Soap opera? Wrong, an opera has high stakes
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Rhymes With Orange, 10/19/26
Ha ha, wouldn’t it be funny if a tortoise made glasses out of his own shell, and tried to sell them from a little stand at the side of the road, while he was dying, literally dying, because a tortoise’s shell isn’t just a container or an outfit, it’s a part of his skeleton and he can’t survive without it? It’s marginally funnier than if a happy beshellèd tortoise was selling the glasses and there was a pile of shucked and mangled tortoise corpses behind him, I guess.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/19/26
It’s really funny that Rex Morgan, M.D., used to be a strip where the main characters got free stuff all the time and now it’s the strip that teaches you to manage your expectations that anything might change your life for the better in a truly significant way. Like, did your book (you can’t make enough from selling books to live off of anymore,FYI) get optioned by Hollywood? Great! Almost nothing that gets optioned ever gets made, by the way. The realistic best case scenario is that every other year some low-ranking executive at whatever conglomerated streaming service inherited the option rights from its predecessor companies realizes that the option is about to lapse, and instead of trying to figure out if anyone is actually developing something based on your IP, they just renew the option and send you another four-digit check. That’s a nice little bit of change, if you’ve still got a regular job, which you hopefully do! Use it to take your girlfriend out for Thai food and stick the rest in your 401k, that’s my advice!
Judge Parker, 10/19/26
Once again there was Neddy-Charlotte-April drama arising from April’s inability to attend to parental duties after being whisked off by the CIA for interrogation, and there was a lot of hurt feelings that were papered over by apologies that were not accompanied by explanations. This could go on forever, so Charlotte is taking matters into her own hands by joining, or possibly founding, a leftist paramilitary gang. Take that, mother!
37 replies to “Soap opera? Wrong, an opera has high stakes”
Rhymes with Orange:
“He’s a shell of his former self!”
JP: Is “A few weeks later” the new ‘Aaaaaaaaand so…’?
MW: “My dear friends… you better be thanking me profusely in the next two minutes or this place is going to look like the ending of ‘Carrie’!”
GT: “Mrs. Jones, take it easy… unless you want to spend eternity in the cornfield!”
Luann: Uh-oh! I sense some wacky hi-jinx coming!
RMMD:
“Using a fork instead of chopsticks, Augie? — since Thai restaurants typically don’t use chopsticks, that’s using your noodle!”
RMMD:
“Ready for your 85th precipitous change of location in the last 5 years of these story arcs, Charlotte?”
JP. I don’t know where you’re going Charlotte, but you’d better move fast. The exterior of that house is cracking like an eggshell! Get out now!!
Augie, you are way too happy about having the opportunity to explain something to your girlfriend.
Rhymes with Orange:
“Ted’s a different guy since he joined that nudist colony, isn’t he?”
Pluggers: Put Andy on a diet, Sheila. That’s where your food bill is going.
FC: By the way, what do they mean by streetwalker?
JP: So if I’m following (and assuming there’s something here to follow), April and Charlotte were tearfully reunited, but now it’s a few weeks later and Neddy is still taking care of Charlotte? Unless the colorist messed up the hair and that’s really April.
BB: I’m hearing an echo of ‘Ozymandias’ in my head, but it’s not really interesting enough to develop it.
MW: Isn’t anything going to be done about Nelly? The woman has the malevolent charisma of a born cult leader. And, as is painfully plain to see, Charterstonians are pitifully malleable.
H&L: Around fifteen years ago, one of our County Commisioners was on trial for corruption. While scrolling the local news one night, I landed on a channel that was re-capping the day’s court proceedings with puppets. I honestly thought I was hallucinating.
Zits: If only Jeremy had some type of electronic device to organize his World Civilization notes and maps! (Seriously, do high school teachers still hand out mimeographed maps and notes?)
FC: Thel spent the night standing out on the corner in front of the local taproom.
JP: And Charlotte somehow continues to be the most mature character in the strip, and not just because she occasionally talks like a thirty-year-old.
RMMD: Because Augie knows this is Rex Morgan, where nothing interesting happens ever, so why bother getting excited about it?
RMMD: Here’s a fun game. Count how many comics have done plots about characters getting film deals. Now count how many actual comics have got film deals. Sorry to dash your dreams, Rex Morgans and Funky Winkerbeans of the world, all your “The Secret” manifesting has been for nothing. Get Garfield-famous, then we’ll talk.
@MKay: My prediction yesterday was that someone at the party (Wilbur, it will be Wilbur) will blurt out “We thought Ian and Mary were having an affair! Haw-haw!” That will lead the story back to Nelly.
Although I only gave that a 50/50 chance; it’s just as likely this week will be devoted to the narration box, and everyone else, praising Mary for successfully managing the complex task of organizing a surprise party.
@lynn: Can confirm high school students do still get paper handouts and assignments, though to a lesser degree than the pre-Information Age generations. And they still have a tendency to just stuff them in their backpack and leave them there until the summer, when they’re excavated like scholastic archeological relics.
Great news, Augie. They already made the movie IF. So when do you get paid?
RwO: Hey Ted, quick tip: no one wants to buy their fancy eyewear at the swamp, not even the swamp creatures. Set yourself up with a little shop downtown, put on a little twee three-piece suit and a flat cap like you’re in The Wind in the Willows and they’ll be lining up around the block.
RMMD: “Also, this is about as excited as I can literally be. Blame the character design, I guess!”
JP: “…could you change your jacket? This is a crimson house and you’re in more of a burgundy.”
RMMD:
” Augie, you’re so jut-jawed , you should migrate to the Dick Tracy strip!”
Dustin: “Now I’ll repay the favor: your talent for mean-spirited cruelty will surely make you a popular influencer on Truth Social.”
GT: This strip would be more convincing in its professed progressive viewpoints if it didn’t draw all women over thirty-five like lumpy-faced harridans.
Luann: “And me.”
MW: Toby and Ian toast themselves with empty flutes, while Mary indulgently nurses a glass of still water.
Phantom: It’s even odds whether “Utawala Mbaya” means anything in any African language, or if it’s gibberish the writers threw together.
JP: Are we all just going to ignore that Neddy dressed an (arguably, not really) innocent child in a beret?
MW: Mary is wearing a shirt that somehow has both a lace collar and a cowl neck. Disgusting.
RMMD: Augie has started taking the emotion-destroying pills from Equilibrium.
MW – Mary’s plans continue apace. The Necronomicon was clear: the spell needs the blood and feathers of two parrots, one of which must speak the tongue of a foreign land. Ian and Toby now must be convinced to let Mary pet sit and she will be on the cusp of summoning Dagrobasheron to regain his throne of blood and fear. But she still needs a cup of Wilbur mucus to complete sacrificial brew…
MW: nudge, nudge, wink, is Mary a goer. Say no more.
A mottled cat and a tortoise are walking together past a stall being manned by a maniacal looking tortoise with knives strapped around on his shell. The stall sells tortoise shell glasses, black and orange mottled fur rugs, catgut violin strings, and tortoise soup. “Genuine tortoise shell and tortoiseshell!” The sign advertises. Looking both disturbed and terrified the tortoise looks up at the cat and says, “We need to get the shell out of here.”
Auuuuughie should have his growth hormone levels checked. That’s a bad case of acromegaly he’s got there.
RwO: Pluggers:Rhymes with Orange::Rhino Man hocking his TV:Tortoise selling remnants of his shell as glasses
RMMD: Maybe you’ll get lucky, and M Night Shyamalan will do a collab with you.
RMMD: “C’mon, Augie. Let your imagination go wild!”
“All right. All right.” Puts down the fork and picks up chopsticks. “Satisfied!?”
FC: That’s right Thel, keeping thanking God for the patriarchy. The more your hurt the more you prove your love. Basic comfort is the devil’s primrose path to feminism!
MW: Moy may have tipped her hand today, as we see Mary beaming happy thoughts directly into the minds of her thralls.
Phantom: A little on the nose for the Musk stand-in’s AI to give the Python a ketamine overdose, no?
Rex Morgan, MD: Augie’s been working out! Specifically, he’s been working out his enormous chin! Is he, I don’t know, bonemaxxing or something? That thing’s huge!
Judge Parker: They’re playing “Lamp or Cactus?” down at the Parker ranch again. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but “both” isn’t a valid answer!
“Do I look like a Les Moore to you? The world isn’t clamouring for it like I wrote the definitive book on loss, and if it is made into a movie, nobody is going to give me their Oscar! But at least I have a jawline. Look at the granite cliff!”
***
I guess if a child is going to join the Guardian Angels, it’s best to do so from a house out in the country.
RMMD: Augie stares at the limp noodles on his fork.
Small money now. Big money if…
Summer: “Sorry, are we still talking about options?”
RwO — It’s marginally funnier than if a happy beshellèd tortoise was selling the glasses and there was a pile of shucked and mangled tortoise corpses behind him, I guess.
That would be Private Equity Tortoise
Slow and steady wins the optometry market.
MW: “My dear friends…oh yes, I know what you’ve been saying about me. Fools! You dare to question me? Oh yesssss, eat the muffins now. Eat them all up!! Ha ha ha!! Embrace the bran!!!”
RMMD- Seeing as how this strip moves at such a snail’s pace, and we won’t see them again for a while, I’m calling that his movie does get made and is played at Mae Mae’s theater.
When it happens at the tricentennial, just remember who called it
9CL: Yes, Amos, cunnilingus can be a difficult word to pronounce at first.
Luann: Well, Nancy has always wanted to adopt Bernice, and she might just be able to trick Luann into moving away with Bernice’s parents. It can’t be that difficult; this is Luann we’re talking about here.
Dustin: “I think I’ll go to a comics website and make political comments so I can get some positive validation.”