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

Ever since Kelly was given a free funeral car to drive, there’s been a certain amount of ambiguity about exactly what kind of funeral car it was. Was it used to shuttle corpses about, or just beautiful and tasteful floral arrangements? And, more importantly, what’s that smell, exactly? Anyway, Rex, who hasn’t really had much speaking time in his own strip lately, manages to come onstage and fulfill two life goals at once: ruining everyone’s fun and wedging the phrase “the funeral trade” into everyday conversation. This has all led to panel three, probably the greatest facial expression the strip has gifted us with since at least this, which, interestingly enough, also involved the funeral trade.

Mary Worth, 2/10/15

Man, the first half of Mary’s sentence in panel one kind of implies a stronger follow-up than the second half delivers, doesn’t it? “I’ve attended many weddings, but I have to say that yours is definitely one of them! It won’t be as elegant and wonderful as the time I was invited to New York for the surprise wedding of a hunky professional soccer player, but I’m sure signing a dingy register at Santa Royale City Hall will hold a certain charm.”

Phantom, 2/10/15

The Phantom’s amnesia plot continues apace, and like Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, it asks if the sum of our memories make us who we are, or if we’d continue on in our accustomed paths even without them. “John X” has made his own little Skull Cave in the utility room, and his own little Chronicles of the Phantoms Past out of a spare notebook he found lying around! No, I have no idea where you find enormous, spooky candles on a military base.

Apartment 3-G, 2/10/15

I’m not exactly sure what kind of phony scam-artist psychic tries to convince her marks to get married in a stately English country house? One who is secretly employed by the events coordinator of a stately English country house, I guess. Anyway, I love that everyone in this conversation is trying very hard to pretend that they’ve never heard of Downton Abbey, probably because they think the recent seasons have gone off the rails and are embarrassed by how much they posted about it on Facebook in 2011.

Funky Winkerbean, 2/10/15

Meanwhile, love is in the air over at Funky Winkerbean! [ENDLESS PUKING AT HAVING TYPED THAT SENTENCE]

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Mary Worth, 2/6/15

For a character whose whole schtick is giving advice, Mary Worth’s given some pretty bad advice over the years. There was the time one of Mary’s friends confessed she still had feelings for a now-married old flame whom she hadn’t seen in years, and Mary told her to go ahead and contact him and pretend it was all “platonic”, because what could possibly go wrong. There was also the time that she told a woman haunted by memories of being stood up at the altar that you can fix sadness by choosing to remember events differently from what actually happened. And these are just the first two instances that leapt to mind, so what I’m saying is that it’d probably be premature to call today’s strip the worst advice Mary’s ever given anyone. But still, telling someone that “this thing you’re about to do will probably anger your daughter, so rather than talking to her about it you should just do it and then she’ll have literally no choice but to accept it and your relationship is gonna be great” isn’t really a good idea, you know?

Pluggers, 2/6/15

Speaking of all-time lows, this panel can’t match the sheer awful concentrated sadness of 2006’s classic “Rhino-Man hocks his TV”, but you have to admit that “physical pain is a plugger’s constant companion, one he eventually learns to rely on for his sense of self” is pretty darn grim.

Funky Winkerbean, 2/6/15

For those of you who are fortunate enough to not be up on the terminology used by scholars of fan fiction, “Mary Sue” is a term deployed to criticize a fanfic character seen as being a poorly fleshed out and idealized stand-in for the author. I guess the point of this strip is to somehow prove that Les surely isn’t a Mary Sue character, because if he were, people would actually recognize him (“him” being either Les or Tom Batuik, I guess) in public! I’m not sure what a weird high-school-era flashback panel contributes to this message, structurally, but the important part is that total strangers feel absolutely no connection with or desire to speak to Les. None whatsoever.

Apartment 3-G, 2/6/15

At last, we’re meeting the psychic scam artist who’s gotten Margo’s mother into her clutches! Who had “vaguely dowdy brunette with boring hair wearing a pastel turtleneck” in the pool? Oh, everybody? OK!

Crankshaft, 2/6/15

Crankshaft’s been doing a pretty terrible series of Airport Indignity Laffs this week, but they, and the strip as a whole, have now ended abruptly as Crankshaft crawls into the baggage-handling mechanism and is crushed to death.

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Gil Thorp, 2/2/15

Oh my gosh, I was wrong and Gil Thorp really is doing a Very Important Drug story! The drug in question is Adderall, which is about as intense and Important as Gil Thorp can handle, I guess. This all assumes that that I’m interpreting “I want some!” correctly. Maybe Max Bacon™ is asking to be infected with ADHD to improve his basketball play, which would indicate that he profoundly misunderstands the disorder in a number of distinct ways.

Mark Trail, 2/2/15

Despite having read Mark Trail daily for more than a decade, I honestly couldn’t tell you whether Mark is one of those action heroes for whom refusing to pull a gun on someone is part of his shtick. But assuming he’s not, I’m reading panel one as him cautiously feeling out his new ally. “Yeah, so they’ve definitely got guns, so … I’m just spitballing here, but … maybe … you’ve got some firearms … back at your isolated hunting hut? No? Okay then! Well, we shouldn’t have a problem sneaking up on them in this flat-bottom! Ha ha! Yeah, this is going to go great.”

Mary Worth, 2/2/15

I haven’t really featured any of the strips where Hanna’s annoying daughter Amy has disapproved of her relationship with Sean, probably because they’ve been pretty boring, but trust me when I tell you that Hanna’s annoying daughter Amy disapproves of her relationship with Sean. And now Hanna’s going to ask some random lady she barely knows to be her witness! That’ll show her ungrateful offspring, who primarily uses Hanna as a free babysitting service! As the cruel look on her face in panel one makes clear, Hanna is getting married for the best possible reason: revenge.