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Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/13/21

Hello, Rex Morgan readers! In your desperate attempt to grab onto anything of even slight interest in this comic strip, anything at all with a little texture to it, have you ever thought that graphic novelist and writer’s block afflictee Kyle Vidpa had a kind of interesting name? One that had a little more ethnic flavor than your Morgans and your Wises and whatever bland WASP-y thing Jordan and Michelle’s last name probably is, which I refuse to look up? Well, bad news: “Kyle” “Vidpa” is actually named “Jake Rowling.” Ha ha, get it, it’s too close to J.K. Rowling, so he had to pick something else! Anyway, real respect to this strip for dragging this out over eight panels, can’t wait to see how many days of board games we have ahead of us for the rest of the week.

Crankshaft, 6/13/21

RIPPED FROM TODAY’S HEADLINES, or at least from the headlines from three months ago, which is honestly pretty good for syndicated newspaper comics: it’s today’s Crankshaft! The most interesting thing here from my point of view is how utterly miserable the ‘Shaft looks at having completely blocked up all global commerce in his dreamscape as a result of his usual antics. Does this mean that he doesn’t take joy in his careless driving, as I always assumed, but that he’s actually tortured over it? This is my favorite new piece of information that I’ve gotten all week!

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Crankshaft, 6/9/21

Congratulations to Crankshaft for delivering a strip whose meaning isn’t immediately obvious, but in a way that makes it feel like maybe there’s going to be some character development in the next few days rather than just “oh no, the wordplay is too opaque, we need to ratchet it back by two or three notches.” Anyway, who wants to guess what exactly the ‘Shaft is going on about here? Did he watch the disruption of the coronavirus pandemic and how it caused so many younger people to put their dreams for the future on hold, and it made him realize that he had done that for himself long ago, without even realizing it? Or did he just get bored one night and watched a bad basic cable documentary about REM sleep or something and thought “Huh, I never remember my dreams. Does that mean my brain doesn’t work right? Is that COVID-related? Can I sue someone over this?”

Dustin and Mother Goose and Grimm, 6/9/21

Because human beings are capable of abstract thought, we’ve managed to turn the genetic impulse to look for mates who are physically strong and instead map that onto more abstract signifiers, like the ability to use physical strength for useful purposes, or the acquisition of stored labor value in the form of money. That’s what you’d think based on these strips, anyway, though keep in mind that the message is coming from comics artists, who generally don’t have any of the above qualities to recommend them.

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Mark Trail, 6/7/21

Mark is off battling influencers, and Cherry is about to do battle with an HOA over native plants, so where does that leave Rusty? Well, Rusty is about to have a sleepover pizza party with Oscar winner Robert Shaw! What do you think they’re going to talk about? Jaws or The Sting would be the obvious choice, but you never know: Rusty might want to hear stories about his time in the ’50s doing Shakespeare at the Old Vic. He’s not a baby, after all!

Mary Worth, 6/7/21

Oh, dear, it looks like we’re getting to that time in a great Mary Worth storyline where I just post every strip! Anyway, today Ashlee asks Drew if he’s bummed about killing someone on the operating table but it turns out he’s just sad about his fancy watch, which she stole, and I challenge anyone working in comedy today to come up with something funnier than this. You can’t, it’s the peak of humor and we’ll be talking about this day for years to come. (Drew did kill someone on the operating table, of course, but he stopped feeling anything about that sort of thing years ago.)

Marvin, 6/7/21

Speaking of people feeling things, Marvin’s grandfather’s stunned facial expression in the final panel here is wholly appropriate. “Gee,” he’s thinking, “I thought we were best friends, but I never guessed how bleak and loveless his marriage was! I suppose you truly never can know another person.”

Crankshaft, 6/7/21

Wow, pretty rude of Crankshaft and his girlfriend to be going on and on about how great drive-in theaters are just days after his own grandson’s movie theater closed due to lack of customers. On the other hand, maybe it was a sign of respect that Crankshaft never went and had sex and/or made terrible puns in Max’s place of business.