Best wishes (not to anyone in Marvin)
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Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/7/26
Hey, I have been behind on reporting on this news, but, just as both Rex and little Johnny are recovering from surgery in-strip, Rex Morgan, M.D., writer/artist Terry Beatty has been recovering from heart surgery in real life! His wife has been posting updates on his Facebook page and he seems to be on the road to recovery, but let’s keep him in our thoughts. I assume that, given long lead times, these real and fictional surgeries were not intended to coincide, just like the “Truck has to self-quarantine because he’s come down with a serious respiratory illness” storyline from the spring of 2020 was not intended to be about COVID. Does Beatty have an extremely non-fun version of the Gift of Prophecy?
Meanwhile, speaking of predictions, I’m glad to see I was sort of right when I said June would get Buck to come pick up Rex at the hospital. It’s just that he was busy! Oh, wait, I guess technically she doesn’t say he was busy, just that he was “unavailable.” Can you imagine giving Buck the opportunity to spend time with you and he brushes you off? I would be rethinking some things about my life, I tell you what.
Shoe, 2/7/26
Granted, everyone in Shoe looks extremely depressed, all the time, but that is not someone who is belting out this song in the exuberant manner of the original Bob Seger System recording. That’s a guy who’s basically whispering it to himself, perhaps in a minor key. He doesn’t need the Perfesser cracking wise at him about how bad the food is at this restaurant. He needs some time alone with himself, to ramble and gamble about in his own inner life.
Marvin, 2/7/26
This is probably a joke about how Bitsy has been neutered, but I prefer to think that he’s at long last admitting to himself that, like most characters in this strip, he’s fundamentally unlovable.
60 replies to “Best wishes (not to anyone in Marvin)”
JP: This prison can’t be that bad if it includes a bocci ball court.
RMMD-“Doctor said I only died once on the operating table.”
RMMD:
“Hey, kids!”
“Cyclops!”
Meanwhile, Shoe rambles and gambles with perspective! Or did the Perfesser change stools to escape from the upper part of the tree, which apparently is about to devour the other guy?
RMMD:
“Hey, wait a minute! You’re not dad! — you’re Basil St. John from the Brenda Starr comic strip!”
From the way the Perfesser moved away from that bird, I don’t think he’s saying the meatloaf tastes bad. I think he’s saying Roz has started putting bombs in it. With that clientele, I know I would!
MW: “I totally would have left Ian if he demanded I get rid of the parrot but, really, if you think about it, it was good for him that I forced him to tolerate it. It really helped him grow as a person, the way I refused to compromise even a little about the subject. He’s a much better man now for the way he is more obedient to me.”
Shoe: Is this how Tinder works? You sing into a tablet to attract a date? Never mind. I probably already know enough to write a legacy strip about it and I have no idea.
What’s worse, Buck gaffing you off, or that apparently the only people you can call are Buck, Tildy, and Summer. I…have to go hug some friends, now.
Marvin: I mean in comparison to Bitsy, everyone loves Garfield as an icon, and he’s a dog punting, kitten hating asshole.
MW I am now firmly convinced that Moy is either suffering from amnesia about her own plot-writing, or has tossed “learning to live with pets is good” at ChatGPT this week, after tossing it “birds are good” for last week’s dailies.
S4th Do it, Ralph, dooo iiitttt … follow the impulse and save your sanity from dealing with the brother-in-law….
FC That’s actually a good question, Dolly, and you could connect it to how *do* large birds and crocodilians handle their eggs to not crush them – so we’ll have to stop that right there with a shrug about strong eggshells or something
Shoe:
“Now, the pork chop is really good. So is the salmon.
“Then there’s the Meatloaf — apropos of which, ‘Two out of three ain’t bad’ !”
Shoe: Modern online casinos don’t need any of the old enticements to gamblers like free cocktails or floor shows – they just keep their players addicted with cynical Skinner box psychological dark patterns. But I guess a nostalgic gambler could recreate the old-school Vegas experience by bringing his iPad to the diner and taking advantage of the free coffee refills while mumbling classic rock songs to himself.
So Bitsy is watching…Elvis? That’s not really a song that pops up in ads. Has Elvis made another Comeback Special, despite the severe handicap of being dead for 50 years? Cuz I would be SO about that.
Shoe:
“I’m a rambling, gambling man .”
“Say, isn’t that song by ‘Bob Seagull and the Last Bird‘ ?”
@Hibbleton: I mean, they are birds after all. Seems like the most logical conclusion here.
DtM: Alice is really coming on to this Woman who appears heavily into filth culture. “We got rid of toilet paper six months ago.” She whispers.
Between Friends : okay, the FIRST bigwig at this new job quitting and leaving you with all their duties, while asking you to buy into the company, that’s not THAT much cause for alarm. But WHEN the second one does it, I hope Blonde Friend realises she’s been duped into joining a FAILING company, and being the fall person as all the other people abandon ship.
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Luann : “Ask 3 adults how they got into their careers”
a) It’s okay, Mrs Fogarty, you can say “Ask 3 GROWN-UPS”, we don’t have an illusion about Luann, Tara and Les’ maturity, and neither do they;
b) …This assignment would be SLIGHTLY more seriously and less “kindergarten” if Mrs Fogarty added the caveat of “No asking your parents, find OTHER grown-ups”;
c) This is a terrible assignment, because I’m pretty sure there are more “I got this job because I needed a job and this was the first opening I got” stories than there are “I had this MAGICAL MOMENT of clarity where I realised what I wanted to do with my life, and then I got a job that enabled me to do so”.
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Rex Morgan M.D. : Am I reading this comic correctly if I interpret it as establishing that in terms of how annoying/useless they feel a person is, Rex is “Aunt Tildy > Buck” while June is “Aunt Tildy < Buck" ? Like, June likes her aunt better than that weird schlub Rex accidentally brought home like a burdock, while Rex absolutely despises Aunt Tildy and would rather hang out with Buck?
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Six Chix : Oh, shoot, on second look, they're looking at their PURSES, not at their butts/crotches. Now I can't make a joke that the sudden, pleasant vibration they just felt across their pelvises WASN'T their cellphones vibrating, but a call they should answer RIGHT NOW.
@Anonymous: on Six Chix: reading your comment before the comic itself, I assumed that they were dogs carrying purses, which sounded adorable.
As per the norm with Six Chix, it lives to disappoint..
Shoe: Bob Seagull and the Silver Pullet Band.
@A Grave Mind:If someone sits next to me while I’m eating and starts singing, you’d better believe I’m moving seats. Especially if I’m about to sass him – I want to be out of punching range.
Marvin:
I had thought that Bitsy, at least as originally conceived by Tom Armstrong, was a “she,” rather than a “he.” In which event:
“It’s ironic that I’m watching the ‘tube,’ because my whole Valentine’s Day problem here is that my ‘tubes’ have been tied!”
Instead of ending with the “punchline,” Marvin has the television play a song, because it assumes that the average Marvin reader is too stupid or too cut off from fellow humans to know the meaning of Valentine’s Day. Probably wise! Wait I’m reading Marvin.
Baby Blues- I think the parents in this comic are in their 30’s or early 40’s so why would any millennial be listening to Tony Bennett? Also it is February and she’s outside gardening? How disconnected from reality are these cartoonists?
Family Circus- What kind of evangelical Christian household is allowing their children to read books about dinosaur sexual reproduction?
MW: “It took my husband a little longer, but he’s HAPPY now” seems like a line from the 1956 version of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”. I, for one, would think this whole crazy story will have been worth it if Toby returns home to find strange pods in the condo, and that Ian has turned into a parrot during his afternoon nap.
Buck: We hate him and the creator playfully teases us with that fact by purposely excluding him from the comic.
Wilbur: We hate him and the creator spites us with that fact by making the sole focus of 90% of the arcs.
@Anonymous: To be fair, I have a neighbour who is constantly mowing his lawn, and even in the middle of winter if we get a brief thaw period, he’s mowing his lawn before the snow falls again.
Marvin: Don’t worry, Bitsy. A disappointed Jenny, seeing how Jeff forgot the holiday, will feed you the chocolate she was just going to throw out anyway.
(Bitsy was voted least favorite character* and Comics Kingdom wanted to milk all the drama they could get out of the dog leaving the cast.)
(*Yes, behind Marvin himself.)
Gasoline Alley Walt, your health is in the hand of someone who won’t look up weird ingredients in a bottle of something which carries a mandated label about how it won’t “diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease”. Enjoy the ride.
Lockhorns: Fortunately Leroy will recuperate in time to see that cake set fire to their house.
Blondie: This surprised me a bit, as curling is the closest thing the Winter Olympics have to bowling, which is the closest thing either Dag or Herb get to exercising.
BG&SS: That’s what Barney gets being a known
accomplicefriend of Hootin’ Holler’s biggest chicken thief.@ValdVin: Going along with that, hopefully they don’t bring him back to life just to be trolls about it like with a certain OTHER cartoon dog.
Curtis this week has been about him having the reputation for “baby soft hands” which will make him very popular when he goes to prison.
RMMD:
“Hey, kids! — shake it loose together; spotlight’s hittin’ somethin’ that’s been known to change the weather…”
“Mom! The surgery has turned Dad into Elton John!”
MARVIN: No the joke is about how recycled clip art has soooo many uses, especially if you’re lazy!
RMMD: Buck has barely any job to speak of and no real friends other than Rex and… his wife. So…. I’m guessing what could be the one reason he was ‘unavailable’, and I won’t traumatize you all by giving it voice here.
S4th: C’mon Ralph… get Ted to come with you and send him down first. ‘Those double black diamonds? Uh, that just means there’s delicious licorice at the bottom! Go get it, that’s a good boy!’
JP: Oh no. Oh *NO.* That prison is in either Ukraine or Russia and this is a combination of both Ces’ cloak-and-dagger wannabe thrillers and his ‘ripped from the headlines’ wannabe PSAs.
Luann: Shut up. All of you. Shutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutup. SHUT UP!!!!!!!
6 Chix: I know the kinky new sex thing is wearing remote controlled vibrators on dates, but I didn’t need to see the Chix take on that.
@33 The Quiet Man: on Rex Morgan: Are the words you’re tip-toeing around, “furiously masturbating to ‘Little Fergus’ videos”?
@Charterstoned:
Metamorphosis did it! Metamorphosis did it!
@The Rambling Otter:
In fairness, Otter, it’s been a minute since Wilbur reared his mayonnaise-slathered mug. Instead, we were rewarded with tales that made us hate children, California parks, dogs, hot-air balloons, and now parrots. I already hated most of that stuff, but maybe y’all didnt?
Shoe – I don’t want to tell anyone how to write a comic strip, but I would think readers are more familiar with Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler than a pre-Night Moves Seger tune. Would changing it make it funnier? Absolutely not, but still.
@Baja Gaijin: Egad man, NO!!! You took it much farther than I dared, pass me your brain bleach!
@39 The Quiet Man: Have some chicken and Jell-O.
Fudge Packer – If Randy were an immigrant, this would make a lot more sense.
@Baja Gaijin: Just the ipecac I needed, thanks!
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Well, he is, isn’t he? I highly doubt he crossed all the Ts and dotted all the Is before arriving in whatever Europey country this prison camp is in. They probably caught him while he was thrusting April’s photo in the face of everyone he saw while babbling in louder and increasingly insistent English ‘Have you seen this woman??’
@The Quiet Man:
One, guarantee that’s how it happened. Two, Varg Vikernes escaped his Norwegian prison, with his long history of being a musician.
RMMD – Whenever Buck is not in the panel, all the other characters should be asking, “Where’s Buck?”
Shoe – “Well, the first couple of meals I had here were okay, and ♫ two out of three ain’t bad…” “I told you, don’t try the Meat Loaf!”
Don Abundio, translated:
“I still can’t believe both of us wore our mermaid costumes tonight”
“Let’s have a fish contest…”
“To see who can be the freshest!”
Shoe: Nice of The Professor to share his warning about the meatloaf as Rambling man views porn on his tablet and enjoys his American Pie moment with …the appetizer?
REX MORGAN M.D.: AKA the actor who played “Buck” is undergoing contract negotiations and holding out for more money (and by “more money”, they mean something way more valuable, like discount tickets to the local roots country jamboree.)
REX MORGAN M.D. (2): “Aunt Tilly spent the who drive over here being ‘affable” and ‘exuberant.’ God, what an obnoxious bitch, am I right?” (Ok, you explain why the Morgans to find this lady more insufferable then any of the other losers in this strip. Is it because she dares to have expressions than go beyond ‘pissy irritation’ or “mild-mannered dullness”? )
@Charterstoned: Alternative: “The Stepford Parrots”.
@The Quiet Man:
I won’t shut up about Luann, and I’ll further add : Man, Luann sure got over the whole “MRS FOGARTY IS RUNNING THIS ‘CAREER PATHS’ CLASS!? BUT SHE WAS A *TERRIBLE* GUIDANCE COUNSELOR” thing quickly, huh? AND the part where Mrs Fogarty singled her out for humiliation in front of the whole class.
Though I guess the latter makes sense because EVERY teacher she’s ever had has done this to her (even Mrs Horner!), which I guess makes the former make more sense because Luann probably takes this kinda stuff from her teachers because she NEVER questions petty authority, so “I’m not continuing taking this class because I *know* the teacher is unqualified” is a step WAY too far for her.
Andy Capped:
It doesn’t say anything about opening one’s hand to the boor and greedy.
Wrecks Moregone:
Next moment Wrecks and July discover that Johnny/Jimmy’s “surgeon” is Rene Belluso in disguise, and he’s holding Johnny/Jimmy’s spleen hostage until he’s paid some kind of utterly pathetic ransom, such as a swingset on the moon.
LUANN: “I know what my folks do, but not what they do.” Because even Luann doesn’t read her own strip (maybe she’s smarter than we take her for.)
LUANN (2): One thing I love even more than the fact that they’re not even pretending that these school is just overgrown daycare now, is that Luann is still struggling under the weigh of these kindergarten-level assignments. “Stop being incurious for once and actually ask people questions? I dunno. That’s a tough ‘ask’ there….”
LUANN (3): It’s nice of Tara’s parents to give her her trust fund before they kicked her out, since she can afford tuition and her “eXtreme sports” lifestyle without any visible means of income (why a girl who can apparently make money grow out of her ass needs “career advice”, I’ll never know.)
@Peanut Gallery:
Can he please die on the way to his home planet?
@Anonymous: Just to be sure, my post was directed at the characters, not my fellow ‘Mudges.
Phantom: “Pah! I SNAP MY FINGERS at Jungle Patrol! Snap! Snap!”
GT: Looking forward to the creepy coach sitting in the dark on the front lawn at Valley Tech, with a sawed-off shotgun on his lap.
RMMD: This may be the epitome of Rex Morgan’s all-encompassing dullness. As far as we, the audience, know, Rex’s ride to the hospital was completely uneventful apart from Aunt Tildy not being able to remember little Johnny’s name. But no, Rex insists that her driving is really, really scary, no really! She was running red lights and nearly mowing down pedestrians all over the place just off-panel! Rex didn’t bother to react to it because he doesn’t care about anybody or anything!
DT: I dunno, if I’d just been shot in the chest and was writhing on the ground in pain, and my partner’s reaction was glancing over his shoulder and casually asking “How bad is it?” I’d probably abandon the force for a life as a professional hitman too.
Dustin: I’m not sure who I hate more in this: Dustdad for his “lol, silly artistic pursuits are useless because they never make money” shtick or Dustin for assuming he has the creativity and sensitivity for anything more than a dirty limerick.
JP: “Well, not every day. Not even every other day. Maybe once a week on average.”
MW: Yes, Toby, now you are a bird owner! A stupid, irresponsible bird owner.
GT: I’ll confess, Keri joining ICE was not on my bingo card.
No jokes today, just a belated thanks to Josh, Scratchy and Baja for the mentions, and congrats to Allie and the Floaters, which sounds like the world’s worst band, so I guess there is a joke in there after all.