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Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/2/15

I don’t remember the circumstances and I can’t find it my archives now, but that boat … well, you’ll be extremely unsurprised to know that somebody just gave the Morgans that boat, for free, in exchange for I can’t remember what now but probably just their general awesomeness. Anyway, today’s strip is just proof that the “gift economy,” in which you give people you like things that you think they should have at your whim, can be converted into a money economy pretty fast. Will that boat sell on Craigslist for like half of whatever the people who gave it to Rex and June paid for it? Who cares! As long it can buy them this delightful cabin, they’re fine with it! (Also, someone will obviously be paying more than asking price for this boat, are you kidding me, these are the Morgans we’re talking about here, only good things happen to them.)

Heathcliff, 10/2/15

Cats find it romantic when you grip them tightly and use your prehensile lips to kiss the back of their necks, I guess? Also, the fact that this makeout is taking place on top of a profoundly phallic stack of garbage cans is a nice touch.

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Funky Winkerbean, 9/2/15

Ha ha, remember Coach Stropp, who used to cruelly mock Les’s athletic ineptitude, back when this strip was funny? Well, he’s dead now.

Hagar the Horrible, 9/2/15

Ha ha, a Viking always pays his final respects to his enemy. After he’s dead! Like that guy is about to be. Hagar’s sword didn’t slice through the flesh of his face, but the blow to his head was probably hard enough that his brain is already starting to hemorrhage.

Heathcliff, 9/2/15

Ha ha, those birds have a feeling of impending doom! Probably because Heathcliff is about to kill and eat them, hopefully in that order.

Mary Worth, 9/2/15

Well, at least nobody’s dead or about to die in Mary Worth, as Toby prepares to stride purposefully out into single life wearing a purple tracksuit and electric blue jacket, and … wait, what’s that? Over on the bookshelf?

OH MY GOD IT’S THE ASHES OF A DEAD DOG, PROBABLY! Fido has never appeared as a beloved Cameron-pet in the thirteen years I’ve been reading this strip; possibly Ian owned the pup before he even met Toby. I sincerely hope tomorrow we see Ian lying in bed, weeping and reading Toby’s note for the fourth time, clutching this urn of dog cremains like his favorite teddy bear. “You understood me, Fido,” he sobs. “You’re the only one who ever understood me.”

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Mary Worth, 8/21/15

One of the complaints about the modern-day movie industry is that studios don’t seem to produce midrange movies anymore; everything is either a tiny indie film made on a shoestring or a huge blockbuster action movie or broad comedy. Mary Worth, as usual, steps up to fill the market that Hollywood is ignoring. Sure, the strip provides big hits like Aldomania or Wilbur’s Illegitimate Not-Son; but it also provides smaller, quieter, but still utterly engrossing plots like Ian Kisses Up To His Boss And Toby Remembers She’s An Artist And They Seethe At Each Other About It. I am hooked and I am not ashamed to admit it!

Anyway, today we learn that Toby’s art show, which features a range of greyscale blobs and quadragons, is downtown, and I’m really glad to see the local artist community is helping gentrify a neighborhood that used to be a dangerous hellhole. Maybe it’ll soon be safe enough for even Mary to go there! Meanwhile, Ian realizes that he’ll have to choose between sitting through a boring and presumably outdated lecture from Hilton Berkes about whatever subject he used to specialize in before he took a cushy administrative job and going to Toby’s show and hopefully seeing that warrior in the background of panel once coming to life and murdering everybody.

Heathcliff, 8/21/15

Heathcliff sure had been into surfing jokes lately, huh? Yes, what if a cat were a surfer. And some aliens saw him. And the aliens were also surfers. That would be truly radical, and also whimsical, would it not? God, this makes me exhausted just looking at it.