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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.

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Slylock Fox, 3/15/17

Wow, some hard truths about animals being laid down here, including the hard truth that owls … are actually kind of dumb? I bet the post-animalpocalypse regime will come to feel bad staffing its entire legal system with owls, then. Just another human superstition they should’ve rejected! Also, it mysteriously seems that the very smart crows never appear in Slylock Fox, at least not in any of the strips in my archive. We can only assume that the Event that granted all the animals sapience made the crows super-intelligent, and they all built spaceships and went to a different, better planet, or maybe transcended their physical bodies and became creatures of pure mind.

Shoe, 3/15/17

Ha ha, yes, it’s funny because Loon’s butt froze, but I have to question what prompted the question in the first place. The Perfesser is just reading the financial section of the newspaper, and thinks, “Huh, you know who seems like a criminal who probably had a warrant taken out against him to ensure that he couldn’t use any of his ill-gotten resources to continue his illegal activities? My friend and co-worker over here!”

Mary Worth, 3/15/17

Dr. Jeff has been taking some time off from his busy schedule of going to the Bum Boat with Mary and trying and failing to get her to marry him to nurse his bad knee at his daughter and son-in-law’s house, so surely he’ll understand when Mary decides to take time off from going to the Bum Boat with Dr. Jeff and rejecting his marriage proposals to go on a fun, sexy cruise with Tobey! And screw the column! Nobody gives a shit about the column! Let nothing stand in the way of this glorious plotline!

Blondie, 3/15/17

Neither Alexander nor Cookie know what “flash in the pan” means. Sad!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/15/17

[long, increasingly awkward silence]

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Mark Trail, 3/13/17

Hey, parents: if your kid asks for $60,000 so they can get an MFA in film from USC or whatever, be aware that probably the best job they can get upon graduation is running black-footed ferret and prairie dog surveys out in South Dakota’s tornado alley.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 3/13/17

Oh, hey, were you worried that Sarah’s amnesia was going to interfere with her schooling? Well, don’t fret: Welton Green may talk a big game about assessing talent and intellect, but as long as your check clears, they don’t really give a shit about things that don’t involve your check clearing.

The Lockhorns, 3/13/17

Leroy’s boss hasn’t bothered him in a week, because he murdered his boss and left his corpse to putrefy right there in his cube!