Taser time!

It's Saturday -- so it must be time to post this week's Rex Morgan dailies. Doris finally gets hers -- off panel -- and this has created a certain amount of discussion, including on Tony's Isabella's "Bloggy Thing."

A few notes regarding questions and comments that have come my way.  Yes, that is a real taser gun. What looks like a target symbol or registration mark are two panels that pop open/off when the taser wires are fired. Speaking of which, those are the taser wires on the floor in Wednesday's first panel, not a puddle of something (really, people!) And yes, that's June's hand on Rex's face (seen from her POV) in the last panel of Saturday's strip -- Rex's hand would hardly be that dainty, nor his nails that long. Sigh….

The decision to skip showing the moment of taser impact came from the strip's writer, Woody Wilson, not me. I've not asked him why, but knowing the sort of complaints papers get when violence  is shown on the "funny pages," I suspect he was just trying to avoid that headache. Though Tony DePaul and I seem to get away with quite a lot in The Phantom these days, so perhaps attitudes are changing, but then Phantom has always been an adventure strip, and Rex is soap opera, so context comes into play here. Frankly, I think the most shocking thing here comes in Rex's dialogue in panel one of Friday's strip.

One eagle-eyed reader noticed the lettering seemed larger this week -- and it is. I goofed and used "Comicrazy" the font I letter The Phantom, and most of my other comics work with, rather than the usual "Wild Words," which Graham Nolan had been using on Rex before I took over. So if hardly anyone noticed, does it matter…?

That's all for now. See ya in the funny papers!