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Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/9/13

NEW REX MORGAN ADVENTURE, the second in a row with actual medical overtones! Milton is the filthy rich hard-charging British capitalist who married the Morgans’ nanny some years back, and he’s walked into Rex’s office this morning declaring that he was soon going to die. Rex seems suspicious, and I think the key words that are arousing his suspicions are “if I don’t slow down.” “Rex, it’s literally impossible for me to cease being a tightly wound business executive, even though I’m already fabulously wealthy! DEATH IS THE ONLY ANSWER.” On the other hand, if I were looking at the terrifying inky black eye sockets in panel two, my main concern about Milton’s heart would be how many centuries ago it stopped beating, since he’s clearly some kind of horrifying undead ghoul.

Wizard of Id, 4/9/13

Does this checkout counter’s old-fashioned mechanical cash register bother anybody else? I mean, I guess a 21st century electronic checkout station wouldn’t fit into Id’s pseudo-medieval milieu, but neither does its 20th century equivalent, so now I can’t tell if the artist is being deliberately anachronistic or is just afraid that the Wizard of Id readership will panic if confronted with terrifying high technology on the comics page. Anyway, we shouldn’t let this question distract us from the main point, which is that the Wiz is using his incredible powers to bend matter and energy to his whim to be a dick to underpaid service workers.

Pluggers, 4/9/13

“…and we pray that you will bless this food. And God bless the cook, too! Seeing how the cook is a chicken and I’m a dog and I might want to use her as food someday. Just trying to keep all my bases covered here.”

Family Circus, 4/9/13

“Also, aren’t these ladies your best friends? How come we’ve never met them? How come they never come around here? Is it our fault?”

Funky Winkerbean, 4/9/13

please please please let “cable movie entertainment” be a softcore porn channel

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Slylock Fox, 4/8/13

What must it be like to be Slick Smitty, one of the last few remaining humans in a world of anthropomorphic, mostly bipedal sentient animals? Give him credit for this: he hasn’t retreated into a gadget-crazy fantasy world like fellow survivor Count Weirdly. (Do you think Count Weirdly was ever really a member of the peerage? Does anyone have anything better than a hazy memory of what the social hierarchy was like, in the Before Time?) No, Smitty has decided to integrate himself the best he can into this multispecies world’s economy. Today, his skills have drawn him into the realm of real estate, and we should give him credit for actually trying to sell a house to some lions who are probably just going to tear up the furniture with their razor-sharp claws and then shit everywhere. And yeah, so what if it won’t have a decent view of the lake no matter what time of year it is? Does Slylock really think that a clear view of an icy lake three months a year is some kind of selling point that’s going to add thousands of dollars of value to this cottage and whatever Smitty’s commission is? Let the human have his fun. He’s been through some stuff.

Mark Trail, 4/8/13

Meanwhile, in Mark Trail, a new adventure is underway! Starring Shelly and Wes, two members of the upper crust who couldn’t be less like Mark, what with Shelley’s ambivalence about the outdoors and their propensity to just jump right into the whole physical intimacy business without much provocation, even though Shelly finds Wes’s presence in their bedroom “surprising” for some reason. What happened to that breakfast tray between panels two and three? “Oh no!” Mark would say if he were there. “There’s juice spilled all over the floor! Wait, what are you doing to her face with your face?”

Apartment 3-G, 4/8/13

Normally I’d go on about Margo’s lilac typical A3G shirt-maybe-it’s-part-of-a-dress-who-can-tell being described as “stunning,” but I’m way too amused by the cursory acknowledgement that there is in fact a third roommate in this strip, who can’t be bothered to go to this party because she’s already fallen asleep, probably because she’s so dull that she’s bored herself into unconsciousness.

Herb and Jamaal, 4/8/13

So it turns out that Jamaal has come to see the time he spends with his best friend and business partner as some kind of divine punishment for any number of terrible sins he committed over many, many lifetimes.

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Family Circus, 4/7/13

Yes, thought Billy. Books. Learning. His teachers and parents had put forth so much effort trying to convince him that he needed to take some time away from the TV to expand his mind a little. He had reacted with sullen, stubborn resistance, as always. But eventually, one day when he was bored, he started picking up some of these books everyone seemed to think were so great. Just to pass the time, you know. And soon he was hooked. There was so much to know! Each fact lead to another. Something new to learn. And each new fact, each new field of study, contributed to his understanding of the world and his future place in it. Specifically, his future place in charge of it. How could he come to rule over all unless he were the smartest man alive? So Billy kept reading. Kept learning. Kept planning. The world didn’t seem so big anymore. Didn’t seem so strange and inexplicable. It was a problem you could solve. It was small enough that you could shut it up in a box, a box with a locked door, and only Billy would hold the key. You hear that, world? You’d better stay on Billy’s good side. You’d better be real nice to him. Because someday, he’s going to be in charge of how much air and sunshine you get.

Judge Parker, 4/7/13

Ha ha, looks like Judge Emeritus Parker isn’t changing his mind about the unmitigated hellscape that is marriage! That face in panel four is one of the greatest examples of humiliated petulance on an adult that sequential art has ever seen. Glory in it!

This being Judge Parker the judge is also right to assume that this pith helmet is the best money can buy. Like, literally. If you used advanced mathematics and materials science and economics to create the most durable, lightweight, and expensive replacement for old-fashioned pith available, you would get the stuff in that helmet. It’s probably made from the bones of endangered tropical birds, tempered with the tears of children attending America’s top-rated non-boarding private schools, and forged in CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.

Panels from Spider-Man, 4/7/13

There are other panels that come between these two, but you don’t need them. “Well, I tried and failed to find the bad guy. Now it’s the other guy’s problem! I wonder if he’ll have time to grab a bite to eat, what with his busy schedule of being a better superhero than I am.”

Crankshaft, 4/7/13

They say that keeping physically active is a great way to stave off dementia as you get older, though obviously it doesn’t work in every case.