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Mary Worth, 7/5/26

For years, one action item has popped up repeatedly in Charterstone condo association meetings: replacing the doors on the apartments, because they’re cheap and thin and easy to hear through. “Anyone walking by can snoop on your conversations!” residents complain. “Well, we’re going to have the improvements subcommittee look into that,” Association President Mary Worth says. “We’ll need to research new doors that can offer more privacy, but won’t cost too much — after all, a big expenditure like this could cause your association fees to skyrocket! And then we need to find a reliable contractor, of course.” In reality, there is no “improvements subcommittee,” and Mary has no intention of taking away one of her prime tools for assessing when her meddling intervention might be required. And now poor Tommy is paying the price, hearing something that nobody should ever have to hear: Wilbur Weston, of all people, shit-talking him.

Crankshaft, 7/5/26

I referred to the Starlight Ballroom (in Chippewa Lake Park) as “bombed out” the other day, and was mostly joking, but, uh. This panel pretty much makes it look like a bit of loredumping background detail in a post-apocalyptic movie, a monument to a dead but once-great civilization (ours) tagged with some of the most depressing lyrics penned by the Kinks (people living in post-apocalyptic ages love doing pointed, arch graffiti that caters to Boomer cultural knowledge, this is just science).

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/5/26

Boy, wow, Rex and June both seem real intense about the twins’ extremely low-level “scam,” huh? Almost like they’ve been fleeced by more ambitious scams before and are very bitter about it. Well, have they considered that if they provided goods and services worthy of repeat business, they wouldn’t have been grifted in the first place? The twins are happy to hand over hard-earned (via scamming) money to Jordan in exchange for his delicious food, so maybe the Morgans just aren’t operating at a don’t-get-scammed level.

Dick Tracy, 7/5/26

So the mysterious hacker gang members are named “Wallhack,” “Lootbox,” and “Widescreen”? Come on. Come on. I’m a 51-year-old man and the last video game I was fixated on was Civilization II and even I can immediately tell how incredibly cringe this all is. And Widescreen should have a big wide flat head, to match his name. Come on! This is Dick Tracy, have some self-respect.

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Blondie, 7/4/26

On this, America’s most sacred fireworks-related holiday, not one but two comics did “people making fireworks noises with their mouths in lieu of setting off actual fireworks” jokes. One of them was Crock, which I’m not even going to bother inflicting on you; I kind of enjoy this one because it ends with at least the hint that Elmo and his little friend are going to come back with actual fireworks that they’re going to set off in the Bumsteads’ living room.

Beetle Bailey, 7/4/26

At least Beetle Bailey, the strip about America’s military, takes a properly patriotic tone! Oh, wait, what’s that you say? They actually did a joke about the grim reality of the physical abuse of low-ranking enlisted men by their superiors? Hmm. Hmm!

Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/4/26

Rex Morgan, M.D., meanwhile, doesn’t have time to celebrate. It’s focusing its patriotism on improving America by targeting and revealing the scammers that bedevil us all. Or the one scammer who’s doing that, anyway. A lot of commenters were like “These ladies are somehow going to end up both being Rene Belluso,” and I was like “Ha ha, very funny, but that can’t be right,” and they’re not, but they almost certainly are his nieces, given that we learned a couple years ago that Jimmy was Rene’s actual name. Anyway, I gotta say that “pretending to play your violin so people give you spare change” is not anywhere near as impressive as “running a scam self-help cult that ends up actually helping people” but you gotta start somewhere, I guess!

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Look, man, sometimes when it’s a holiday Friday you wake up and think “Ah, a holiday Friday! It’s just like a Saturday!” and you forget that there are certain sacred events that happen every Friday, holiday or no, and one of them is the beloved Comment of the Week feature on joshreads dot com, the Comics Curmudgeon website, and then you feel bad and post it a little late. We’ve all been there, right? Right????

“Sophie is so desperate for coffee that she’s gnawing on the mug. That’s not where the caffeine is!” –CanuckDownSouth

Anyway hopefully this hilarious list of runners up will ease the pain:

“One would think a soap comic character would be too used to nothing in particular happening to ever go stir-crazy.” –ectojazzmage

“‘I’m going to the mall, Dad … Tommy and I are going to check out the Teen Dance-Offs!’ Let us pause to marvel at this majestic piece of dialogue that could 100% be spoken by any young American in the year of our Lord 2026. Dawn (#1852 US girls’ name) and Tommy (#731 US boys’ name) are going to watch teen-agers dance off (sulk on their phones between rounds of Dance Dance Revolution) at the mall (closed in 2018, last recorded stores: Spencer’s and a Thai massage parlor). It’s low-key the start of a very chalant relationship, fr fr! (Or maybe it’s a skibidi relationship, who can say?)” –I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV

“Wilbur’s never looked better! Does wide-eyed shock take years off a man’s face, or has he been moisturizing?” –Victor Von

“Too late, Fritz Ann. No-one gambles on real gaming machines these days. They’re all addicted to psychologically perfected Skinner-box hyperspeed slot machine apps from online ghost casinos hosted out of Malta and Singapore. What do you think Mrs Wilson is doing with her husband’s social security while she watches her stories?” –Schroduck

“NO! No, Mrs. Wilson, NO! You are NOT trapped in the Funkyverse! You are in a different hell with an eternal 5-year-old where it’s somehow both the 1950s and the 21st century, but you do not have to let yourself be forced to do bad word play! Fight this incursion! FIGHT IT!” –Tabby Lavalamp

“‘Gaming machines,’ eh? I wasn’t aware Neo-Chicago had overturned their ban on pinball.” –Dr. Larry Erhardt

“It’s just boxes of RAM, which is worth its weight in gold.” –JERP

“I can’t believe the plot is setting up a scenario where the Morgans not tipping is heroic. Villains want you to tip, which is a scam by the way” –Dan

“These able-bodied young women with access to fancy matching outfits and expensive hair dye clearly don’t need to beg for money, any more than they actually know how to play the violin. So what exactly is the ‘scam’ they’re pulling by getting people to throw a buck or two into their tip can? The only possible answer is that they’re extracting DNA from the bills, then creating clones of the tippers that they can use to steal their identities and drain their bank accounts. Sure, it seems like an extremely difficult, complicated plan with major upfront costs compared to the potential profit — but the sisters’ cultish outfits suggest that the eventual goal is to create a clone army that will answer only to their leader, a genetics specialist who’s still mad that Rex beat him on a test in medical school or something. Just wait until he has clones of June and Sarah, which he can use for especially nefarious shenanigans after two or three decades of training! Anyway, that must be where this plot is going — because otherwise it would end up as something pointless and boring, rather than one of the thrilling tales we’ve come to expect from Rex Morgan, M.D.” –BigTed

“I won’t be lured into addiction by Tommy Beedie. He’s harmless. Unlike the guys running my social media, who have me so hooked I can’t look up from my phone.” –But What Do I Know?

“I’m actually looking forward to the upcoming gamer angle in Dick Tracy. Sam’s user name will be ‘Definitely NOT a Cop,’ as he wanders aimlessly in whatever MMPRPG she brought along.” –Chip Cayer

“Based on the name, I assume a ‘Roxx’ chair is actually an x-treme rebranding of a rocking chair. And doesn’t it say a lot about humanity that one person, even a criminal like the Hacker, can enjoy both the latest in interactive entertainment on high-end ‘gaming machines’ and the simple pleasures of wobbling back and forth while sitting down?” –Vulpes

“For a beautiful moment, I failed to notice the plugger’s dummy thicc ass, and thought the panel had arrived at a state of punchline-free nirvana of which Hi and Lois could only dream. This is a plugger! He drank too much last night, and now he’s quietly suffering the consequences! Behold, a man!” –Navigator

“He died as he lived, alone and in great pain.” –Lauralot

“‘Hey wait, why can’t Crankshaft drive his bus into a lake and die?’ thought everybody in this comic strip except Crankshaft, who was thinking about blowing up a grill this holiday weekend.” –nescio

“Crock has barely any trace left of the Foreign Legion and colonial France. For example, here we are supposed to think that French people would think a very big nose is unappealing and something to be corrected. Preposterous!” –Ettorre

“‘Am I supposed to … uh, relate to you emotionally in some way?’ ‘Chill. It ain’t that kinda party.’” –Joe Blevins

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