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The 2005-06 blogging year (I’m going to start calling it the July 11 to July 10 periods under consideration “blogging years”; hopefully this will be the basis for the new calendar, in the Curmudgeonarchy) was another strong one, soap-opera-wise! There was a great Mark Trail series where evil hillbillies kidnapped Andy, which was a thing that they did on the regular, apparently?

Don’t worry, Mark definitely got some good punching in on that one. Meanwhile, Gil Thorp’s basketball season plot revolved around Ted Pearse, a cool and mysterious new basketball prodigy in town who turned out to be homeless, which prompted fans of rival teams to literally dress up as hobos to taunt him.

(Earlier Ted’s friends pretended he had a terrible disease, to make him feel loved? I don’t really understand sports or how men typically relate to each other, guys.)

But 2005-6 was definitely, definitely the the year of Rex and Troy.

Troy was another doctor who tracked down Rex and they had the flirtiest conversation that ever flirted, which I reproduce here in its entirety:

The flirting continued:

They played some golf, or something, and Rex couldn’t stop talking about it the next day:

Then they played more golf and talked about universal health insurance, and were going to start some do-gooder clinic together, but then, uh, Troy turned out to not be a real doctor and fled town to avoid arrest, the end. Rex had to go back to his sham of a marriage/life, but he will always, always remember.

TOMORROW: Who could possibly top the list of the 2006-07 year out of numerous OK I can’t even finish this, it is Aldo, obviously it is Aldo, but tune in anyway to see the runners up. And if you don’t know who Aldo is, prepare for amazement!

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/29/14

Hahahahahaha Mrs. Pierpont might be a nice old philanthropist with a WASP-y name but it turns out that she was an active participant in organized criminal activities! Her “driver” was presumably a violent mob enforcer, and now will be driving around a kindergartner and her teenage babysitter! Oh, this is rich, rich, and should be great for Sarah’s personal and professional development. “What do you think, Sarah … should I give it to them?” she’ll be asking again in a few weeks, only this time it’ll be about whether she should gun down two members of a rival gang in a dark alley.

Funky Winkerbean, 6/29/14

Hahahahahaha they’re actually calling the movie version of this nonsense Lust for Lisa! This was mentioned in the strip immediately after this one, which I didn’t bother mentioning because I figured it was just a terrible one-off joke and we’d never hear about it again, but turns out nope! Turns out hilariously, hilariously nope. Anyway, if they’re still looking for a sexxxy direction to take this in, I suggest this classic Shortpacked strip.

Momma, 6/29/14

Hahahahahaha … no wait, this comic is about how a mother and son are meeting just after the son’s latest casual sexual encounter, much to their mutual disgust, it’s not funny or laughable at all :(

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Beetle Bailey, 6/27/14

I love the way Mrs. Halftrack’s expression of forced gaiety collapses the moment Miss Buxley asks her question. I’m not sure if she was genuinely if briefly happy that something pertaining to her husband could be spun as a positive and that good feeling was genuinely deflated when she had to provide details, or if she’s just slipped into her usual sour mode of marital misanthropy but is secretly pleased to be undermining her husband in public. My guess is the latter, and since she probably views Miss Buxley as a romantic rival based on the General’s delusional reports, she’s all the more excited to relay stories of his terrible incontinence.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/27/14

How quickly Kelly’s facial expression changes from “[DOLLAR SIGNS IN EYEBALLS]” to a wistful “Oh, so … it was that easy, then?” Sorry, Kelly: like Sarah, you’re discovering that life in the Morgans’ orbit means unearned riches, which sounds great until you realize that no pile of cash can fill the space inside where personal pride is supposed to go. She might be reflecting on the irony involved here: this whole journey to becoming Sarah’s blackmail victim/personal assistant/project manager began with her getting a ride on Niki’s motorcycle, and now she doesn’t need Niki or any human affection anymore, because she has Mrs. Pierpont’s limousine and “Bugsy”.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 6/27/14

Man, women, always going for literary bad boys, am I right?