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Rex Morgan, M.D., 6/20/21

Since Rex Morgan plots move in excruciating slow motion, we’ve all basically been waiting for weeks now for this moment, where best-selling but writers-blocked graphic novelist “Kyle Vidpa” gets Sarah’s epic fan letter (which almost certainly contains extensive drawings and plot suggestions for future Kitty Cop installments) and realizes it’s genius. There are two potential futures here: one is that “Kyle” steals the ideas for the new book his publisher demands, and the other is that he brings in Sarah as a “guest writer” and she achieves riches and universal acclaim. The first route seems unlikely since the story so far has gone out of its way to show that “Kyle” is a nice guy with a sweet wife and doting parents and a good friend in Buck Wise, who is sadly the center of the Rex Morgan, M.D., universe now, while the second starts to get us on the track of “Sarah is a terrifyingly talented and uncanny child-adult” that Terry Beatty amnesia’d his way out of when he took over the strip. Seems like we’ve painted ourselves into a real corner, how will we get out of it? (PREDICTION: It won’t be very interesting.)

Hi and Lois, 6/20/21

Today in “strips that don’t usually make me laugh for the intended reasons but did today” is Hi and Lois. I absolutely love the contrast between how happy Hi looks in the imagined version of this carefully programmed Father’s Day that was clearly designed by a five-person committee and how completely overwhelmed he looks in real life contemplating how exhausting this is going to be.

Panels from The Lockhorns, 6/20/21

Speaking of irony-free praise for comics, the Sunday Lockhorns grab-bag had not one but two bangers today. The first one manages to pull off two gags (Leroy was snoring loudly in church, Leroy is transparently ogling some other woman) without feeling like it’s putting a hat on a hat. The second one is just laser focused on a single, beautiful joke about how Leroy was seriously injured in a car accident.

Six Chix, 6/20/21

Wait, so, is this how matryoshka dolls reproduce? The big doll births a smaller doll inside herself, possibly hollowing herself out in the process, and then that doll, still entirely enclosed by her “mother,” produces a smaller internal doll, and the sequence goes on like that, excruciating birth following excruciating birth? And can we safely assume this is an act of parthenogenesis, with no male doll involved at all? Happy Father’s Day indeed!

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Beetle Bailey, 6/19/21

Looks like the enlisted men of Camp Swampy have finally launched a violent coup against their commanding officers, and you know what? It’s about time!

Zits, 6/19/21

Looks like after years of putting up with a lot, Walt has finally snapped and is about to go on a violent murder spree. This will the last Zits comic, as the aftermath will be too gruesome to bear thinking about. RIP Zits, 1997-2021.

Baby Blues, 6/19/21

Looks like somebody didn’t miss his daughter today!

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Folks, your comment of the week in a moment, but first: you might remember that a few days ago Blondie made a joke about Blondie’s long-ago roommate, which prompted me to muse about the strip’s early history. Well, faithful reader Mantipath managed to find a relevant Blondie strip from that era, in which Dagwood is about to marry said roommate (named “Irma,” apparently), but hasn’t shown up at the church yet because he’s all doped up on ether.

Blondie, 2/1/32

Truly, the past is a different country! A different country where there comic strips were printed larger in the paper and so had art that was a lot more detailed, also. Be sure to click/tap the image to make it bigger!

Meanwhile, here in the present, specifically in this week, we have this week’s comment of the week!

“Once, on a visit to the world-famous San Diego Zoo, I got to witness an angry confrontation between two Galapagos tortoises. Their furious visages, scarred faces, and hyperextended necks are perfectly replicated by Ashlee and Shauna in panel one. I will take the presence of the accompanying guttural groaning and hilarious slow-motion posturing as a given.” –Vice President John Adams

And your runners up! Very funny!

“I’m just relieved the joke wasn’t ‘Crankshaft is constipated.’” –a.

“I assume Ed’s tortured expression is because ‘crashing a vehicle containing mailboxes’ isn’t actually his schtick at all. This metaphor is flawed!” –Horace Broon

“Do you think Jeffy will mindlessly try and pledge his allegiance to anything with stripes? Have we ever seen him at the zoo?” –WLP

“Shauna proves right away that she’s a bad girl by being smoking hot right in front of a no smoking sign. Rules? Hmph. Rules are for good girls who return stuff they stole the day before.” –Weaselboy

“Skyler reacts with horror as he realizes his dementia stricken uncle has forgotten they can fly.” –nescio

“Good art can communicate deeper meaning with subtle visual cues. For example, Drew and Ashlee have matching colored shirts and her earrings coordinate with his entire ensemble, which causes the viewer to subconsciously connect the two of them as an in sync unit, united against this new threat. Shauna’s clothes, on the other hand, clash garishly against the gentle pastels of her environment, matching only the bright ‘no’ symbol in the prominent ‘no smoking’ sign. Ashlee is clearly a good match for Drew and can change and mature as a result of his good influence (he is an ‘influencer,’ remember), while Shauna is just trouble. It’s brilliant foreshadowing by the colorist, who uses… [touches earpiece] …sorry, this just in: apparently all of the food in Santa Royale is… beige? All of it? Really? Okay, wow. Never mind. Forget I said anything.” –The+Silent+Penultimate+Panel

“An interesting commentary on how pervasive capitalism is, to the point where we are unable to imagine relations of affections outside the concept of hierarchical workplace discipline imposed by the relations of productions… Oh sorry, it’s 1950s Dennis the Menace! I mean, wives be nagging!” –Ettorre

“You just can’t do a Zoom pizzeria. Sure, with a webcam you can see the discomfort on their faces as they choke down their third slice of grease and sawdust cheese, but no microphone is good enough to hear their stomach churning, and without the olfactory component of pizza burps and pizza farts, what’s the point? And when they run off to the bathroom, clutching their stomachs in agony, you can’t hear unmentionable fluids pour into an overtaxed toilet, you can’t smell waves of sickening odors flowing out from under the bathroom door. And that, my friends, is what Montoni’s is all about. So we’re reopening, and may God have mercy on our souls” –Voshkod

“I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a reference to an actual ‘bubbly blonde beauty’ that actually did flirt with Dagwood way back in the strip’s original incarnation 90+ years ago, even if that couldn’t have possibly happened that way given the state of the strip today. Sorry Dagwood, there’s no statute of limitations on memories in legacy strips; you bear the brunt of memories from well before you were born, and only the declining state of newspapers will keep them from remaining relevant well after you die.” –Morgan Wick

“I’ve never been conventially ‘hot’ before but even I know ‘Can you take a look at this rash and also have sex with me in that medical supply closet?’ is a shitty way to try and get back together with an ex.” –DevOpsDad

“Dermatitis? It looks to me like lycanthropy. So of course Shauna broke Drew’s heart. How else could she eat it, if not by smashing the breastbone first? Didn’t they teach you any anatomy at all at that medical school you bought your diploma from?” –seismic-2

“Serious question: Do backwards-cap wearers age out of it by the time they become pluggers, or will we eventually have a backwards-cap-wearing Andy Bear rolling his eyes at whatever science-fiction headdress tomorrow’s youth will be wearing?” –ArtOfWargames, on Twitter

“Are parents embarrassing? Does a bear shit on your posts?” –Pozzo

“The daily haul from the Periodical Bodega: $50. Cost of labor? $70. But sure I guess. Are the computers safe? I wrote that sentence without yawning so I’m impressed with myself. Scintillating stuff, Gil Thorp.” –Jerp+Jump

“I’ll be right over, babe, as soon as I finish this efficiency study. Can you imagine, that lazy cleaning crew insists that normal-sized mops are good enough!” –Peanut Gallery

“Normally the straight men in the comics have exaggerated reactions to the lamest of punchlines, but check out Dustin’s dad: absolutely no change in expression between panels one and three. Almost as if he isn’t paying attention at all. Hey asshole, if this stuff isn’t interesting to you what makes you think we’ll like it?” –pugfuggly

“Mr. Waverling plans to liquidate all of his assets and blow it all so that, being a cartoon poor person, he will have to wear a barrel instead of a suit. The idea of a mortician trying to fit him into a casket like that amuses him to no end.” –Tabby Lavalamp

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