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Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/16/16

I’m going to warn you, in case you ever meet me in person: I’m terrible with names. I’ll meet someone, maybe on multiple occasions, and I’ll have lots of positive interactions with them, and I’ll remember all sorts of details about their life that they’ve told me, but for whatever reason the name doesn’t stick, and it eventually gets to the point where it’s too embarrassing to ask. Once, during my ill-starred time in grad school, I was in a seminar with a new student, and one day a friend and I were hanging around the department office when this new guy spotted us and started walking towards us, and my heart dropped because I couldn’t for the life of me remember his name, and I knew that the rules of propriety demanded that I introduce my friend to him, and when he came up to us I literally started saying “Hey, this is–” having no idea how I was going to finish that sentence, when suddenly the new guy cut me off and said, “Don’t bother,” and proceeded to tell us, with relish, how grad school was a sham and he was quitting to join a dot-com startup. He walked off and it was one of the greatest feelings of relief I ever had or would experience. Anyway, I have to imagine that this is how Rex felt, as he opens the conversation about tuition in panel one. Obviously he has to bring it up, he knows this is a private school, he’s no dummy, but surely … I mean, not Sarah … not the Morgans … they can’t expect us to dirty our hands … oh, Sarah’s tuition is paid for forever by blood-soaked mob cash? Excellent! What could possibly go wrong?

Six Chix, 1/16/16

Ha ha, it’s funny because that alien is alive and sapient and then we watch the cat straight up murder and eat it.

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I wrote a novel called The Enthusiast, and you can buy it! If you like this blog, I think you’ll dig it. Check out the first chapter, then buy:

• The hardcover or softcover edition for $25 or $15
• The ebook edition for $8, which includes files for all devices
• And if the mood strikes, you can put some money in my tip jar

This is probably the last day you can order it and be sure it’ll arrive in time for Christmas, so get those orders in soon. Thank you very much!

Momma, 12/18/15

I love that Momma is getting eye-poppingly furious about Francis’s inadequacies while she’s reading the newspaper, which is presumably full of material not all related to her youngest son’s employment or marital status. I’m genuinely curious as to what triggered this episode. “Terrorists … murderers … corrupt politicians … and almost all of them have jobs and families! How dare Francis do this to me? How dare he?”

Crankshaft, 12/18/15

Did you want to spend the weekend thinking about Crankshaft’s painfully swollen anus? Well, too bad, because now you’re going to anyway!

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 12/18/15

Mary Beth is sad that her little brother is already absorbing and conforming to the particularly toxic construct of masculinity that prevails in Hootin’ Holler.

Six Chix, 12/18/15

Hmm, how can we reboot the Santa mythos to make it more in tune with today’s audiences? Add an elf who gets the job done by just straight-up murdering people? OK!

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The Phantom, 12/1/15

Whoa, all this time the Phantom has been trying to bully his son into heroism and suggesting he should go to Tibet for a years-long monastery education, like Phantoms past, but it turns out he spent his youth at some fancy New York boarding school! I don’t actually care about that one way or the other; I mostly am amused by the fact that (a) the Ghost Who Feels A Need To Project Patriarchal Authority sits on his massive Skull Throne when having family discussions and (b) has Box 7 at the Mawitaan post office. I mean, he’s a series of men who’ve been pretending to be the same deathless hero for multiple centuries. Who do you suppose got boxes 1 through 6? How many immortal ghosts can one mid-sized African republic support?

Six Chix, 12/1/15

Wait, people know this poem is about fighting off inevitable death, right. OBVIOUSLY THE CAT DOESN’T WANT TO GO OUT AT NIGHT, IT WILL GET HIT BY A CAR OR EATEN BY A COYOTE, WHO EVEN PUTS THEIR CAT OUT AT NIGHT ANYMORE, STOP MAKING GRIM POETRY JOKES ABOUT DYING CATS YOU MONSTER