pluggers – It does look like she’s putting her medicine cabinet in her carry on as recommended. However, there isn’t much room in it for anything else, such as a change of underwear and another outfit. If the airline loses her checked bag, she’ll be wearing the same underwear indefinitely. Enjoy that image.
Rex Morgan – Thank goodness Rene has nieces instead of nephews. Today they’d have names like Aiden and Jayden. However, since Terry Beatty is writing this, they’d be named Billy and Bobby or Henry and Horace.
Mary Worth – I love the cracked walls and Reno looking so seedy with his cigarette. Mary might not want to meddle Tommy if she finds out he’s hanging around with poors.
6Chix – Obsessing about shoe size is Cathy Guisewite levels of self absorbed vapidity.
Edge City (GoComics) – Time to take a break from this one until the unpleasant HORKing is resolved.
9CL – Get help, Brooke. When you see the therapist, wear underwear.
RMMD- Jean and Jane…so how do you tell them apart?
MW: This is the first time I’ve ever seen “schlub pressure” work.
MW- “Reno? Hey.. have you seen Custer anywhere?”
@Ken: All police resources in the area will be concentrated on investigating the twins who are fake playing music while they beg for money. Meanwhile, the guard will miss the plans at the next table to blow up the nuclear power plant to create a distraction while they rob the bank.
@The Rambling Otter: I’m looking at her, and I can’t figure out what type of animal she is. She doesn’t look quite like a bear or a dog. As far as I know, none of the Pluggers characters are otters, but maybe there should be one. A fun loving otter could be like Sheila Roo, an anti-plugger.
“And how are Anje and Neja, my second favorite twin nieces? Are Enja and Ejna, the Icelandic cousins, doing well? I hope Eajn and N’jea are still scamming. So proud of my family, so confused as to why we only use the same four letters to name you all.”
FG: Pick one:
”Hey, Fria! There’s a big marinara stain on the crotch of your white pants. Meatball heroes for lunch, huh?”
”Hey, Fria! That white trench coat really makes your ass look big.”
Seized with embarrassment and self-doubt, Fria freezes just long enough for Flash to lop her head right off her shoulders. Flash learned all his tricks for swordfighting co-eds at the Vassar and Wellesley intercollegiate fencing matches.
Must’ve been a shortage of colors over on DtM.
LH: You really do have to be careful about restaurants and prices. Years ago, I went to Ihop with my brother and some friends. My brother ordered something and specifically requested they leave out the syrup (or something). Later (after we’d all paid and left), I looked over the receipt, and they charged him extra. He literally paid more $$$ for less food.
JP: Look, we all know it’s a dumb idea for a show, but as long as Neddy pitches it to Netflix, she’ll almost certainly get the green light.
@Ukulele Ike:
In the long ago origin, Flash was a Yale Bulldog so it does fit!
Rex Morgan: Okay, let’s really be honest here; has Rene actually HURT anybody with even a single one of his zany schemes so far? Like, has he caused any measurable harm with his scams whatsoever, even when he was ostensibly trying to purposefully do so? Even when he took Mud and Truck hostage (incredibly generous way to describe that event), all he ended up doing was just sitting around with them in a motel room bickering about room service. The one time we saw him attempt to physically attack somebody, he didn’t just fail to even connect, he nearly killed HIMSELF by toppling overboard.
My point is, why the fuck is this guy in prison? In what world would anybody care enough about him and his impotent, harmless “cons” to prosecute him to such an extent that he serves actual time in prison? This is like sentencing a spraypainter to permanent solitary confinement. Beatty, I know you have whatever weird twig up your ass about scam artists that you do, but the least you could do is make the scammers into something actually dangerous instead of the criminal equivalent of a blind, limbless, concussed kitten. That would at least make your sense of “justice” seem a little fair, instead of like you and your protagonists are raging bully assholes.
@Anonymous: Which leads to another great punchline:
Damn Tonto. He never could spell posse.
MW – “Hey Reno! Screw the meth, got any ricin? I’ve got an asshole who needs taking care of!”
Mary Worth: “Reno! I saw Vin awhile back and he looks just like you, your cloning operation is really taking off! Congrats, man, this is gonna revolutionize society! Anyways, got any acid?”
Also Mary Worth: Part of this comic’s hysterical (in multiple senses of the word) depictions of anything Moy deems “unnatural” and opposed to her extreme puritanical conformity is that anytime anything even slightly bad (or really, just slightly different from her deluded idea of the norm; lest I remind you all once again of the “OH GOD THIS GUY HAS A POSTER OF A WOMAN IN A BIKINI IN HIS HOUSE, CALL THE POLICE, THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!” incident) shows up, everything around Charterstone randomly transforms from a hyper-sterile gated community where crime is basically unheard of to an ulta-seedy ghetto of a ghetto where everything is falling apart and criminal vices lurk around every corner. It creates the hilarious image of Charterstone being some kind of bastion of moral order in a collapsing world, which is almost certainly how Moy herself sees it.
I’ve long had a theory that Pluggers are creatures from The Island of Dr. Moreau. I’m waiting with great anticipation for an appearance from Marlon Brando.
@Treetown: Yeah, it’s Flash Gordon canon. But did you know Bruce Wayne earned his law degree at Yale?
@Anonymous: Young Charles Laughton or go home! But I’d take Burt Lancaster as sloppy seconds.
@Anonymous: That’s the neat part, you don’t!
@TheDiva: The characters in Dustin could see a man missing multiple limbs rolling down the street in a wheelchair and they’d act all self-righteous about it. “What, you have to use a fucking wheelchair? Pussy. People in MY day just crawled across the ground like worms and they liked it, unlike you candy-ass kids these days…”
@Little Blue Bicycle: The strip’s raging hatred of Mimi ever since she left Gil is so bizarre. Like, why have her do that if you’d hate her for it so much? Also kinda obliterates this strip’s regular attempts to seem woke and progressive; it’ll pretend to be tolerant right up until you get too “uppity” for it’s tastes or just have things better than the white, cis, hetero lead, at which point it’ll dedicate itself to punishing you as constantly and cruelly as it can get away with.
@Ukulele Ike: I really like how the trial by combat was declared on Monday, and we’re already getting an action scene the very same week. Why waste time when there’s so much story to tell?
If you’re throwing whole bottles of pills into ziplocks in your luggage, instead of counting them out into Plugger Certified pill dispensers for your trip, you might need your plugger card revoked.
I’ve got some constructive critique for whoever is responsible for Santa Royale’s downtown area. Have you considered just…not plastering over all that brick? The exposed brick looks perfectly nice, and you clearly don’t have enough plaster to cover it all. You might even be able to use some of the plaster budget to pay for a modern garbage service.
“Alright, that’s the last bag of pills. I’ll drop off my luggage at the hotel before meeting with Reno. Vegas, here I come!”
-Lady Plugger, probably
FC: HTT Grandma is thinking, “Hmph, your harlot mommy was lucky she got away with wearing white on her wedding day.”
RMMD: Your favorite twin nieces? How many identical twin nieces do you have?
RMMD: Tell your your Uncle Jimmy of your scams louder, girls. The guard wears hearing aids.
@Dr. Larry Erhardt: Unlike many (most? all?) serial strips, Flash Gordon doesn’t believe in down time.
@Everything Is Better With Monkeys: It’s BEEN a Chick Tract in all but name for years. I’m not even kidding, the overlap between Mary Worth and Chick Tracts is pretty staggering, they’re at the very least in the same broad genre. Similar art styles, similar sense of morality, similar themes, similar use of clumsily cherry-picked quotes, etc.. The main difference between them is that Jack Chick was honest about his bigotry, fundamentalism, and conformism. He didn’t dress his horseshit up in superficial niceties and plausible deniability, he said all the quiet parts out-loud. MW will reach CT level the day it works up the nerve to have Wilbur talk about how much he hates religious minorities.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: Maybe the Scam Sisters here aren’t twins at all but more Venture clones. After all: “You have a clumsy child, you make them wear a helmet. You have death-prone kids, you keep a few clones”.
Man, I love Venture Bros. Literally one of the funniest shows ever made and strong contender for Adult Swim’s magnum opus.
@ectojazzmage: #84: Hey, the limbless guy in Todd Browning’s “Freaks” was able to roll and light up a cigarette using just his lips.
Damnit, Tommy. Dawn is going to need drugs herself to live with Wilbur being right about you!
@I speak Jive: blow up the nuclear power plant to create a distraction while they rob the bank
Didn’t that just happen on Dick Tracy?
Non-Pluggers: two ways to his morning proved we’re still growing and learning things (as opposed to Walt, GA)
– Philosophical Razors: 25 fun ways to legitimately cut the BS out of faulty logic
– uh, uhm, I’ll get back to you on the second way.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: 78- Another one was “Jesus Christ!. .Look at all those fucking Indians!”
RMMD- Jean and Jane huh? That’s too bad. I was hoping for Patty and Cathy. Identical cousins.
CS: So Dinkle’s daddy issues have daddy issues. Congratulations, Tom Batiuk, we’re now talking about characters that are at least two generations older than the already-ancient newspaper-reading cohort.
FG: we were told they’re 5K feet in the sky. This means one of them must fall off by Act III.
PHANTOM: So what about the other three drones, can’t they free the prisoner?
@Guillermo el chiclero: I think it’s meant to be read My favorite twin “nieces”! If it weren’t for the crutches, Jimmy-Rene would be making air quotes.
@James: Not many people know this, but back when Olive and Popeye had a dog, one of their illegitimate children — excuse me, “nephews” — misunderstood Poopdeck Pappy talking about getting “shitfaced.” It’s best not to talk about the consequences; suffice it to say the kid narrowly missed being named “Pinkeye.”
Mary Worth: I agree with my compatriots that this squalid urban neighborhood of Santa Royale doesn’t exist, and wouldn’t have for years. Skyrocketing real-estate values in this small beach city mean that even if that falling-down pawn shop was once there, the entire block would by now have been redeveloped into a residential-retail complex featuring a high-end coffee chain, an assortment of upscale restaurants serving international cuisines, and — cross your fingers! — a new Erewhon location by the end of the year. Unfortunately for Tommy, a Hailey Bieber Strawberry Glaze Skin Smoothie will cost more than a hit of his favorite drugs, so he’s out of luck either way.
Rex Morgan, M.D. – Rene/Jimmy looks like Walter White/Heisenberg.
Mary Worth – Is Reno the twin of Vin? I’m going to struggle keeping everyone straight here.
Pluggers – Those aren’t palm leaves on her Hawaiian shirt. Those are the fun fractal images that bloom when the meds really hit. Classic Pluggers summer fun!
@James: On a side note, what kind of sadistic parent names a kid Poopeye?
Sounds like a childhood nickname for the anus. “Damn, I need a long hot shower. Got me a serious case of swamp poopeye.”
@Activist: Come on, Schkrade can’t kill Fria. That would be like offing Price Kittykat of the Lion Bros, or Hotsy-Totsy Witch Queen.
RMMD: I admire how well these twins work in sync. Even during conversations, they divvy up the labor fairly and efficiently. One dispenses rote pleasantries. The other makes neutral observations. And they knew this going on!
MW: That’s all it took, Tommy? A few bad words from Wilbur and you relapse? Oh, man, your sobriety must have been hanging by a thread. Frankly, you don’t even deserve any drugs.
Pluggers: Oh, man, Branson won’t know what hit it! This lady is going to enjoy herself!
@Austria: “And I’m Reno Vegas, a mobster from Reno, Las Vegas.”
GIL THORP: “Congratulations, Coach Clover, you got your double chins back!”
GIL THORP (2): I know I really should pursue this take since I don’t read this strip that regularly, but…has Mimi actually done anything to deserve this prestigious award? All I’ve seen her do is bitch about her personal life. (Actually know that I think about it, that seems to be all the coaches in this strip do now. Meanwhile the poor kids are stuck being in 200 “Very Special Episodes of Degrassi” at once)
Luann: Where the hell did the Evanses come up with the idea that being an introvert means they do nothing?!?
MW: Credit where it’s due: there are worse stereotypes they could have used for a drug dealer. Maybe not as anachronistic (except, perhaps, Victorian opium peddlers), but still…
@Guillermo el chiclero: That’s also a bunch of bollocks, because In his last appearance, Lyle Ollman takes about reconnecting “Jimmy” back to the family, and he couldn’t look forward to anything less indicating a long-time estrangement. The implication is that Rene hasn’t talked to any of these people in years (by his own request). So what’s this “favorite” shit?
@taig: I know, right? And since when is Bernice any type of introvert, anyway? She always seems pretty extroverted when she’s being a bitch to people.
Crank: Huh? Because … working in a circus is … also show business, so … he … um … thought he might reunite with his mother because they’d be moving in the same circles? As a big band leader and the partner of a snake charmer? Maybe?
Don’t get me wrong, I actually find this strip less annoying when I’ve no idea what it’s on about.
DT: Sigh. The ongoing exercise to cross Dick Tracy over with every media property ever continues. At least this time it’s not the main plot.
JP: “Also, they usually have actual skills from being a criminal. Our lead was really bad at being a criminal and her only skill is hitting people over the head because she thinks they looks a bit sus and then threatening them! And she’s not even very good at that! When she tries it, the people she threatens end up stealing her car!”
MW: “As Tommy looks for a dealer…” Seriously, Moy? That is so obviously the follow-up to yesterday’s strip that it doesn’t need any further justification? Welp, guess that’s another strip going on the “Hard nope” list alongside Rex “Anyone who claims to need money for medicine but hasn’t learned the violin is a filthy liar” Morgan. Gosh, my comics list is getting so streamlined! (Will Crankshaft join them before the week is out? It’s entirely possible!)
Pluggers: So, here’s something that just occurred to me. How “classic” are these classics? Because that’s McKee’s signature, but he’s only been doing the strip for six years, and I don’t remember seeing any of these before. (I would like to believe that’s because I don’t waste precious memory space on years’ worth of Pluggers, all stored there waiting for a moment of pattern recognition. Unfortunately, that is exactly how my brain works.)
@taig: Was opium even considered illegal back in Victorian times?
I had learned that hatmakers back then lined their hats with Opium, the fumes drew them kind of crazy. Which some speculate that may be what The Mad Hatter from Alice was inspired from.
@The Rambling Otter: Opium used to be everywhere, and the history of criminalizing it has a lot of racism attached. It was mercury in hats that made hatters mad, though.
@Bob Tice: No mention of the remarkable resemblance Uncle Jimmy has to Walter White AKA “Heisenberg” of Breaking Bad? Ok I’ll mention it.
@The Rambling Otter: As with so many things in Victorian Britain, there was massive class and race based hypocrisy on the subject. During the Great Binge (1870 to 1914) basically everything was legal from opium to Sherlock Holmes’s famous 12% solution of cocaine, but the better class of people went to the pharmacist and got their opium for strictly medical purposes, honest. For someone to go to an opium den to get high betrayed them as being as weak of character as the heathen Chinese, who had so carelessly got hooked on the stuff just because we deliberately hooked them on the stuff as a trade tactic, and who we had now somehow decided were specifically responsible for the existence of opium.
@ectojazzmage: To be fair, some of Rene’s schemes are actually criminal and would be both devastating and dangerous if pulled off by someone competent. Fortunately for our “heroes”, Beatty is severely adverse to “conflict”, and so villains like Rene have to be turned into Team Rocket to make sure their schemes are quickly snuffed out to be rendered harmless so we can get back to what’s really important (discussing our favorite roots country songs!) Remember the downtown explosion that rocked a downtown parking lot? And how June quickly changed the channel on that worrying report because she didn’t want to know about such “unpleasantness”? That epitomizes Rex Morgan M.D. in a nutshell. They simply don’t do “unpleasantness” around these parts!
(It also doesn’t help that Beatty clearly thinks people do criminal acts simple because they’re “bad” and not because of any other underling circumstances made most manifest in the time a crazy-ass “stupor hero” wanted to dissect a criminals brain because he though he could remove some “bad guy gene” or something. If someone stole a loaf of Bread, in Beatty’s mind it’s simply because they like beings dicks and not because, say their going through a financial struggle for essential items they need. Or if, say a low-rent musician manipulated circumstances to star in a show from his frenemy was supposed to headline. This wouldn’t be a sign of piss-poor management’s failure to get his client gigs that would bolster his career and the signer’s frustration with that He would do it just for mean-spirited kicks. Again, the key for Beatty to maintain the bland sterile atmosphere that makes Rex Moran M.D. the low-watt, dimmed-out light of the world that it is to mitigate both the damage and the motivation for any pesky “conflict” that might infect this comics.)
@Horace Broon: Sherlock Holmes’s famous 12% solution of cocaine
Or indeed his more famous 7% solution…
@taig: I expected P.R. shoes and a big straw hat, like in “I’m Waiting for the Man.” Also, he’s never early, like this dude.
MW- Tommy, Reno who you are, and Reno what you’re up to.
Tommy… how dare you prove Wilbur right? He overhears one slightly negative thing about himself and immediately searches for a drug dealer??? Why, Tommy, why?
Keep in mind, the man who said Tommy will always be an addict is Wilbur… the guy who let a literal psycho woman he met in Cancun stay with him while she tried to kill his daughter. THAT man is not a good judge of character. Please stay clean, Tommy. If anything, to spite Wilbur.
#113. Horace, we’re all friends here. We’ve known you a long time and care about you. We think you need to reevaluate the path you’re on. Cancelling RMMD, MW, perhaps CS all in one week just because the writing is silly, the artwork puzzling, and the arcs unbelievable is a cry for help.
Before long, you will be featured in PLUGGERS, and Horace, that shame would cover you like an orange tan. Take a step back, breathe slowly. You can make it through this.
@Guillermo el chiclero: I wonder how hard it was to find a white wedding maternity gown.
@Ken: Really? I don’t follow Dick Tracy or the comments about it, so I must have absorbed it subconsciously.
@Anonymous: They laugh alike, they walk alike, at times they even talk alike. You can lose your mind – when cousins are two of a kind.
William Schallert is one of those actors who have been in everything, but to me he’s Patty Duke’s father.
@Horace Broon: It’s surprising that Crankshaft isn’t on your list already. I can’t stop reading it because it’s one of my top hate reads.
@Horace Broon: Watson got 3% while Irene Adler made off with the remaining 2%.
@Rube: Oh, yeah, I forgot that “disdains every other human being” is also an introvert trait, at least according to Luann. {rolls eyes}
@Dr. Larry Erhardt: I’m glad that wasn’t in Brigman’s reference folder.
@ectojazzmage: Man, I love Venture Bros. Literally one of the funniest shows ever made and strong contender for Adult Swim’s magnum opus.
Seconded! And I sure wish Netflix would pony up the dough for seasons 4 through 7. . .
@The Rambling Otter: I remember it being illegal, and others have filled in the circumstances for its illegality. I guess it wasn’t so illegal if one did it the “right way.”
@2+2=7: Possibly Jimmy doesn’t want to associate with his blood relations, but is OK with the people he considers family. You know, like Fagin’s many nieces and nephews; what they call la famiglia.
@Horace Broon: the better class of [British] people went to the pharmacist and got their opium for strictly medical purposes
In much the say way as, according to Agatha Christie, they would later go to the chemist and get cyanide for killing wasps.
By the way, you might like John Shen Yen Nee and S.J. Rozan’s “Judge Dee Ren Jie” novels. They’re set in 1920s Britain and the main characters are Chinese; much is said about racism, sterotypes, and class distinctions.
Is that Plugger wearing a hat or did a UFO land on her head?
The Familiar Mucus: “No,I don’t,Jeffy, the wedding kink isnt that popular among the Johns, anymore”
Pluggers:
“Classic Pluggers summer fun!” proclaims this panel, and I don’t know if that means this panel is a rerun or what, but either way, I propose an alternative caption: “You’re a Plugger if you take no pride in your craft as a cordwainer and need to take vast quantities of illicitly-acquired prescription stimulants to get through your miserable workday.”
Tommy reminds me of Ralph in Wreck-It Ralph 2. The sequel completely forgot what his personality was. Ralph in the original was pretty stoic about his isolation; he just wanted to be liked. Ralph in the sequel was a blubbering wuss. The whole sequel also completely forgot what makes a video game character a bad guy.
Tommy’s made some genuine steps in his recovery and shouldn’t be derailed this easily, especially not by such a weak person as Wilbur.
What A Frazzhole!: Caulfield wants to take a dump on Mrs Olson’s roses.
@Activist: Oh, I can handle silly, puzzling and unbelievable — I appear to be sticking with the Francesco Marcluliano strips, for instance, which have all three in abundance. What I have trouble with are strips I find so fundamentally unpleasant that I don’t even enjoy snarking about them, and I suspect making the attempt anyway comes across as more waspish than witty. (I previously dropped Gil Thorp and Mark Trail for similar reasons. It’s also why I never picked up Luann and 9CL in the first place.)
(It’s possible the strips aren’t actually getting worse and my tolerance for it is just dropping — I also recently quit Kevin & Kell when I suddenly decided “No, this sapient-eats-sapient stuff is weird and it freaks me out!”)
@taig: LUANN: Oh, yeah, I forgot that “disdains every other human being” is also an introvert trait, at least according to Luann.
Hey, not every other human being; only those in her age/peer group. Have you forgotten how much of a shameless toady Bernice is to anyone she perceives as an authority figure?
@Horace Broon: The 12% solution was for weekends and holidays.
Most Victorians called for their opium supply at the local chemist’s shop, but the savvy consumer went for the laudanum. Opium in an alcohol solution, like our pre-mixed canned cocktails of today. Skoal!
@Ukulele Ike:The “inspiration” of choice for Samuel Taylor Coleridge, IIRC.
Blondie The Neighborhood Bumstead : Dag shares Blondie’s goodies with the carpool.
@Ukulele Ike: The Victorians also used laudanum drops to sooth crying babies. (“Sooth” in the sense of “dope into insensibility”.)
@Horace Broon: If a person from Porlock stops by on a business call, hide in the lav and take another dose.
@Bryan: True, but that’s only because she might stand to gain something from them. I’m sure she loathes them, too, but manages to keep up the facade in their presence.
@Everything Is Better With Monkeys: I KNEW IT LOOKED FAMILIAR!!
MW: Unironic congratulations to June Brigman on drawing squalor, but that pawn shop really needs to do some renovations. There are still standards.
RMMD: Not only do the Ginger Twins have almost the same name, but they both hold their forearms simultaneously, indicating a concurrent heroin jones. It’s all more than a little creepy, but not so creepy that the guard isn’t daydreaming about a threesome with them.
BB: Zero’s guileless and innocent nature has gained the trust of Bigfoot, or at least a guy who used to play Sweetums at Walt Disney World’s Muppet Experience.
C-Shaft: Harry Dinkle’s abused grandma ran off with a circus snake charmer? No, I’m sorry, Harry. Tom Waits could get away with that little fillip. You most definitely cannot.
DT: Get it through your skull, Fritz Anne. Sam doesn’t like you that way, and he’s definitely not going to register on this game to play “Muldor.”
GT: If there are any Gil Thorp superfans out there who know what Emily is supposed to have earned, feel free to keep it to yourselves.
Luann: Yes, Frank, phones were once used to make phone calls. But since you can see the number of the person calling you, Bernice is not the one to bring that practice back.
MT: This is terrible. The gorilla that passed out was supposed to be a designated driver.
@Ukulele Ike: Advice from The Overdose of Kubla Khan.
@I speak Jive: #124: Maybe I’m a little older but I also remember Schallert as Dobie Gillis high school English teacher. He also got to guest on one of the most famous Star Trek episodes, “The Trouble with Tribbles”, which probably guaranteed him a lifetime of paying gigs making personal appearances at Trekkie conventions. While Ross Martin was recovering from heart surgery he filled in as Robert Conrad’s sidekick on a two part “Wild, Wild, West” episode. He was also president of the Screen Actors Guild in the early 80s.
@ectojazzmage: During COVID, Rene ran a scam which involved tricking people who hadn’t yet received their stimulus checks into giving him their banking information. Of course, whether or not this ever worked on anyone is debatable, given that we were only shown one of Rene’s attempts and the would-be patsy that he’d called promptly hung up.
@Guillermo el chiclero: “The Trouble with Tribbles” also featured (as the space station director) master character actor Whit Bissell, who was in Creature from the Black Lagoon, played the mad scientists in both I Was a Teenage Werewolf and I was a Teenage Frankenstein but was possibly most famous for being the military liaison dude — the only guy in uniform — in The Time Tunnel.
I realized this the other day when I discovered how much fun it is to say “Whit Bissell.”
Whit Bissell Whit Bissell Whit Bissell Whit Whit Bissell.
@Horace Broon: The strips I comment on, Luann, Crankshaft, Mary Worth, and Pluggers, are so fundamentally unpleasant that I feel I have to snark on them. I can’t let their affronts to basic human decency go un-snarked upon. Even if it’s just to say “jeez, would somebody please point out that all these people are insufferable? Who the hell is enjoying this, or finds it funny, or relates to any of these people?”
You can make an unpleasant character your protagonist (such as Dr. House), but these comic strips have no clue how to do that. These comic strips are what happens if you let Karens write their own press releases. Like Bernice this week.
Or Dinkle. “Boo hoo hoo, I’m such a victim because my daddy who died 70 years ago didn’t hug me enough, or be as famous as he wanted. And his daddy didn’t hug him enough either (per today’s strip).” Nobody has anything to say about the thousands of schoolchildren Dinkle chewed up and spit out to feed his own ego. And the senior citizens he’s chewing up and spitting out now to keep feeding that ego. They’re all just following him around on this month-long pity party, not saying a word.
And the story never acknowledges the juxtaposition. Dinkle will never, ever, ever wonder if his abusive father made him abusive. Or if he’s wasted his entire life trying to please a long-dead man he hates anyway. Or anything that might make an actual story. He’s certainly not going to change any of his ways, or question his own life choices. Because Tom Batiuk needs Dinkle for comedy! Soon we’ll be back to “Ho, ho! That wacky Dinkle made all the senior citizens practice until 1:00 a.m. again!”
Most of the comics page, minus the true classics, seems to be a mishmash of sociopathy and neurodivergence.
@Rube: Mercury, right! I confused the two, thank you ^^
Wilbur has done a LOT of terrible things.
But triggering someone’s drug relapse, is high up there (whether unintentionally or otherwise)
@I speak Jive: 124 Patty liked to rock and roll.. a hotdog made her lose control.. kinda like Luann, I guess. Cathy was more like Bernice!
@Ukulele Ike: Saying Whit Bissell three times ends up summoning him? What pleasant conversations you guys would have ^^
@Buck Ripsnort: I almost forgot about the dog.
Someone once brought in Popeye memorabilia to Antiques Roadshow, one of which featured the dog.
I was thinking “He had a dog?”
I really don’t know enough of the lore and I should be ashamed, despite the new Popeye writer certainly brought the dog back at some point, with the comic trying to as “nostalgia-porn” as possible.
@The Rambling Otter: Very true. But Tommy relapsed so fast I can already hear Mary telling Wilbur “it wasn’t your fault.”
@The Rambling Otter, @Banana Jr. 6000: I’m still hoping that Tommy doesn’t relapse, and he’s in Crime Alley because he’s going to get the dealer arrested, or something like that.
Though I am aware that some tellings of the Pandora story cast Hope as the worst thing to come out of the jar, because it so often leads to disappointment and despair.
RMMD — I’m going to call my shot — Jane and Jean aren’t actually related to Rene.
Luann-Bernice is going to disappoint a lot of people with the picture of the bush she trimmed.
@Ken: If Tommy is made to relapse, I’ll probably drop MW.
RMMD- ” So Uncle Jimmy .. do you still have that old appendix in your freezer? We’ve got a great idea for a new angle…”
@The Rambling Otter: I’m sure if/when he finds out he’ll
feel awful about itjustify himself as being right all along.@taig: I think that actually makes Bernice’s toadying even worse, since there’s not even any sincere respect beneath it. She’s just an awful, awful person, and yet seems to be Karen Evans’s favorite character considering how hard she pushes the character onto us. Karen is just as deluded about Bernice as Mary Worth is about Wilbur and his “endearing quirks.”
You know, when criminals emphasize the word “accident” while talking to someone, it usually implies some kind of threat. Thank goodness (?) we have Rex Morgan, M.D. to show us it can also be entirely, painfully mundane instead.
@ectojazzmage: Go Team Venture!
RIP Bonnie Tyler.
@But What Do I Know?:
It had brilliant PARTS. It had a lotta slogs, though, too, be honest. The like, 3 years between seasons was aggravating. And the movie to wrap it all up was unforgivable sucky. Venture Bros. kinda made me sad, long-term.
Space Ghost Coast to Coast STILL holds up. First and maybe best?
“Wilbur doesn’t believe in me?!” has to be the absolute most pathetic reason to relapse into drug addiction ever. Tommy is obviously LOOKING for reasons to relapse.
@Ken:
Ah yes… the famed Pandora’s Jar.
@Anonymous: It’s tribute, trust me!
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: Oh , darn it! It was supposed to be a YouTube link to the “literal version” of Total Eclipse of the Heart.
@Box?: In fact yes–Pandora’s Container O’ Bad Stuff was originally a pithos, a large ceramic jar used for storage, kind of the ancient Greek equivalent of a barrel or 50-gallon drum. (Diogenes “Behold, a man!” of Sinope apparently made his home in one while in Athens.) The “box” thing comes from a 16th-century mistranslation into the Latin pyxis, a small round box for jewelry or cosmetics.
And let’s not get started on the Forbidden Fruit =/= Apple thing…
@TheDiva: MT: I was thinking Happy’s wedding outfit was inspired by Mr. Peanut.
@Anonymous: Retract that insult, you berk, or I shall apply this Battenberg Cake to the top of your head.
@Pozzo: Andy Bear in drag? That plus the drugs equals a REALLY fun vacation!
@Peanut Gallery: “Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff”
@Navigator: Since these are exterior walls, I’d say it’s more likely stucco than brick. They probably didn’t prepare the surface correctly before applying the stucco, resulting in poor adhesion. It also could be lack of proper maintenance that’s causing the stucco to crumble and fall off. Unfortunately, city ordinances require all contractors to follow these substandard procedures in certain zones, so that all local residents can immediately identify the “bad part of town” and stay out of it except when they want to buy street drugs.
@Al of the Christian Singles Jungle Patrol: I always wondered if Major Kong was thinking of giving out the lipsticks and the stockings as presents, or using them himself!
@Cathy Lane: Good move! The Battenberg Cake is one of the more grotesque of British pastries, and using it for a slapstick routine would be far better than eating it or, god forbid, serving it to guests.
Dirk Twacy Hollistic Defective: I want to believe……we are gonna Fearless Fosdick someone!
@Peanut Gallery: Erm, I meant “more likely stucco than plaster.”
@Peanut Gallery: @Pozzo: Andy Bear in drag? That plus the drugs equals a REALLY fun vacation!
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Pluggers turned into a John Waters film so fast I hadn’t noticed!
@Ukulele Ike: Let’s not forget the Bilderberg Cake: A secretive cabal of the world’s political, financial, and intellectual elites, covered in marzipan.
@The Rambling Otter: I was thinking “He had a dog?”
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Eugene the Jeep?