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Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/22/17

Faithful readers! Do you remember the backstory on Rex’s hapless pal Buck, introduced to the strip more than four years ago? Well, he came into Rex’s practiced because his — wife? girlfriend? — Doris “accidentally” shot him in the head with a nail gun, and then Rex and June went over to have dinner with him, and it turned out that during his cheerleading past Rex and Doris hooked up, and then later in the dinner Doris got real blotto and passed out at the dinner table, and then … I never covered how this plotline ended? Clearly she and Buck broke up before she managed to successfully murder him, though. Anyway, it’s definitely true that violet domestic abusers often escalate after a relationship is over, so, uh, kudos for realism, I guess?

Pluggers, 10/22/17

Pretty sure “in a collision after your husband gets distracted because he’s horny for another car” is in the top ten Most Plugger Ways To Die.

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Pluggers, 10/21/17

Oh, hey, remember Elam, the extremely unappealing guest character who served as a sexual rival to Rufus in Gasoline Alley a few months ago? Well, I don’t think I ever made it clear at the time, but he was obviously based on Jack Elam, an actor who mostly played villains in westerns and gangster flicks in the ’50s and ’60s. Anyway, is there any particular reason why this guy, who died in 2003 and never intruded into my consciousness until July, is suddenly popping up everywhere? Are we in the midst of some Elamssaince to which I’m not privy? I guess we should follow Occam’s Razor and accept the simplest answer: that the there’s a pretty wide overlap between Gasoline Alley’s readership and the set of people who submit things to Pluggers.

Shoe, 10/21/17

It’s a funny world when you wake up one day at the age of 43 and realize that you spend quite a lot of mental energy, as part of your job, parsing the body language of a couple depressed middle-aged bird-men killing time in sad bar, isn’t it? Life is definitely a rich tapestry in that respect. Anyway, in panel one I kind of like — no, “like” isn’t the right word. Let’s just say that I respect the work that’s been put into Shoe casually leaning towards the Perfesser as he taps out his cigar ash, creating a little bubble of intimacy as he asks about his friend’s romantic life, and clearly expecting the answer to his question to be “Sex. Sex is how it went.”

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Family Circus, 10/13/17

Man, I almost resent how blatantly the “Jeffy will someday experience a psychotic break in which his mind will beg his hands to stop the killing, but they won’t listen” joke is being lobbed my way here, but, whatever: this is what Jeffy’s going to say to the cops in 20 years after he strangles a bunch of people, probably.

Funky Winkerbean, 10/13/17

“I didn’t, though! I died! Of cancer! Don’t forget me, damn it! Don’t forget me or I’ll haunt the shit out of you”

Pluggers, 10/13/17

You’re a plugger if your body is already starting to mold itself to fit perfectly into the piece of furniture where you’re going to die.