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Dick Tracy, 2/9/26

I haven’t really been keeping you up to date on this guest-written Dick Tracy storyline, but the short version is that a watch Dick gave long ago to his first partner, “Jerry Gould,” was dropped by a mysterious fleeing villain. Jerry does not appear to have an entry in the invaluable Dick Tracy wiki, so I assume he’s a new character invented for this plot and given the last name of strip creator Chester Gould as an homage. Anyway, it turns out Jerry left the force and became some sort of damn hippie with a guitar and a ponytail, although the flattop haircut he received upon joining Neo-Chicago’s MCU remains permanently grafted onto his skull.

Judge Parker, 2/9/26

Oh, it turns out Randy has been imprisoned for four and a half months somewhere where there is “only ice and time,” so, I guess … Norway? Like, he went to Norway to track down his wife by any means necessary, except some of those means violated some local laws and he was arrested and then duly tried, convicted, and sentenced? Seems fair to me. If you didn’t want to do the time in the cold, you shouldn’t have done the crime in the cold, Randy.

Gil Thorp, 2/9/26

Look, man, you’re going around creepily whispering in your rivals’ ears and you deal with high school ruffians all day, I’m pretty sure you can find your way to understanding the mindset that results in a little light vandalism. It’s fun! Have some fun with it!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/9/26

“That’s an awful big word, dad. Did you forget that I’m not very bright?”

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Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/7/26

Hey, I have been behind on reporting on this news, but, just as both Rex and little Johnny are recovering from surgery in-strip, Rex Morgan, M.D., writer/artist Terry Beatty has been recovering from heart surgery in real life! His wife has been posting updates on his Facebook page and he seems to be on the road to recovery, but let’s keep him in our thoughts. I assume that, given long lead times, these real and fictional surgeries were not intended to coincide, just like the “Truck has to self-quarantine because he’s come down with a serious respiratory illness” storyline from the spring of 2020 was not intended to be about COVID. Does Beatty have an extremely non-fun version of the Gift of Prophecy?

Meanwhile, speaking of predictions, I’m glad to see I was sort of right when I said June would get Buck to come pick up Rex at the hospital. It’s just that he was busy! Oh, wait, I guess technically she doesn’t say he was busy, just that he was “unavailable.” Can you imagine giving Buck the opportunity to spend time with you and he brushes you off? I would be rethinking some things about my life, I tell you what.

Shoe, 2/7/26

Granted, everyone in Shoe looks extremely depressed, all the time, but that is not someone who is belting out this song in the exuberant manner of the original Bob Seger System recording. That’s a guy who’s basically whispering it to himself, perhaps in a minor key. He doesn’t need the Perfesser cracking wise at him about how bad the food is at this restaurant. He needs some time alone with himself, to ramble and gamble about in his own inner life.

Marvin, 2/7/26

This is probably a joke about how Bitsy has been neutered, but I prefer to think that he’s at long last admitting to himself that, like most characters in this strip, he’s fundamentally unlovable.

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Dennis the Menace, 2/3/26

OK, this is, no joke, some significant menacing here. First of all, this guy has never appeared in the strip before, so I assume Dennis is in the yard, unaccompanied by a parent or guardian, of an adult who is a total stranger to him. And check out that fence! That’s a serious fence this five-year-old kid scaled, presumably with pockets full of rocks, which he is now spookily skipping across a pool belonging to, as noted, someone he’s never met in his life. Kudos to you, Dennis, this time! You’re really freaking me out!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 2/3/26

Man, I love Rex’s grim expression here in panel two. It’s pretty clear that “Jimmy” is a mistake for Johnny and not Michael, but it’s very important that he know for certain whether this embarrassing failure of an appendix to maintain structural integrity happened inside the torso of his biological son or his adopted son, so he can start figuring out whose genes to blame.

Herb and Jamaal, 2/3/26

Normally, actually prestigious restaurant awards are driven by their own institutional investigation and decision making processes — you don’t send in an “application” that gets “declined” or anything, you just wake up one day and find out that they gave the award to your hated rival. Still, I’d like to believe that the Michelin Guide made an exception for Herb and Jamaal and sent them a personal note in the mail telling them to eat shit.