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Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/5/08

In Rex Morgan, M.D., clueless yuppies Rex and June Morgan wait in lines, drive in circles, play golf and natter on about ice cream. Meanwhile, all the interesting people they meet in their pointless existence get shot, kidnapped, lost at sea or incinerated, to the reader’s great loss. Sufferin’ Lee here will soon join their ranks — the only suspense is the nature of his demise. But before he goes, I want to thank him for proving that Rex Morgan, M.D. will practice medicine, although only when threatened at gunpoint.

Judge Parker, 2/5/08

What appears to be a modest flirtation between Hero Steve and “Get Me a Sandwich” Fake Law Partner Gloria thinly masks Gloria’s desperate search for a surgeon to correct her failing eyesight. If she doesn’t get those lids up soon, it’ll be the blind leading the lame all the way to the bus stop.

Apartment 3G, 2/5/08

OK, this has nothing to do with medicine, except that Alan’s gonna need some if he keeps up this guff. Great to see Margo back on her game after her brief dark night of the soul. And while it’s common for Apartment 3G to introduce a guy who looks like every other guy in this strip, this is the first mop that looks like every other guy in the strip.

P.S. In case you missed this post by faithful reader name (yes, that’s right), the Sunday Toronto Star carried this thoughtful article about both comic strip mockery and why tired strips survive. The article quotes Josh, and offers links to This Week in Milford, Reynard Noir, and several other local favorites. Worth a look!

Uncle Lumpy

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Family Circus, 2/3/08

Hmm, Billy, maybe that’s what they teach you in your liberal secular humanist public school, but I have someone here who’d beg to differ. A little someone named Genesis 1:26-7:

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

So you see, Billy, there was none of this blasphemous decision-making process that you envision, as God simply copied His own preexisting Face for mankind. And He certainly didn’t request any help from the peanut gallery as you appear to be doing, either. As to where exactly God got His Face from, or as to what need he Has for a human-type Face, exactly, those are the sorts of questions that would get you a good paddling if you were going to the sort of school that made this country great.

Slylock Fox, 2/3/08

After Pearls Before Swine borrowed the Slylock Fox formula a few weeks ago, we should have expected that the PBS gang would make a reciprocal appearance before too long. Followers of Rat and Pig’s adventures probably don’t need any fancy process of ratiocination to figure out just who slammed a tree limb into the back of an innocent bunny’s head for not good reason. More disturbing to me is the Six Differences, where a hungry rabbit has hollowed out a snowman from the inside and is now triumphantly holding his noggin aloft à la the Headless Horseman. Our towheaded youth will be describing this scene to his therapist for years to come.

Judge Parker, 2/3/08

“Sure, let’s have an impromptu lunch date! It’s not like my dying mother isn’t going to still be dying in a few more hours; plus, the longer you linger with me, the better sense I get of how little effort will be expected of me when I actually start working with you!”

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Judge Parker, 1/26/08

So the big interview with No-Legged War Hero Mama’s Boy Works-For-Nothing Steve is over, and it’s becoming more and more obvious that Gloria likes what she sees! Likes it so much, in fact, that she’s got to close her eyes in the final panel, because if she has to look at that hot hunk of filial piety for even one more minute, she can’t be held responsible for her actions.

I do think it’s kind of curious that, since one of Steve’s major characteristics is that he lost his legs in Iraq, we’ve never actually gotten a good look at his prosthetics. Not that we should let his disability and define him and I’m sure most people with artificial legs actually wear pants that cover them up, but it almost seems that the artist has gone out of his way to arrange the panel composition such that his legs are just out of view. Could this be one of the problems of a comics strip that’s a collaboration between an artist and a writer — could the artist have gotten the scripts and cried “Argh! Prosthetic limbs! My greatest weakness!”

Popeye, 1/26/08

Popeye is in the midst of some completely uninteresting plot about Sweet Pea’s allowance, but I have to pose this question to those readers who are part of the nautical division of the Jungle Patrol: What the hell does “typical fat-armed sailor” mean? I always assumed that Popeye’s bizarre physique was a result of artistic whimsy and/or steroid abuse, but are we to understand that his pencil-thin biceps and unnaturally bulging forearms are somehow representative of his profession — and are also somehow related to the cheapness endemic to seamen? I’m obviously way behind on my sailor stereotyping.

Dick Tracy, 1/26/08

In our upcoming storyline, Dick Tracy will drop any pretense about being a frank cheerleader for fascism as Dick is ordered to go break up a local showing of “degenerate art.”

Marmaduke, 1/26/08

For “lost,” read “ate,” obviously.