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Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/5/20

Ever since the coronavirus pandemic cast the world into crisis, everyone’s been asking themselves one question: “How will Rex Morgan, M.D., the number one medical-themed newspaper comic strip, grapple with the one of the most rapidly spreading and economically devastating plagues of the past century?” And no doubt it’s a little soon when it comes to this strip’s publication lead time, but if we’re about to start a plot about a beloved old rockabilly roots country performer who became a “super-spreader,” shedding coronaviruses as he toured and personally sold merch to fans for days while asymptomatic, then I for one will be impressed. And if this plot happens to kill off Buck, one of the strip’s least appealing recurring characters, in the process? Truly a bonus!

Dustin, 4/5/20

Dustin is of course about the seemingly eternal battle between Millennials and Baby Boomers. But every once in a while, it reminds us that there is another, younger group out there, called variously “Gen Z” or “Zoomers,” and they are pissed at all of us and biding their time, and their wrath will be terrible.

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Beetle Bailey, 3/28/20

Lots of people, me included, criticize legacy strips like Beetle Bailey for just going back to the same well over and over again. But I want to recognize the fact that they can be innovative too, often refining established joke premises into sharper and sharper barbs. Take this strip’s now beloved weekly regular, “The Halftracks Hate Each Other.” Today’s installment really presents us with a harrowing and baroque version of what’s usually a quick and savage interaction: Amos sitting in a bar drinking himself blotto, with every sip reported back to his wife, who’s no doubt lying in bed alone, staring at her phone and getting more incandescently angry and bereft with every text. I personally feel like I will never be warm again after reading this!

Gil Thorp, 3/28/20

Oh man, remember how this Gil Thorp storyline began with jokes about how annoying it would be to have the same name as a popular digital assistant? Well, guess how it’s ending! Let’s please do something dumb about baseball starting Monday and never speak of any of this again.

Dustin, 3/28/20

Dustin was of course created to specifically poke fun at the tensions between millennials (who suck) and baby boomers (who … don’t, apparently?), but that doesn’t mean it can’t also take on some more universal truths, specifically that women be shopping. Throughout time, in every nation, across generations: Women. Be. Shopping.

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Dustin, 3/15/20

Incredibly, it seems that there must be a limit the amount of cross-generational abuse Dustin can absorb from his father, because apparently the hateful old man feels the need to leave the house to dump it onto others as well. Thanks for accommodating this gentleman as you’re wrapping up for the day, Starbucks employees! Probably you’ve walked through the steps of taking an order repeatedly over the past several hours, putting you pretty much on automatic pilot about what you’re doing. So here, let your last customer of the evening really theatrically make you feel like an asshole about it! Bet you wish you had locked that door exactly at closing time now, huh?

Mark Trail, 3/15/20

Mark Trail is many things — an adventurer, a sort-of dad, a murderer — but above all, he is a man of science. Some might claim that the pika is the cutest animal out there, but he won’t believe it until he sees a rigorous, peer-reviewed study proving it.