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Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/10/25

Even as I age, I stick to one of my core values, which is that nostalgia is, ultimately, a poison, a way to project your discontent onto an imagined past that includes only your hazy, positive memories and none of the very real problems present in any historical period. Still, I recognize its fundamental appeal. Wouldn’t it be great to live in a time when professionals would be addressed in a friendly way by a shorthand nickname based on their well-respected job — “Teach,” “Padre,” and such? And wouldn’t it be great to live in a time when a high school teacher could spend so much time at the bar that the bouncers there would be like “Oh, that guy? The one who’s here so often that you easily recognize him? He’s a high school teacher, and no, I don’t really know how he can get up in the morning in time to get to class, given how much he drinks here every night.”

Herb and Jamaal, 2/10/25

Speaking of nostalgia, remember Herb and Jamaal, the strip I used to talk about mostly to make fun of its extreme nonspecificity? I let it drop off my rotation a while back due to [some throat-clearing here to gloss over how I get access to comic strips in such a way that allows me to have each post written and published by around 4 am every day and sometimes accidentally earlier] but now I’ve gotten another source on them, and the big question is: are our heroes still telling cutting-edge jokes about what’s going in the present day? The answer, surprisingly, is yes! Just as I’ve found new sources for comics access, Herb and Jamaal have dug into the informal supply chain and acquired one (1) egg, a precious commodity in our current H5N1-afflicted hellscape! Unfortunately, given that the two of them run a restaurant together, this seems like it’s not going to scale up in a way that will be helpful to them.

Dick Tracy, 2/10/25

I hate to admit it, but I couldn’t really get into the Dick Tracy fights the neo-Nazis storyline that’s wrapping up now — fights quite literally, as all the bruises on Dick and Sam’s faces will tell you. Having tuned out, I’m honestly not sure who “himself,” sitting at the bar and enjoying a healthy lettuce sandwich on white bread while he plies our lawmen and -women with a gelatinous nacho blob, is supposed to be. Should we recognize him from the story so far? Is he some new character heralding the next adventure? Is he Michael Kilian himself, the bar owner, or possibly Michael Kilian himself, the guy who used to write Dick Tracy until he died in 2005, paving the way for the truly deranged Locher era? More on this as it develops, if I can maintain my attention span for it, which I probably can’t.

Family Circus, 2/10/25

Look, I’m not saying that “become a radfem separatist and eject all boys from the Keane Kompound” is the correct reading of the King James translation of the Lord’s Prayer, but I’m willing to wait and see where exactly Dolly is going with this.

Shoe, 2/10/25

Roz’s diner in Shoe is on the receiving end of a trope that generally rubs me the wrong way, which is “This is the place where the characters hang out all the time, but they also talk shit constantly about how bad it is, and they’re really mean-spirited about it.” But if Roz really strikes up conversations with her customers by saying things like “So, you’re gonna die soon. Are you being irresponsible about it?” then maybe her naysayers have a point.

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Hagar the Horrible, 2/6/25

I think the joke here is supposed to be “Lucky Eddie, who is notoriously soft and weak, is a cat guy,” and as a cat guy I’m not going to take the bait. I am going to point out that, as depicted in the strip, Lucky Eddie is much less a cat guy (are there really any running jokes about him liking cats?) as a fish guy, or more precisely a fish–lady guy. Which leads me to ask: what’s his mermaid girlfriend’s bathroom situation like? In the strip where they’re hanging out together and she’s floating in a fish tank, is the fish tank the equivalent of her litter box? Much to think about, if you like thinking about mermaids peeing and pooping, and I apologize because you probably don’t actually like thinking about that and it may be that I did get mad about the cat thing and took the bait a little bit.

Blondie, 2/6/25

Do you like those odds, Elmo? Because I don’t, actually. I mean, I think the set of pizza ingredient combos that anyone would want to eat are relatively limited and covered by the standard menus at most pizza places, and we don’t need to go that far beyond the limits. If you want to explore the possibilities of “infinite kinds” of pizza and call up some hapless restaurant and say “Yeah, gimmie a pizza with [spins wheel] bakelite crust, tomato sauce, and [spins wheel again] deuterium” be my guest, but I don’t think you’ll enjoy the results.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/6/25

Yeah, what is the deal? What the heck is the deal with Rex Morgan, exactly, or just, like, the deal in general? I for one would like to know! Like, really, earnestly, please explain the deal to me. Glad to see we’re getting to the bottom of what the deal is, finally.

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The Phantom, 2/2/25

A fun thing about The Phantom (the comic strip) is that it’s one of the oldest superhero franchises, and the Phantom (the character) hasn’t really changed much since the strip launched during FDR’s first term, so he recognizably fits into the “superhero” slot in our collective understanding of the word but one of his primary “superpowers” is “shoots guns”. The current Sunday storyline is sort of a Phantom: Origins flashback, showing what the current Phantom’s Phantom ancestor was up to during the Moroccan invasion of the Songhai Empire in the 1590s. Turns out what he was up to was using his “shoots guns” superpower, even then! Hey kids, you want to see a guy get shot in the chest, right here in the newspaper? It’s OK, it’s, uh, old-timey.

Curtis, 2/2/25

Don’t panic, Curtis! All you have to do is create a Wikipedia page for “Toby Wilkins,” complete with plausible-looking citations, before Mrs. Nelson gets home tonight! Admittedly that doesn’t really sound like something that’d be in your skill set, now that I think about it. Seems to be more like a Barry thing to be honest. Should’ve been nicer to your brother, Curtis! I personally would not quickly whip up a bogus Wikipedia page to help a guy who calls me “troll” on the regular.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/2/25

Your nephew’s band? Is it a roots country band??? We haven’t seen any roots country action in this strip since November, I’m starting to panic