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The Lockhorns, 6/29/04

There are many reasons why black-and-white daily strips should not be colored in by people who aren’t the actual strip creators. This is one of them. The only way that I can figure out that this happened is that the person who colored this is in a comics-coloring sweatshop in Burma somewhere and speaks no English. Or maybe they’re color blind, and their employer is worried about the inevitable ADA lawsuit that would result from their dismissal.

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/13/04

For my money, Rex Morgan has the best art of all the soap opera strips. It’s very cinematic. The “camera” is always swooping around extremely dramatically, as it does here, from far to near. I like how the close-ups are always at strange angles, often cutting off part of the characters’ faces. This dramatic perspective is appropriate for the current storyline, in which our heroes are trapped in a cave that’s menaced by rising floodwaters, but trust me, when the strip takes weeks to discuss medical malpractice insurance, the art is exactly the same.

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Mary Worth, 7/12/04

This strip contains what may be the first use of the phrase “Wilbur makes an overture” in the history of the English language. I can’t stop reading Mary Worth, just like I can’t stop looking at a train wreck. The petty shenanigans of its plotlines, combined with its glacial pace, mark it out from the other soap opera strips. I remember an unpleasant dinner party that once lasted six weeks.

This storyline is still in its embryonic stages. Surely a monkey wrench will be thrown into this budding romance, or this plot will be even duller than time that the 12-year-old kid let the air out of the slightly cranky professor’s tires.