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Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/5/08

Oh, Rex Morgan, M.D.! You send us into the weekend with a double dose of delight! Should we snicker at the image of Rex headed down to the docks this evening, offering up his middle-class body to the rough affections of those salty sailors, just off the boat and ready for action? Or should we giggle at the thought of Lenore tying Rex to the bedposts in the “captain’s cabin,” demonstrating just the sort of submissive attitude she demands of her cabin boys? Darn it, this is America, where you can have it all, so I choose both.

Ziggy, 9/5/08

Ha ha, remember a few months ago, when Ziggy picked up a seashell and got a virus alert? Or three weeks ago, when he picked up a seashell and discovered that it was a podcast? Well, uh, it turns out that today it’s a push poll. What will it be tomorrow? Tune in to Ziggy to find out!

Herb and Jamaal, 9/5/08

Every once in a while, I think, “Do I make fun of Herb and Jamaal a little too much for being nonspecific.” Then I see stuff like this and think “No, no I don’t.” Now see here, Herb and Jamaal: I know that thirty years from now, we might use something entirely different to remove hair from whatever surface future fashion dictates be depilated, so you might try to just deploy some generic and nonexistent word that means “object that shaves” to avoid any future anachronism, but: they’re called “razors.” Razors, damn you. Razors.

Oh, it’s also called “cripplingly strict adherence to prescribed gender constructs even when they interfere with your everyday life.”

Gil Thorp, 9/5/08

So it turns out that the aforementioned athletics-kiboshing ailment is [music sting] a HEART CONDITION! I wonder how Matt’s heart will hold up when he finds out his girlfriend is a seven-foot tall drag queen named “Candy LaChance.”

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My Cage, 9/4/08, and New Adventures of Queen Victoria, 9/3/08

I never claimed to be some kind of paragon of integrity or anything, so, here you go, comics artists: if you mention me by name in your strip, I will acknowledge it in my blog, because I’m a whore like that, though sometimes I’ll be a day late. This is the New Adventures of Queen Victoria, a pleasingly wacky vaguely-historically-themed public-domain-clip-art-based strip that is on the GoComics site (and maybe in newspapers?). It’s usually not as meta as this installment, though you know I love meta. It’s far enough away from the traditional daily strips that I mock here to get regular attention, but I did finally pop it into my RSS reader. Take a look, won’t you?

Speaking of meta, the characters in My Cage are coming perilously close to recognizing their own fictional nature. Hopefully it’s not my site serving as the locus of their eternal torment when the Cartoonists turn their back on them.

Family Circus, 9/4/08

Speaking of those rejected by their Creator, we have Jeffy desperately trying to get the attention of the benevolent God that he still believes to exist, despite the evidence of his own torment. It doesn’t matter how loud you shout, Jeffy! You’re always going to have to debase yourself with awful puns and wear the hideous purple union suit, because that is His inscrutable plan.

Apartment 3-G, 9/4/08

And speaking of whores, Apartment 3-G continues its policy of darkly hinting at the lows to which drug abuse can bring you without actually spelling anything out. “Time to get out there and make some money … at my job as a middle manager in the accounts receivable department of a mid-sized corporation! Oh, there’s no level of depravity I won’t stoop to so I can get some more of that sweet, sweet dope!”

Herb and Jamaal, 9/4/08

You’ve probably missed it what with all the nonspecificity rampant in this strip, but the place where Herb and Jamaal crack vaguely wise with one another each day is a soul food restaurant that they own and operate together. Thus, the fact that Herb has dragged his ennui-inducing diet lunch to the restaurant to eat ought to tell you something about the stuff that our dynamic duo serve to their customers. “I mean, a carrot and juice is pretty bland, but God knows I’m not eating the horror that we cook here. I’d be dead of colon cancer within the week.”

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/4/08

A casual observer might think that Rex and June are gently mocking Lenore in this exchange, but longtime RMMD readers know that they’re actually seeing who can inflict the most passive-aggressive wound on the other here. June taunting Rex with the prospect of sex with a woman, Rex boasting of his future “cabin boy” antics … good times. I have no idea what Rex’s plan for that thing in his right hand in the third panel is, and I’m not sure I want to know. The best we can hope for is that he’s going to stab himself in the throat to end his misery.

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Gil Thorp, 9/2/08

Wait … in panel two … is that … YES! COACH KAZ’S EARRINGS ARE BACK! COACH KAZ’S EARRINGS ARE BACK! This, along with the shadowy figure lurking in the back of the equipment shed (no doubt with an axe) has me so excited that I’m willing to forgive the fact that in panel three we’re being shown word balloons emerging randomly out of GYM rather than some kind of crazy homoerotic mass “group physical” featuring dozens of teenage boys and the author of I Know This Much Is True.

By the way, any guesses on the Very Special Affliction that is keeping some player to be named later off of this year’s gridiron squad? Scabies? Testicular cancer? Bighandulism?

Funky Winkerbean, 9/2/08

Thank goodness for my faithful commentors, who informed us all that Susan Smith Westbrook was the student who pre-time-jump fell in love with mopey Les for some reason and tried to kill herself when he didn’t return her mopey advances. Naturally this strip will be completely baffling to anyone who isn’t privy to this information, even if, like me, they’ve been following Funky Winkerbean faithfully for the last three years. Anyway, Susan’s thousand-mile stare in panel three promises more psychotic hijinks to come. She looks like she’s spent most of her life fleeing across Darfur one step ahead of genocidal militias — or, you know, like she’s a character in Funky Winkerbean.

Archie, 9/2/08

At first I was going to guess that “SHOOOM! KA-BLAM!” represented Archie ka-blamming in his pants as he finally gets to first base with Veronica. But on closer inspection of panel three, I think that’s a transcription of the noises his spine makes as he attempts to twist around for optimal out-making while keeping his crotch pointed firmly away from his partner, as the strict puritan movie theater rules demand.

Mary Worth, 9/2/08

“Easy for you to say … since you’re sitting in front of a computer … and can just do exactly what you described with the touch of a button … oh, God, this so so horrible!” [uncontrollable sobbing, etc.]

Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/2/08

“Yes, she’s a desperate, lonely old woman, possibly in the early stages of dementia! Better cash that check before someone responsible gets wind of it!”