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Archive: Rex Morgan, M.D.

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If you can read this, you’re not Crankshaft (if it’s before, I think, the ’90s?)

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Crankshaft, 2/23/18

True ‘Shaft-heads remember one of the early heart-rending Crankshaft storylines, where we learned that Ed Crankshaft, who we had all assumed was just a grumpy old asshole who shouldn’t have a job working with children or indeed any part of the public, was actually a grumpy old asshole who also happened to be illiterate. But he heroically learned to read as an adult, which gives him license to harangue little kids like this one, who as near as we can tell is perfectly capable of reading written English but prefers not to read books or other printed matter as a leisure activity, which is not the same thing at all! Also instead of talking about the archaic sport of “baseball” he should probably talk about, I dunno, Mario Kart or something. What I’m trying to say is that Crankshaft might have learned, with great effort, to read, but he still hasn’t learned out to read the room, ha ha!

Dennis the Menace, 2/23/18

Word to the wise, Dennis: affecting a sort of aggressively ignorant contempt towards technology can convey a certain menacing vibe. Just admitting that you’re a straight-up moron very much does not.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/23/18

So … not great, then?

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Thursday quick takes

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Hi and Lois, 2/22/18

I’ve always understood the “mood” in “mood music” to be arousal, and that the point of “mood music” is to get one or more parties in the “mood” for sex. So I’m sad to report that Hi has so lost his sense of joie de vivre that he now needs musical assistance to follow through with one of his great joys in life: jerking off to Golf magazine and then falling asleep on the couch.

Mary Worth, 2/22/18

I guess we’re going to do this thing where Mary and Ted continue to talk as if they’re having a normal business conversation while Mary slowly but methodically shatters all the bones in his wrist, and I frankly am here for it!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/22/18

Literally this entire week of Rex Morgan, M.D., has been a bunch of teenagers talking about eating lunch, so you’d think by the time they finally got to the climactic panel where a teen bites into a sandwich, they’d be ready to make it look like a normal human would look biting into a fully edible sandwich made of normal sandwich materials. Turns out nope!

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“Are you still here? I said thank you, that’s your damn cue”

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Crankshaft and Funky Winkerbean, 2/17/18

For once, the decade-long Funkyverse chronological disjunction actually comes into play with today’s strips! In Crankshaft we see Comicszone, a local retailer that was unable to survive in the face of competition from online retailers who could offer the same products with more convenience and less overhead. In Funky Winkerbean, taking place a decade later, we see a key strategy deployed by those brick-and-mortar businesses that survived: transforming stores from mere places to purchase goods into sites for community building and in-person experiences.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/17/18

Sarah has clearly internalized the classic three-part thank-you-note structure for kids — (1) thank the gift giver, (2) make a specific reference to the gift given, (3) make a reference to future social interactions you’ll have with the gift giver — and stripped it down to its bare essence to deploy in face-to-face scenarios and make them as efficient as possible.

Beetle Bailey, 2/17/18

Do … war games generally involve firing massive live artillery rounds? Regardless, I’m not sure what the “joke” in today’s strip is supposed to be, unless it’s “General Halftrack can’t experience joy in the absence of alcohol, ha ha!”