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Alice, 7/21/26

… but … but that’s just the Internet, isn’t it?

Dick Tracy, 7/21/26

Sam is on the trail of a gang of hackers including “Widescreen” (gamer handle “WSOD”), a rude and extremely undisciplined lout who brags in open forums about his taste for upscale takeout and gaming chairs found only in neo‑Chicago, and now reveals the timing of his next heist to Sam’s undercover identity. This calls for a burst of Rapid-Fire Typing, and you can tell by his look of grim determination that Sam is here for it.

Mary Worth, 7/21/26

Oh come on, Mary—this is Wilbur Weston, for crying out loud. Does that sullen, belligerent troll look like he’s about to show anybody some grace? NO GRACE WILL BE SHOWN!

—Uncle Lumpy

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Family Circus, 7/19/26

Dolly, thou shalt not mock this sign of God’s displeasure, neither by crude sophistry nor by mooning His works.

Slylock Fox (panel), 7/19/26

“Is Reeky lying” isn’t much of a mystery: he obviously never cleans house, just look at the place. Also, he’s Reeky Rat, for Pete’s sake—”lying” tops his to-do list next to “squalor” and “pointless low-stakes crimes.”

But consider the original offense. What makes this note a “horrible” hate crime? Speciesism would be my first guess. With so many species around—seven or eight in this panel alone—some friction seems inevitable. But rat‑on‑rabbit speciesism seems backwards here: after all, it’s Rachel who’s canonically the snooty, upwardly mobile one. Class hatred seems more plausible, since Reeky clearly has none and maybe covets it? But on closer examination, it’s not Rachel but her kit who is the injured party here. So maybe the note is just a crude “Yo Mama” joke calling out Rachel’s embarrassingly prolific sexual behavior?

Mary Worth, 7/19/26

I know you share my disappointment that we won’t be seeing Tommy spiral hilariously back into the pit of drug-addicted despair. But we can take solace in recapping one of Wilbur’s many humiliations, can’t we? Looks like Mary’s on board!

—Uncle Lumpy

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Blondie, 7/12/26

Back in early 2024, Dithers had to regretfully report that DithersCo wasn’t using AI tools to boost productivity, with his employees mostly using their computers to play dumb and possibly scammy games on Facebook. In the subsequent months, it appears that the company has adopted AI — but, sadly, primarily as an automated toady for the boss, who has become the latest CEO to succumb to AI psychosis. Ironically, Dagwood and his coworkers are immune, since they refuse to engage with their devices on any level deeper than “Renegade-Rhino-Rummy.”

Zits, 7/12/26

I hadn’t mentioned it here, but earlier this year Zits went into reruns on weekdays and is now only doing new strips on Sundays. But that doesn’t mean the strip is shying away from storylines relevant to today’s teens, including real dark ones like “Jeremy gets dumped for a computer.”

Mary Worth, 7/12/26

Man, I didn’t think you could beat “Wilbur Weston thinks I’m a druggie loser so I might as well do drugs” for sheer patheticness, but then today Mary Worth hit us with “I’m going to flush these perfectly good drugs that probably cost me a week’s worth of pay from my minimum wage job down the toilet so I can live up to the version of me that Dawn Weston believes in,” respect. It’s amazing to think about how much more embarrassing this is than if he had just put “local bald guy thinks im losser should i do drugs yes or no” into ChatGPT or Yahoo! Answers or whatever.