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Rex Morgan, M.D., 9/5/13

Sorry I haven’t been keeping you up to date on the latest developments in the “everything comes too easy to Sarah Morgan and she’s wracked with ennui over it” plotline! Rather than questioning the circumstances of her existence (in which Morgans get everything they want with zero effort, just like the Spencers and Parkers and Drivers in the next universe over), she’s starting to question herself. Why is she different from other kids? Is it because of the way she was raised? Is it because of something inherent in her nature? Is she too different, too different from the other children? And since — let’s stop beating around the bush here — we’re using “different” to mean “better,” if she’s too different from her peers to function as one of them, isn’t she their natural leader? Shouldn’t she have an exalted social status — as a monarch, or a God? “Thanks, mom, this has been a good talk. Don’t worry, you’ll have a place of privilege in the coming Eternal Glorious Prosperous Sarah-Empire!”

Phantom, 9/5/13

I also haven’t been keeping you up to date on the action in the Phantom, which has involved, like, adventure and gunplay and punching and whatnot. Today we learn how tiring it can be taking on semi-competent criminal syndicates year after year. “Come on, guys, you need at least two people on guard duties at all time! Is this … is this just not going to be a challenge for me at all? Again?”

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Beetle Bailey, 9/4/13

I was going to say something snide here about how if you hear the phrase “3-D printing” on the news you can’t just panic and throw it into a comic at random, you have to do a few minutes of research about what 3-D printing actually is, but then I thought: what if Gizmo has one of those 3-D printers that can create living tissue and has decided to make another version of General Halftrack, piece by piece? If nothing else, this horrible 3-D-printed abomination of science will allow us to do some good nature vs. nurture studies about terrible, crippling alcoholism.

Mark Trail, 9/4/13

Now that Mark Trail’s gotten all the punching out of the way early, the strip is free to draw out the rest of this storyline as one long, dull anticlimax. “Thanks for the tip, Dusty … it turns out it was surveyors who had been damaging our fence! They had been leaning their equipment up against it. I explained to them why they shouldn’t do that, and they apologized and said they wouldn’t do it again. Anyway, good luck catching those poachers! I’m going to go get some pancakes.”

Apartment 3-G, 9/4/13

Oh my goodness, which character from Apartment 3-G will suddenly find themselves appointed the new Lieutenant Governor of New York? Probably Tommie, right? Lieutenant Governor is about the most boring political office America has to offer, Tommie’d be perfect.

B.C., 9/4/13

Wait, none of the ant-adults in B.C. have jobs? All the stories about their work ethic are just lies!

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Mark Trail, 9/3/13

Oh, man, this Mark Trail plotline is just getting started — it involves a mysteriously dead elk Mark found on Lost Forest property — and already there’s punching! Panel two is a true classic of the Trailian punching genre, with hat and gun flying in opposite directions as Mark interprets “turn around, mister … slowly” as “turn around mister … very quickly and then punch me in the face as hard as you can.” I guess it’s a little bit awkward that Mark ended up punching his friend Dusty, but that’s just the price you pay when you punch first and verify identities later! Everyone’s all smiles and there appears to be no permanent harm done, unless that parabola emanating from Dusty’s mouth in panel two is meant to be a trail of spittle following behind a dislodged tooth, which it almost certainly is.

Shoe, 9/3/13

I grudgingly respect the fact that Shoe follows the logic of at least one aspect of a society of bird-men to its logical conclusion and has a bird that feasts on the dead as the town undertaker. I do wonder how many casual Shoe readers know that Mort is a mortician-bird-man, which I’m pretty sure is a key piece of information for this joke. Not that it makes much sense anyway? Ha ha, did you enjoy your time at the opera … in a coffin? Because you’re a mortician-bird-man, and opera is a dying genre? Eh? Eh? Death?

Momma, 9/3/13

Well, it looks like I was right yesterday, and we are going to get a multi-day plot in Momma, a strip that never, ever does multi-day plots. So since we’re going into uncharted territory, I guess why not take a head-first leap into howling madness, with MaryLou walking up the aisle of an airplane, shoving big steaming spoonfuls of glop into the mouths of the weirdly compliant and passive passengers? I look forward to further airborne insanity over the rest of the week!