Rex Morgan M.D. -- First Day

Today is the first day of what I hope will be a long run of me drawing the REX MORGAN M.D. comic strip. Shown here are two versions of my first daily. The color version comes from the Comics Kingdom website, where you can read this (and many other strips) every day for free. The color is done by someone hired by King Features, and I have little to do with it, other than offering a note or two (as in "Night scene!") A good many papers run daily strips in color now, and this is the version they'll get.

But some papers still go the traditional black and white route, so there is an alternate version with gray tones added. Later in the week, I'll show a few more of these. The tones are done digitally in Manga Studio -- and as a guy who used to cut a lot of zip-a-tone, it's a treat to be able to just use the "magic marker," and draw those areas in with a few swipes of the stylus.

I'm coloring the Sunday page myself, as I do on The Phantom -- and will share the first Sunday here as well -- but that won't be this coming Sunday, as there is still one Graham Nolan-drawn Sunday page in the mix. Beyond that, I'll likely only share a few selected strips, as the Comics Kingdom site is now free and has strips archived going back a decade. If you wish to follow the strip, and it's not in your local paper, Comics Kingdom is the place to go. I most likely will drop my regular Phantom posts as well, again, since the site has easy access to the strips now. You can pay a small fee, if you'd like, to have your favorite strips emailed to you each morning -- a service I use and like. And it's not just current strips, but many vintage ones as well. I subscribe to DeBeck's Barney Google, Crane's Buz Sawyer, Drake's Juliet Jones, as well as vintage runs of Phantom, Mandrake and Flash Gordon.

It's unfortunate that so many hecklers/trolls have found their way to the site, and fill the comments with snarky rude remarks. I'd be thrilled if some of you reading this would go post something positive -- or at least civil, regarding the strip. And vote "down" on the rude comments.

As is, this is a very ephemeral thing -- two simple panels -- not much going on -- and just meant to get you to come back tomorrow. Likely to never be reprinted (there have only been a handful of Rex comic books -- and no book collections I'm aware of) -- you read it and move along....