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Rex Morgan, M.D., 10/7/04

The avant garde-est of the soap opera strips (in terms of art, of course; surely there’s something avant garde about the recent dog vs. shark battle in Mark Trail) just keeps getting avant garde-ier. Today’s strip starts out normally and then starts getting trippy in panel two: Heather’s disembodied head smiles knowingly as it floats against an abstractly patterned background. Then in panel three, all hell breaks lose. Is it just me, or does June look deeply freaky? Her eyes have ballooned to 12-year-old-anime-girl size, and all her facial features seem pushed forward, focusing on the shiny, shiny object, while one taloned claw reaches out to snatch it. It took me a minute to figure out who she reminded me of — and then I realized that it’s another ring-loving character from fiction:

I also think she kind of looks like a parakeet, but I couldn’t find an appropriate picture by press time. Anyway, the whole thing is pretty weird. Did someone put some PCP in June’s morning coffee?

Bonus observation: in the first panel, Heather is holding her hand in that weird, contorted position typical of newly-engaged women who want to draw attention to their rings without, you know, actually mentioning them — except that it’s the wrong hand. Give her time, she’s new at this.

This week’s alarming search term: “‘Canadian Ballet’ mints”. Classy!

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Panels from: Rex Morgan, M.D., Beetle Bailey, and Blondie, 9/1/04

It’s safe to say that a substantial majority of cartoonists are men; inertia ensures that most of those men are middle aged. I know this because I can see the names on the strips and look up how long they’ve been writing them, but even if all I had to go on was the artwork, I think I could hazard a guess on the gender and age of the artists.

Let’s be blunt: cartoonists like to draw women with big tits. Today we have a bumper crop (so to speak), though it’s by no means far beyond the norm. At one end of the spectrum we have Beetle Bailey’s Miss Buxley (Miss Buxley! C’mon!), who’s drawn with a certain bathroom-wall crudity; there’s Blondie, who sits demurely through her dinner party, stylized, wasp-waisted, and looking like she’s going to tip over forward at any moment; and then we have Rex Morgan’s Heather, caught in photorealistic mid-jiggle, the shadow work on her mid-torso receiving almost as much attention from the artist as Rex’s chin cleft in the previous panel.

Now, I think it’s well-established that a substantial number of literary and artistic geniuses got their start by channeling frustrated sexual energy while in high school. How many great novels have been written varsity-letter quarterbacks? I’m hoping that this is the driving force behind all this buxomness, anyway, and that it isn’t all some incredibly misguided attempt by King Feature Syndicate to compete with Maxim. Heather’s nice looking and all, but I don’t think she’ll be hanging up on the wall of your local auto body shop anytime soon.

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Being away for two weeks only served to show me how little actually happens in two weeks in the soap opera strips. Still, a couple of loyal readers offered amusing summaries of their twists and turns. Brandon, who also goes by the name of “Tournament of stuff,” provides this recap of Rex Morgan, M.D.:

“After surviving a harrowing adventure far more harrowing than anything in Without A Paddle, Rex and June are ready for two things: a shower and some sleep! Something’s troubling June, though, and it’s not just that Rex smells ‘like a goat.’ Alternately too tired to discuss her concerns and too worried by them to go to sleep, June finally reveals that they’ve been neglecting their parental duties. It’s time, they decide in the morning, to fire their nanny. After saying their cheery goodbyes and their thanks to the crew that nearly killed them, Rex and June head home to face the unhappy task that awaits them.”

Brandon also describes himself as “a fan”, as if that sort of ass-kissing is going to get him mentioned in the blog. Oh, wait, it will. Ass-kiss away, people!

Grand prize, though, goes to an anonymous poster who offered a summary of two weeks of Mary Worth — in advance!

“Heck, I can summarize the next two weeks of Mary Worth without needing the strips to be published. Or without even using a verb! (Since nothing ever happens in Mary Worth, verbs are unnecessary.) Wilbur. Iris. Dinner. Breadsticks. Drama. Wilbur’s broken heart.”

Good try, my nameless friend, though even the most faithful Mary Worth fan couldn’t have predicted that the litany should have really looked something like this: “Wilbur. Iris. Dinner. Breadsticks. Drama. My very own meth lab!“