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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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Pluggers, 2/13/24

Wow, I feel like the backstory that lead up to today’s Pluggers is even grimmer than usual. Chicken-lady is thrusting this inoffensive but uninspiring plate at her husband, her facial expression seemingly indicating that she’s drunk or angry or confused or maybe all three, belligerently telling him he can shove it up his ass if he doesn’t like it; dog-man’s eyes are wide with shock, as he gingerly reaches out to grab the plate before she erupts. The way they’re both standing in the middle of this room implies that he’s going to take the plate somewhere else, as they retreat to different corners of the house to have dinner in wounded silence. Take it or leave it! Ha ha!

Shoe, 2/13/24

A fun fact is that Shoe and Pluggers were created by Jeff MacNelly, who worked for much of his career at the Chicago Tribune, so I guess it makes sense that Shoe would be a Cubs fan, even though we’ve seen no evidence that sleepy Treetops is a bird-world analogue of Chicago or that baseball even exists in the bird-ruled Shoeniverse. This also just could be something the doctor is saying passive-aggressively, though; if he doesn’t have the nerve to tell Shoe not to smoke cigars in his office, he definitely doesn’t have the nerve to tell him that his high blood pressure has been caused by all those cigars he smokes constantly.

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Gasoline Alley, 2/12/24

Good (?) news, everybody: Slim didn’t freeze to death in his car, and it turns out that the supposed “love note” his wife found was from his granddaughter, so everything’s fine! Or … is it? The newspaper and TV are telling them something unbelievable. Probably something about how the martyred Abraham Lincoln’s memory is being used to promote a sale on sofa beds or Toyotas or something, as panel two hints.

Family Circus, 2/12/24

A friend of mine had a kid who used to just describe strangers to them in public, e.g., “You’re bald,” “You’re short,” etc., and when my friend told her she couldn’t do that because it was rude, she just started looking people in the eye and saying “I’m not allowed to name you.” Anyway, most of the darnedest thing saying in the Family Circus is pretty stupid, but “you have a beard but you just have a face” is the sort of genuinely off-putting thing a child Jeffy’s age might actually say and I frankly think this strip should do more like it.

Shoe, 2/12/24

It’s good to see the Perfesser has finally realized he doesn’t have any loved ones, not Skyler or anyone else, who care enough about him to plan or pay for his funeral, so if he doesn’t want to just get dumped in the river, he’s got to put something together himself. Will tacos be enough to get his various vague acquaintances, like Roz and the guy who fixes his car, to show up? Only one way to find out, though I guess he’ll never really know for sure.