Archive: Rex Morgan, M.D.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/15/24

Welp, I guess we’ve finally wrung all the narrative content we can out of Rene getting extremely injured and also involuntarily reunited with his beloved hated family, so it’s time for a … thrilling new adventure! The last storyline didn’t get into medical stuff too much (other than the aforementioned terrible injury at the end), so I’m excited to see that this strip has the guts to tackle the important question of whether microwave ovens beam CIA mind control rays into your brain to keep you subdued and compliant. You should be heating that coffee up over an open fire like our primitive ancestors did, Count! Or at least wear your tinfoil skullshield!

Shoe 2/15/24

The Perfesser is, of course, very depressed, possibly the most depressed out of all the depressed bird-men of Shoe. It’s particularly sad that the only way he can feel pleasure anymore is to taunt someone else who’s feeling down. Look at his face in that first panel! “Oh, is someone nearby sad for a specific reason, rather than just suffocating under the crushing weight of generalized ennui? Well, do I have a bon mot for him!”

Mary Worth, 2/15/24

Speaking of depression, this is a pretty grim look at Keith’s inner life right now. He used to be a guy with a family, who earned fun meals like pizza and root beer! Now he’s alone again, and all he deserves is bacon, eggs, and black coffee. Also Mary’s about to show up at his door, and that’s not going to help.

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Crock, 2/11/24

You know, some days I open up the ol’ comics in my newspaper web browser and think, “After all these years on this blog, do I truly have anything new to say?” But then I realize that Crock contains one of the many Crockian elements that annoy me — the tendency to generically call all the enlisted men under Crock’s command “trooper” — and I finally take the initiative go look up the names of the ranks in the French Foreign Legion and discover that, in fact, their equivalent of a private is given the rank of “légionnaire.” Why wouldn’t they be calling them this in this strip? You’re the only newspaper comic strip set in the French Foreign Legion, please lean into it! Why else do you think people are even reading you? Trust me, it’s not for the jokes.

Six Chix, 2/11/24

“Wait, why is this guy green?” you’re probably asking, like a simpleton. Uh, hello? Some sicko in San Francisco just removed his head from his neck, and then removed his neck entirely, and then affixed his head directly to his shoulders? My dude definitely died during that process, which is why, just like the classic Universal Pictures design of Frankenstein’s Monster, he’s green, because that’s what color a shambling collection of rotting corpse parts is. Can’t believe I still have to explain this to you people.

Panels from Beetle Bailey, 2/11/24

Something extremely sinister is happening in the throwaway panels of Beetle Bailey. “I’m so close to convincing the platoon that the world is slowly dying and the only solution is mass suicide. Hopefully they won’t notice — ah, damn it! Curse Zero’s eternal optimism and functioning clock!”

Dick Tracy, 2/11/24

Aw, looks like Sam’s gone back to visit his old popski at the family diner. And just in time to keep his dad from poisoning yet another one of his customers!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/11/24

“I never could’ve imagined this outcome. It’s wild, huh? Surprises? Arbitrary revelations for which no groundwork has been laid? This is what people enjoy in narrative, right? They find this satisfying?”

Mary Worth, 2/11/24

Oh, no! Sonia isn’t Keith’s daughter after all! Who could’ve possibly predicted? Oh, right, all of us. Obviously what’s going to happen is that Keith isn’t going to tell anybody this and will just continue to treat Sonia as the daughter he never knew because That’s What A Hero He Is, but I think it would be very funny if today’s quote is a hint that his emotional devastation is going to lead to a mescaline binge.

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Six Chix, 2/7/24

I said my piece a while back about why I’m not the biggest fan of cartoons about hell, but you know me: I can’t resist looking at a comic and thinking about the world-building, even in cases, like this one, where the world is hell. I’m kind of intrigued by the fact that the dude on the left here has one puff of chest hair on his otherwise smooth torso. Do the souls of the damned continually regrow their body hair, only to have it burn painfully off now and then as the temperature of the hellfire varies at random?

Pluggers, 2/7/24

This is a pretty subpar Pluggers in the sense that the plugger in the panel isn’t contributing to an overall joke or even giving us any new information over and above what’s in the caption. Feel like the dog-man should either be saying something jokey like “I want you to have my Lawrence Welk albums if I don’t make it” or just going all out with “They’re going to gut me like a fish, Bob! No, I’m not going to calm down!”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/7/24

“Your nephew? Your nephew!?! You’re telling me that if your sibling has a son, that person is considered part of your family, and there’s even a special word you use to identify them? Holy shit, this changes everything.