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Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/26/21

“Say,” you’re almost certainly wondering, “What’s going on with Rex Morgan’s True Tales Of The Newly Diabetic Lifestyle?” What’s going on is that Mindy made a diabetic-friendly breakfast of delicious frittatas and Buck has declared that he will never, ever deviate from the program again. So everything’s fine! Everyone’s happy and well adjusted! So happy and well adjusted that Mindy completely bites the head off of her stepson for making an extremely mild joke about diabetes. Welp, I guess there’s no underlying emotional issues at play here and we can move on to whatever storyline is next in this strip! Enjoy your healthy frittatas, everyone.

Marvin, 2/26/21

I have zero interest in engaging in the actual content of this strip, but I do want to say that Jeff staring heavy-lidded at his laptop, numb to the world around him, as if hypnotized by the steady tap-tap-tap of his own fingers on the keys, is something that I find distressingly relatable.

Dennis the Menace, 2/26/21

Look how pleased Alice looks! Dennis has finally mastered the concept of metaphors, which means she and Henry can finally talk shit about their friends in front of him without him unknowingly repeating their shit-talk and making social encounters awkward! Unless … he’s known how metaphors work all this time, and is actually just an asshole? More on this story as it develops.

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Family Circus, 2/19/21

I’m not too proud to admit that I’m extremely terrified of my brain slowly (or perhaps not so slowly) dulling as I age, and so when I’m confronted with something like today’s Family Circus, which like all Family Ciruses seems simple enough but which today I nevertheless cannot quite parse — well, I start to worry. Like, Jeffy’s “too” implies that he’s reacting to something, but what exactly? Ma Keane telling him that she can’t carry him because she’s tired? But the “nobody is carrying ME” part would only make sense if someone was carrying her. Does he want to be carried like the boxes from her shopping trip? Does … does Jeffy think the boxes are tired? Anyway, all that aside, you know I enjoy a good Jeffy meltdown, and I like the composition of the panel, with Jeffy kind of hidden from the hustle and bustle of the street by this wall. Nobody can see him, Thel. You could just start walking away, and then keep walking. Nobody would ever know. Nobody would ever know.

[UPDATE: ah ha yes Thel is the one delivering the line, actually, the puddingification of my brain is proceeding apace]

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/19/21

So after Buck binged on fast food and had to do some mild exercise to fix his blood sugar, and then he got very mildly and passive-aggressively sassed by his nutritionist, he seems to have resigned himself to his fate. And, look, I slag on Buck a lot here, because I consider him unlikeable and irritating, but that said I find his current predicament extremely relatable! I don’t have a great diet and I like greasy fried food in (what I tell myself is) moderation, and so I truly feel the pathos in his facial expression in panel one as he contemplates what might constitute a “tasty diabetic-friendly chicken recipe” and whether a swift death as he rides the high of an insulin spike would be preferable.

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The Lockhorns, 2/13/21

Based on their relatively modest tract home and Leroy’s rail commute and his Jets and Mets fandom, I’ve long assumed that the Lockhorns was an inhabitant of Long Island. However, today’s panel makes me think that perhaps they actually live in the part of New Jersey just across the river from Manhattan, as the Garden State is one of the few that have statewide elections in odd-numbered years; they could also live in New York City itself, which is gearing up for a mayoral campaign this year, although their suburban lifestyle woud only make this likely if they lived on Staten Island or maybe in outermost Queens. Anyway, the best thing going on here is that Loretta has made the mailman stand in the doorway while she assesses her mail in terms of what it means for her marriage, and his numb, resigned facial expression tells us that this is definitely not the first time this has happened.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/13/21

“What do you think the answer to that question is?” is a stereotypical bit of therapist-speak because much of the point of talk therapy is to get the patient to really self-reflect and understand their own mind and emotional state. I feel like when you’re a nutritionist, though, your job is really to just deliver straightforward information about what patients should and shouldn’t do? Just tell him not to eat an entire 1,600 calorie fast food meal in one sitting, lady! That’s what he’s paying you for!