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Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/5/17

The extremely slo-mo amnesia-driven retconning of Sarah Morgan, which is so very slo-mo that it only serves to highlight the fact that the retconning is happening, continues apace, and I guess we’re going to keep discovering how far back a year of comic strip time actually goes. Say, remember like three years ago in real-world time, when Sarah caught her babysitter Kelly fooling around with her boyfriend, and used that discovery to blackmail her into servitude? Sarah doesn’t! Sarah doesn’t remember it at all! Sarah can’t understand why all the adults around her treat her with mingled fear and disgust!

Gasoline Alley, 4/5/17

If I had to say what Gasoline Alley’s mission is, I guess it would be to relentlessly promote folksiness in all its forms, including folksy expressions that nobody ever says, like “It takes 50¢ to get you started and $5.00 to make you stop!” But the lady at the far right of the second panel is taking this far too literally. Reg hasn’t even started yet but she’s already implying that she would pay a handsome sum just to get him to shut up! It’s like tipping a stripper, only instead of showing appreciation for Reg’s dancing prowess and hot body, the only thing she “appreciates” is Reg not talking any more! Seems kind of rude, in my opinion.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/27/17

Haha, well, with June’s suggested plan that Heather fulfill her dreams of motherhood by seducing her manservant foiled by her impending departure to the Old Country without him, we now come to an entirely different set of calculations. I hereby apologize for mocking the new, retooled Rex Morgan, M.D., for making its medical plots about snoozeville issues like sleep apnea and dehydration, since it now appears to be wading into the complex ethical issues over whether a person with dementia can be said to be capable of giving sexual consent. Unless Milton’s medications makes him, um — how can I put this …. prone to masturbating in the hallway, or just wherever he happens to be in the house. Then the whole issue is really just a matter of dexterity on Heather’s part.

Pluggers, 3/27/17

Since pluggers are usually depicted as being mournfully resigned to their lot, no matter how dire, it’s actually a little heartening to see this late-middle-aged dog-man so worked up about something that I too find extremely irritating. Still, I don’t think we need to encourage pluggers to start venting years of built-up simmering rage, especially now that I know that many of them are armed and ready to stab something, anything, whatever will make them feel powerful and alive again.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/19/17

I get why a new writer might want to retool a long-running strip a bit, especially when it comes to a character who, through a long series of choices that might’ve individually made sense, became an art prodigy at a prestigious private school who’s bankrolled by a mob widow and chauffeured about by said mob widow’s brutal enforcer. Still, it seems like the best approach would probably be to rip off the band-aid quickly; I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the strip that got it right was Newspaper Spider-Man, which was coerced by its corporate parent into going along with the comic book continuity’s One More Day storyline in which Peter’s marriage to MJ was erased from history by a demon (no, really), and so introduced the shift in the most half-assed way possible: by just straight-up announcing it with no further explanation beyond a wall of text telling us, “yeah, this is what we’re doing now.” Then, when it turned out everyone hated this idea, a new wall of text was like “oh, yeah it was all a dream, sorry y’all.” I’m not saying Rex Morgan should be quite that blatant about it, but honestly the more they dwell on changing up Sarah’s character, the more obvious the grinding gears are. Just send her to public school! It’ll be fine! We won’t even notice, probably!

By the way, June saying “I don’t recall you being close friends with any of those kids” is one of the coldest things I’ve ever seen a comic strip mom say to her too-smart-for-her-age socially weird daughter. That’s also big talk from someone who has exactly one friend, her erstwhile nanny, who is decamping for England after June suggested she have an affair with a household employee, so as to acquire his seed.

Marvin, 3/19/17

I don’t know if Sunday Marvin strips have always referred to its repugnant title character as “the playpen philosopher” and I’m just now noticing, or if this is a recent attempt to rebrand the hated baby. Either way, I’m disappointed that there’s no philosophy in today’s strip, though I suppose responding to your father’s unconditional affection with disgust is “philosophical” compared to, say, smugly announcing that you reek of shit and piss.