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The Phantom, 1/8/06

Keen-eyed readers spotted Rex and June Morgan, out for a stroll in Manhattan, in the final panel of this Phantom comic. (This makes sense, to the extent that anything that happens in either of these features makes sense, because the Sunday Phantom and Rex Morgan, M.D. are both drawn by Graham Nolan.) Harder to identify is Little Orphan Annie, now 52 and nearsighted, but with normal pupils restored after six agonizing surgeries, grinning out at us from just to their left.

Least exciting sentence ever in an ostensible “adventure” comic: “I need to get on-line!” I’m really looking forward to next Sunday’s Phantom installment, featuring Google search after thrilling Google search. My appetite is just whetted by the adrenaline-fueling “NEXT: DEAD END!” teaser box.

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Apartment 3-G, 11/30/05

Yeah, why is she so down? Maybe it’s because she’s headed out to work, churning out awful press releases, pimping no-talent actors and playwrights, glossing over the crimes of evil multinational corporations — you know, the sort of things that keep New York, the greatest city in the world, humming, and all for a salary that isn’t going to keep a girl in Kate Spade and Jimmy Choo like she deserves. Meanwhile, the two of you, who have selfishly chosen high-paying, zero-stress jobs in the nursing and elementary-school-art fields, get to enjoy a leisurely breakfast over the paper, relaxing in your deeply dowdy but no doubt warm and comfortable robes.

Honestly, it’s like being white, unscrupulous, and upwardly mobile doesn’t mean anything anymore.

I thought that the chatter in the comments this morning had prepared me for the harrowing sight of Mark Trail’s muscular but nippleless torso. I was wrong. Hoo boy was I wrong. No one had mentioned that there was something deeply freaky about his face as well. Is that a shadow cast by his sunken, heroin-addict-style cheekbones, or is he just wearing black rouge? Whatever the case, he joins Dagwood Bumstead in the no-nips hall of fame:

Also, is anyone else as unsettled by the current teenage-jewel-theives-in-fetish-masks plot in the Phantom as I am?

Yeah, I didn’t think so.

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The Phantom, 10/9/05

Maybe I still have weddings on the brain, but there was nothing in Sunday’s comics more amusing than the wedding flashback in the final panel of The Phantom. And I thought we had an eclectic guest list! Mr. and Mrs. Walker (for GHOST-WHO-WALKS, everybody!) apparently invited, from right to left: a shirtless white dude; a Native Canadian fresh from FBOFW’s pow-wow; a sad clown from a velvet painting; Bruce Willis; a top-hatted fop; a Keebler Elf in a cone hat; and, of course, Rex Morgan’s Buck, before graduate school reduced him to a pus-encrusted drifter. The groom apparently couldn’t even be bothered to put on a tie for the occasion. Why not take some sartorial cues from President Luaga, Ghost-Who-Has-Only-Two-Outfits? He seems like quite the natty dresser.

Incidentally, what exactly is the Phantom doing with his left hand in the second panel of the second row? It looks like he’s about to pick a chocolate out of a sampler box on the president’s desk … very dramatically.