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Archive: Rex Morgan, M.D.

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I suppose Sarah wasn’t ever friends with mobsters, either

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/26/20

Well, it looks like we’re taking a trip through Retconned Memory Lane, where Melissa Claridge, a recurring character who had appeared in the strip for decades, including as recently as 2012, has now been whittled down to a spectral presence who manifested herself exactly once, to browbeat Rex into forming a heterosexual pair-bond with the last woman with whom he had any sustained interaction, and then vanished into the ether. Next up, apparently: remember the beloved running bit where people just gave Rex and June free stuff for no good reason? Well it’s happening again!

Panels from Hagar the Horrible, 7/26/20

I genuinely love today’s Hagar throwaway panels, in which Hagar essentially orders Lucky Eddie to clamber down a sheer cliff face in order to get the two of them some beers. Eddie’s dubious facial expression really makes it for me.

Panels from Gasoline Alley, 7/26/20

“Also, a hedge fund bought the bankrupt company that owned The Gazette and a bunch of other daily papers in mid-sized cities, and the new executives immediately laid off half the reporters and paid themselves big bonuses, but it’s probably the Little Orphan Annie thing that you’re noticing, sure.”

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Out of the past

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/23/20

Folks, I try to keep you appraised of the deep lore of these strips, but where I fail you, my faithful commenters and your favorite guest blogger Uncle Lumpy will pick up the slack. This stern, mysterious crone who demands that Rex take a mate isn’t just any old lady; she’s Melissa Claridge, who, as Uncle Lumpy explained in a 2012 post, insisted that Rex and June couple up back in the ’70s in first iteration of this storyline in the strip, and also, uh, used to slap around her niece, I guess.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/16/71

She had considerably mellowed by 2012, and had set off a wacky adventure by asking Rex and June to check in on her San Diego condo, which turned out to be full of strippers with hearts of gold. Anyway, she’s back here in her earlier guise, and if she slaps Rex into submission in order to make this love connection happen, I’m not gonna complain.

The Lockhorns, 7/23/20

I’m sure this is just a “ha ha, Leroy hates Loretta’s family” joke, but I’m reasonably sure we’ve never heard about any of the Lockhorns’ relatives before other than Loretta’s hated mother, so another thing I wouldn’t complain about is if she really does have a brother who’s a criminal, and the focus of this strip eventually shifts from Leroy and Loretta’s petty, tiresome domestic squabbles and towards this mysterious brother’s exciting crimes.

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Love is in the air

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/20/20

Ha ha, I assumed this lady was a well-known hospital volunteer or something, but it turns out she’s just a mysterious stranger who’s berating Rex about his romantic ineptitude while he just has to sit there and squirm. Can anyone else even see her? Hey, wait — this is still June’s version of the story — is this her fantasy of why Rex finally gave in and admitted his love for her? The psychosexual dynamics of their marriage are more twisted than even I imagined.

Mark Trail, 7/20/20

Oh ho, it looks like Cherry is about to suggest that this entertainment industry power couple, who are used to five-star accommodations wherever they go, should stay at the Trail family’s rustic cabin! This can only be a prelude to her asking them to swing, which for Cherry means cornering them when Mark is isn’t paying attention and asking them, in an intense whisper, what sex is like. They’re “Hollywood people,” so they’ve probably done sex, right? Anyway, they’re both visibly cringing away from Cherry’s question in panel three, for obvious reasons.

Pluggers, 7/20/20

The joke here is that this plugger spends every dinner mournfully eating the meals his wife prepares for him and dreaming of his mother’s superior cooking, and it doesn’t matter what she makes because she’ll never be good enough, but after years of therapy and two near-divorces he knows better than to verbalize this now, right? This is a “Pluggers Classic” and I swear I commented on it before but I couldn’t find it in my archives, so this may be a repeat joke, but my search wasn’t totally wasted because I found more evidence of the mommy issues that are tearing this mismatched bear-kangaroo couple apart.