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Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/30/07

So, after three years of doing this site, I’ve discovered The Rex Morgan Problem, which goes something like this: The set-up for each storyline is delightful, but once we get to the climax, my interest suddenly deflates. Rex and Troy’s gay golf game kept me in stitches for hours! But then there was blackmail and SWAT teams and ZZZZZZZ. June and a 12-year-old banter about oral sex! But then there was an attempt to kidnap or kill him or something? YAWN! I’m beginning to suspect that it’s my problem, not the strip’s. Anyway, this is my apology for cutting back on my RMMD coverage just when it got ostensibly “exciting.” See, they found Milton and suddenly Pete the Chauffeur, who has seemed like a good guy all this time, is suddenly fleeing with Heather in tow because … he’s bad? Somehow? And now that Milton is really alive his hopes of being the power behind the throne are dashed? Also, he’s in the NSA? And the Chinese are involved? Maybe? But I don’t really care. Honest to God, can we just go back to June insulting civil servants and Rex being a dick to everyone because an uncomprehending world won’t accept him as he is? Because that’s what I tune in for.

I do like today’s last panel: if Rex were an ordinary protagonist, his implication would be “The cops won’t be able to find him … so I will!” as he drives to Pete’s secret hiding place that only he’s smart enough to discover. But this being Rex, his implication is “So, there’s no hope and we might as well move on,” and his destination is the office. Or Baskin-Robbins.

Family Circus, 8/30/07

This is my favorite kind of Family Circus: the kind where Jeffy is aggressively ignorant. He knows that everyone else in the family thinks he’s a moron — deep down, he probably knows that he is a moron — so he figures he’s just going to make their life difficult with it. Today we have the typical kids-say-the-darndest-things-because-they-treat-idioms-literally schtick, but there’s something about his attitude that says that he knows his little question is going make grandma regret coming over to try to relate to the little rugrats. “Gosh, grandma, how does ‘tight’ relate to sleeping, huh? Are we talking about my bowels? Because mommy says I have to sleep with those tight. What if I sleep loose and poop all over the bed, huh? What if that, huh? Grandma? Huh?”

(oh my god I just admitted that I had a favorite kind of Family Circus I’m screwed now)

Marmaduke, 8/30/07

OK, the MUNCH MUNCH MUCH I can deal with. I get it, the damn dog is chewing his way through bags and probably boxes to devour all of his family’s food before they get a chance to do so, sure, whatever. It’s the LICK LICK that really makes me uncomfortable. I’m assuming that he’s slobbering all over the grocery items that he can’t get down his ravenous gullet — the canned goods, the frozen foods — so that it’s all covered with a thick layer of viscous Great Dane drool. He may not be able to eat it, but he’s going to make sure that it’s so disgusting that his owners won’t want to either, because, fuck you, he’s Marmaduke.

They’ll Do It Every Time, 8/30/07

The Dubbers just love — like, we mean love — their flix with bombings, earthquakes, explosions, train wrecks, etc., etc.

(“Hmm, lotsa shootings in this one … huh, that fella lost an arm … howja think they did all that fake blood, witha computer?”)

But! Let ’em see one li’l nipple … and the whole menagerie is up and at ’em!

(“Awk! Filth! This is disgustin’! And little Hekkie saw it! He’ll be scarred for life … I’m writin’ Senator Blowhard … an outrage … should be able to watch HBO at 10 pm without seeing this garbage …”)

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Spider-Man, 8/14/07

You sort of get the feeling that the final panel is taking place in the Shocker’s tiny studio apartment, and we’re about twenty minutes into this. “Wait, hold on … ‘Look out, world — here comes the Shocker!’ Hmmm … no, I think that’s too much emphasis on the name, sounds egotistical. How about this? “Look out, world … heeeeere’s … the Shocker!’ No, God damn it, that’s derivative and corny. Stupid! So stupid! I’m never going to get this right!”

God bless faithful reader Tabby, who a while back posted a link to the Shocker’s character page at SpiderFan.org. Here are some delicious excerpts:

Real Name: Herman Schultz
Known Confidants: None
Education: Unknown, but probably a high school education
Strength Level: Normal human strength
Powers: None
Limitations: The Shocker has had severe problems with self-doubt.

Ha ha! No powers, no confidants, no super-powers, normal human strength, maybe a high-school diploma, and crippling self-doubt! Truly the creative team dipped deep into the reserves and found the perfect villain for the newspaper iteration of the Spider-Man mythos.

Mark Trail, 8/14/07

Boy, the ladies sure can’t get enough of Mark Trail! And who can blame them, what with his rugged good looks, corpse-like pallor, propensity for violence and vigilantism, disinclination to use contractions, and total disinterest in sex? Sam sure is keen to get with this hunky hunk of man-hunk: she’s even willing to go back to Lost Forest to have a three-way with his disturbing-looking wife while his hideously ugly son takes pictures.

By the way, for those of you who don’t remember the beginning of this interminable storyline, “clean up places that attract birds” is, no fooling, a euphemism for “pave over wetlands so that birds can no longer breed there.” Also, I’m reasonably sure that we’ve seen this spread-eagled squirrel before; a shiny virtual penny to whomever can discover him in the archives.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/14/07

OH MY GOD! ALAN HARRINGTON! THAT’S … wait, are we supposed to know who that is? Damn it, what was the point of introducing us to all those loser board members if the suspect wasn’t even memorable enough to remember?

Apartment 3-G, 8/14/07

COMICS COLORING COURSE, FINAL EXAM:

Q. OK, so you’ve got two characters in your soap opera strip. Both are male, white (of course! Ha ha!) 30s/40s-ish. Both are sandy-haired. So far you’ve managed to avoid having them appear in the strip at the same time, but now narrative logic demands that they meet. What do you do, hotshot? What do you do?

A. Yellow! Very, very yellow!

Eric Mills obviously had the same reddish hair color as Alan as recently as two weeks ago, but it’s worth noting that, when he was introduced last summer, his hair was black. Personally, I think that the process of dating (or “dating”) Margo is slowly but surely sucking the life essence out of him. His hair will be completely white by the end of the year.

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Apartment 3-G, 8/11/07

WOO-HOO, ALAN’S BEATNIK BUDDY IS BACK! If you don’t remember this bad-news countercultural type, check out his first appearance, from more than a year ago. Crazy kick! I don’t know if we knew before today that his name was “Jones,” though. I wonder if this fellow is actually the Archie gang’s resident nonconformist, Jughead Jones, all grown up, who’s traded his first name and his felt crown for a soul patch and a gig dealing weed (“good”) and smack (“bad”).

Momma, 8/11/07

I was going to write a screed about how if you weren’t a dedicated Momma reader, you wouldn’t get the “joke” of today’s strip, which is that Francis doesn’t really have a steady job and so “getting up and going to work” probably means putting in applications or working at one of his various menial but otherwise not particularly stressful jobs and that based on the level of dishevelment in his hovel, you might assume that he did literally work in a salt mine, albeit one with complimentary wake-up calls, and that furthermore this meant that nobody would get the “joke” in today’s Momma because there was no such thing as a dedicated Momma reader, but then I realized that I was a dedicated Momma reader and that I got the “joke” (keeping in mind that “getting” is not the same as “being amused by”). Then I was sad.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/11/07

Good news, everyone! Hugh’s conscious and his histrionics levels are back to normal!

Judge Parker, 8/11/07

All right, Judge Parker, you’ve been waving those things around all week trying to get my attention, so here it is: boobs. BOOBS. Boobs boobily boobs boob. BOOBS. Are you happy now?

Mark Trail, 8/11/07

Speaking of boobs: You’d think that Sam, who’s been through a lot with Mark, would take the lead in thanking him for his help in saving this small-town airport, which help mostly took the form of violence and threats of the same, but it’s her dad who’s doing all the jawing here. Still, in panel three it does sort of appear that she’s about to thank him … visually.

And now, a little something for the ladies…

Gil Thorp, 8/11/07

Legitimate questions were raised about whether yesterday’s crotchtastic Gil Thorp was really as crotchy as all that, or if it was perhaps just the view through Bill Ritter’s boxing gloves. There’s really no doubt today, though. No, sir. That’s quite the crotch shot. Yep.

By the way, if Bill were holding a pack of cigarettes and wearing chaps, panel three would look uncannily like an enormous Marlboro billboard that loomed a mere two blocks from my high school when I was a kid, I swear to God.

The Lockhorns, 8/11/07

Ha! It’s funny because Leroy has a crippling problem with alcohol! Funny!

Beetle Bailey, 8/11/07

Ha! It’s funny because General Halftrack has a crippling problem with alcohol, and is so drunk that he’s managed to intoxicate his golf ball, in defiance of all the laws of biology and physics! Funny!