Maybe I’m too harsh, she’s browsing r/SoapOperas
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Dennis the Menace, 6/30/26
I’m pretty sure Dennis is the one being menaced here, as he stares dumbly at Mrs. Wilson, who is half-watching what used to be her favorite show while simultaneously scrolling through a Facebook feed on her phone that’s increasingly dominated by bottom-tier brand posts and AI slop. Is it really true that “her stories” have degraded in quality? Or is it just that age, and the transformation of the media landscape, have rendered her less capable of enjoying the genre’s ludicrous twists and emotional highs and lows? Overall a real grim lesson for Dennis to take away from this visit, honestly. Still, I suppose he might be adding this pun to his own arsenal to unleash in a semi-menacing fashion on someone else. And let’s not neglect the fact that he’s drooling on himself. Engendering disgust in other people is a kind of menacing, I guess.
Dick Tracy, 6/30/26
The latest Dick Tracy storyline involves FBI Agent Fritz Ann Dietrich, who I guess I haven’t mentioned before but she’s a very occasional character whose main thing is that she’s always openly hitting on Sam Catchem (DIVERSITY WIN: this sex pest cop is also a lady!). Anyway, you might think that this box of “gaming machines” will be something interesting, but given that this is new-look nostalgia-obsessed Dick Tracy, it’s probably full of mechanical accessories for classic board games or something.
146 replies to “Maybe I’m too harsh, she’s browsing r/SoapOperas”
Mary Worth Mashup: Let’s add a panel for Dawn’s reaction, shall we?
Wrecks Moregone:
“Just like dad does when he pretends to be treating people?”
“That’s different. Your dad has a medical degree. It’s a mail order medical degree from Cambodia, but it’s a degree all the same.”
________________________________
Wary Morth:
Dusk: “Its not as though he’s a crazed murderous psycho. Once a crazed murderous psycho, always a crazed murderous psycho!”
Wilbur: “That reminds me, I invited Belle Batsfrey to come for another visit today.”
@Baja Gaijin: Dusk grew a spine?!????!?
DtM:
“Our readership and I must be slipping into senescence, Dennis — it appears that we can all see your eyebrows even though your hair is covering them!”
Questioned Malcontent:
Good heavens, Zlata has been in her new chassis for just 8 panels and her nose has already doubled in size and her eyes are sliding down her face.
DT:
“I can’t concentrate, Fritz Anne — my face looks particularly like a paralellogram today!”
DtM- I guess they’re just admitting this is the only age group still reading this slop.
DtM:
“My favorite was the military daytime drama about the trials and tribulations of a high-ranking officer — General Hospital!”
Yikes, Comics Kingdom’s vintage Apartment 3-G strip just jumped from Alex Kotzky’s gorgeous 1972 strips to Frank Bolle’s 2011s, and I am not loving it.
MW: Based on human psychology (and tropes!), I’d normally expect Wilbur’s speech to drive Dawn closer to Tommy. But this is Mary Worth so normal human psychology may not apply. Really we can’t even rely on the tropes.
Crankshaft : …Larry Dinkle’s band disappeared without explanation during intermission because they got back early, and thought the hall being empty meant the audience was gone, so they stormed off angrily, even though if they had simply waited for the end of intermission the audience would have come back.
************
Dennis the Menace : I wondered if what was really happening was that Martha Wilson was trying to tell Dennis that all her favorite soap operas got cancelled, but knew that means something different then how she means it (“got forcibly ended due to not being renewed”), so she phrased it weird… but quick Google tells me a surprising quantity of soap operas are still running despite being older than Martha Wilson herself is meant to be?
************
Dick Tracy : No, Josh, those really are X-Boxes (pardon me, “OX-Boxes”). In this storyline, Dick Tracy is fighting hackers who are being celebrated by the gaming community for hacking an unpopular/derided video game company.
Yes, Dick Tracy is REALLY going to fight gaming podcasters/streamers, because he’s still sore he didn’t get to kill everyone involved in that mass drone attack/robbery scheme.
************
Luann : Man, remember how Bets had been made to give up on all her cosplay/social media stuff to exclusively be Gunther’s girlfriend, and Gunther’s girlfriend only?
Yeah, that was a dark turn for the character, I’m glad the strip dropped that angle, and Bets got back to doing the things she clearly very much enjoys doing.
DtM: The Young and the Restless are now The Old and the Sedentary, i. e. Pluggers.
I think that’s a remote that Mrs. Wilson’s holding, as modern as she gets in technology. It does put her one up on her husband, though, who keeps getting up to try and change channels by hand.
DtM — Martha Wilson appears to belong to a cult that demands its acolytes tattoo ovals on their knees and elbows as well as treble clefs on their ankles. Also their children drink milk through a straw from glasses with no lids. Menace level–confusing!
DT: 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?
DtM: Dennis listens to an old woman complain about her shows. Menace level: not even budging the needle.
@Anonymous: On Luann – I’m still thinking these are fancy cell phone filters making it LOOK like Bernice’s “friends” are having the time of their lives while she sits and rots in Luann’s house (shouldn’t she be doing the Kafe Kablooie books to earn her room and board?). The tell? Gunther actually looks halfway *good* in a costume. Any other time he’s joined the cosplay scene, he’s looked ridiculous, if not downright disturbing. I’m guessing he made this post to throw the police off the trail of Bets, which he has chained up in the basement of the garden shack. (Sure, it has a basement, why wouldn’t it?)
MW: I’m getting a bad feeling guys. The Mary-verse’s coddling of Wilbur means he has to be vindicated now in some way. Tommy’s doomed!
JP: Maybe on a subconscious level she knows she ought to be in a jail cell for criminal assault of a suspect in an active police investigation?
S4th: Yup, just as I suspected. Wacky shenanigans separate the parties in the two small vehicles which could easily have been one big vehicle. Lemme guess, the family is going to have a ‘heartwarming’ flashback/forward (AGAIN!!!) and afterward they’re going to go blather about it to Ronan and Mrs. Ted Forth while they are just going to stand there thinking ‘my GOD this was a mistake!”
CS: So was this before or after Dinkle saw Elvis on the TeeVee during that WWII-era dance contest that Eugene took Lillian to before shipping out for the European theater? Had Smellovision replaced it yet?
CS: So, we’re supposed to believe that Daddy Dinkle and the boys were, prior to their break, all set to premiere the new song to an audience of two people, namely Lucy and Eugene? Then, after Larry threw his beloved composition away in a fit of pique, Eugene apparently came back, found it, and kept it for 80-plus years? Sure, that all makes perfect sense (cut to GIF of Rocket Raccoon winking).
DtM: Seeing as there’s only four “daytime dramas” left on the broadcast networks (and one on streaming), that’s hardly surprising, Martha. Meanwhile, Dennis is picturing a fat lady in a horned helmet on stage singing about detergent.
C’shaft: “And all because he hadn’t paid them in two years. Really, some people have no sense of loyalty.”
Dustin: It’s simple, Dustmom. You just have to go back in time, be born a white man, and spend the entirety of your life being told in various implicit and explicit ways that you are the pinnacle of humanity and you deserve nothing other than love and admiration from those around you.
GT: Gil worrying that he won’t always be right and perfect? This must be a dream.
Luann: Everyone around Bernice is living their best live. The sad thing is, so is Bernice.
MW: Wilbur’s not angry, he’s desperate. He needs to believe change and growth are impossible, because otherwise people might expect him to no longer be a pathetic, repulsive lump of a man, and then where will he be?
RMMD: Oh, give it a rest, already! Wasn’t there anyone else at the grocery you can feel superior to for a minute? A person buying soda with food stamps, or maybe a sweet old lady who talked a little too long with the cashier about her grandchildren?
I have to inform you that the joke here is that the soap in soap opera is also the the substance soap going down the drain when you wash something your hand or the dishes. I have also to inform you that you are allowed not to find this funny
DtM: Unless the soaps have REALLY changed, it’s probably not the best idea to expose Dennis to that much iniquity.
MW: Wouldn’t it be delightfully ironic if, after touting The New and Improved Tommy far and wide, Dawn ended up innocently abetting him in a heist?
RMMD: So, will the plot crisis be that when one of the girls needs medical attention, a triggered June is unable to perform?
“We are distributing Nintendo Switch and Steam machines to young people of Neo Chicago. It will make them anti-social and stuck inside, so they are less likely to join gangs and commit crimes”
@Uncle Lumpy: LAMPY’S BACK
Don Abundio, translated:
“The Admiral says he’s stopped wearing underwear”
“But won’t he be awfully embarrassed if his pants fall down?”
[Sign: TATTOOS]
“Now give me polka-dot boxer shorts”
Dick Tracy: “We’ve uncovered a fiendish plot to introduce these ‘gaming machines’ into every bar, diner and fleabag bodega in the city!” “My God, what’s next, online forums where you can bet on everything from presidential elections to wildfire season in California?” [Beat] “Nah, that would be going too far.”
MW “Well, too bad, young lady! With teen hangout malls back in action, we are slipping back to your adolescent years and I’m in charge – now go to your room and update your MySpace if you want to communicate with friends!”
MT Most of the totally I swear they exist despite the internet’s denial – they’re as common as Humane Society branches! – gorilla sanctuaries have good intentions, housing the many, many gorillas taken in from bad situations because loads of people are secretly keeping them as pets. Why, there’s probably a gorilla in your neighbourhood, folks! Have you looked closely at your neighbour mowing the lawn lately?
Dennis the Menace: Slipping from the kitchen table onto the couch with milk and cookies while your increasingly senile host struggles to understand that she can’t change channels with the phone? Highly menacing, especially if he starts going through her purse next.
DT: “What’s a ‘Pop-o-Matic?’”
Phantom: ”Errrr— looks like the Iberian Penisula. Hold on while I re-boot the system.”
JP: ”Oh, Abbey….everyone is annoyed by you.”
FG: Fria ponders further: “Yet, in a just world, Brussels sprouts would taste like a chocolate malted.”
Also: I can’t figure out what she would look like (maybe dollar-sign sunglasses? Workshop this), but the criminal in this plotline should by all rights be named “Betty,” I consider this a major failure on the part of the Dick Tracy creative team.
MW: Of course Wilbur refuses to believe in self-improvement. This is like the time he saw Zak and Iris working out and had to cope by imagining Zak as an evil Grape Ape. People can’t change! If they could, how would he justify his endearing quirks?!
DtM: They’re sitting far too close to that television. Is Mrs. Wilson secretly scheming to ruin Dennis’s eyesight? Menace Level: Did Not Think This Through. If Dennis navigates with a cane, he’ll break all your stuff with it!
@J.J. O’Malley: re: CS – and also that Daddy wrote this all down in a journal that ended up with his stuff despite never returning home (dying??) after that night…
RMMD: On the one hand, this could be a setup, like mentioned before, that the Overlook Twins are playing with background music, or that the music is from a family member who needs the food and medicine. But since June can never be wrong, I’m going to go with Beatty never getting over wasting money on that Milli Vanilli cassette tape.
DT: So we are going to catch a dangerous internationally connected hacker with a set of X-box knock offs? Not a super high gaming PC tricked out with liquid cooling multiple video cards and a huge monitor? Sure … after all some bad actors have been found by total happenstance … meanwhile Soly Tare is still at large, and did Double Up and Beady Eyes also get away?
JP: We’ll have 2-3 months of ruminations about what is family – is it blood, shared experiences, common goals or simply not having anywhere else to go, then the other writer persona takes over and we’ll be back with a slam bam action strip.
MW: While many may find this hypocritical of Wilbur to be so harsh and unforgiving, it actually all fits into his self-centered point of view. His woes and short comings, his damage to relationship and his hurting of other people’s feelings were all accidental due to the vast trauma he was dealing with and should be forgiven. Other people’s shortcomings, failures and transgressions are clearly due to malice and should be vigorously rooted out! This time Moy got it right! This is truly Wilbur.
RMMD: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE follow classic script writing trope: an overreaction of a character is due to some very personal deep prior experience. June when she was young was made to help a parent do some busking and had to fake playing a violin or flute on the street. She always felt it was wrong, dirty, and that shame has never left her. It ruined her appreciation of her instrument and music. Later then the twins ask Sarah “what’s up with mom, she is mad about something” Sarah will reply that she thinks is related to be an honest artist that is true to the vision and calling of art.
Phantom: Nomad is no good at the geoquest game!
6Chx: YOU live in Los Angeles, Mediterranean climate winter through summer, not a lick of humidity in your air. If you want to make cartoons bitching about the weather, move to a city with seasons.
Bitch about smoke inhalation, flooding, earthquakes, and wildfires. That’s allowed.
There’s a 100% probability that the Dick Tracy artist has drawn Fritz Ann naked many times.
Dennis the Menace: Mrs. Wilson’s dress is supposed to be covered in violets, but instead it’s a pattern of purple Xs! One-handed tic-tac-toe, the Devil’s game!
Dick Tracy: Fritz Ann’s idea is so powerful, it turned a wall orange! It may not be life-changing, but it’s provably color-changing!
DtM: Martha angrily points at her checkbook while complaining about their latest self-produced YouTube video.
“Not another dime, George!”
“There’s just not enough sex and violence anymore! I guess HBO has ruined the genre for us all.”
Family Circlejerk – “Daddy’s having a wet dream again!”
Rex Morgan, MILF Diver – They made June ugly on the outside with that hideous haircut. Now they are working hard to make her even uglier on the inside.
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!
***
Fritz Ann saw the new price for the Steam Deck and understands that it’s going to lead to a lot of crime. Well done, proactive cop.
@MKay: DtM: Unless the soaps have REALLY changed,
I recall visiting my parents around 2005 or so. They still took the newspaper, and every Saturday there was a brief summary of all the soaps. I recall one weekend there were plotlines involving UFOs, zombies, and drug terrorists — not, I think, all on the same soap. I can only imagine they’ve gotten worse since then, having to compete for attention with so much other media.
Dennis the Menace-Martha’s soaps used to have so much more sex.
RMMD-“Let’s turn around and run them down.”
MW-Wilbur has a bit of a point. People with addictions have to struggle with that all their lives.
FC-“Daddy’s passed out drunk again.”
On of the top pitchers ever, Steve Carlton, hung around too long in his declining years, ending it in Minnesota with a bunch of bad outings. A local columnist (one who has since gone into sports talk radio, which tells you all you need to know about him) did one of those pretentious “open letter” columns: “Dear Lefty, you were a great pitcher. Now you are ruining your legacy . . . blah, blah.”
I’m fighting the urge to get that pretentious and write an open letter to Batiuk.
I enjoyed Crankshaft in his early years. And the original version of Funky was good. For some reason the Minneapolis dead tree dropped Funky, and I was unaware of the time jump until I came to this community. The grown-up version of Funky was horrible, but at least we all had one another to snark on it. I guess for that we can thank Batty for giving us Dead Lisa.
Although he ended Funky, sort of, Batty continues on with Crankshaft for whatever reason (Pulitzer? FIFA peace prize?)
So bring on the pretentiousness:
Dear Batty,
You were good once. Now your comic sucks. Give it up.
@Ukranazi Stepan: How are you able to get new QC strips? The site I’ve always gone to isn’t showing anything newer than last week!
@Buck Ripsnort: Nevermind, I just checked and it’s back to normal, or at least functional. That strip could never be classified as “Normal.”
From a plot that was introduced referencing genuine furry comics to what might be a nod to how “skill games” were just recently banned as slot machines in part of the US, this might be the most topical DT has been in decades.
Meanwhile I’m pretty sure from the positioning that the flatscreen’s cabinet and the smartphone in Dennis the Menace were originally a CRT and a remote control, respectively, so take from that what you will.
DT: Given that the current world economic mess plus AI shit demanding all the microchips and rare-earth minerals necessary for high-end electronics like generic “Gaming Machines,” these are most likely used SNES models from the 80’s. Some people would enjoy those even more!
@Buck Ripsnort: Sorry for not turning off BOLD as I intended.
FC: Total betrayal of Dolly’s character. Everyone knows she’d be telling her mom that Daddy’s wearing shoes on the couch.
MW: Dawn knows her dad’s anger is only about six on the Wilbur rage scale. He said ‘Tommy’ and not Thomas. It’s only at about level eight that he starts pushing people off of sidewalks into oncoming traffic.
MW: Wilbur doesn’t care about Dawn, he just doesn’t want to have to interact with Iris at the preliminary hearings.
@Bob Tice: With its sexual fetish story lines, I thought it was Genital Hospital.
MW- Tommy Beedie? Really? Can he get any blow?
Forget being a plugger. Today, I’m Mrs. Wilson. My favorite soap operas—Another World, Guiding Light, and, above all, Santa Barbara—have gone down the drain by bringing canceled years ago. What’s more menacing than the slow demise of an art form. You know, Dennis, like newspaper comics?
DtM: She’s reading Mary Worth on Comics Curmudgeon “The stories used to be so much better and coherent!”
DENNIS THE MENACE: “THIS ISN’T METACOMMENTARY OR ANYTHING!” The strip proclaims, as it whistles inconspicuously and then walks away….
DT: Dick looks pissed.
Is it because he got reamed by Chief Pat Begorrabegorra for the MCU being MIA during the Great Drone Heist?
Or is it because he has to work with ‘a girl’?
@McCapwell: There was a videogame called “Another World” in the U.K. when it came to North America, due to the soap opera, it was forced to be renamed “Out of this World” which I found a much better title.
Then in recent years, after the soap opera ended, the game was renamed “Another World” in North America, which actually kind of ticked me off.
Also the game itself kind of sucked…? One of the worst endings I have ever seen in a videogame in my life.
@McCapwell: For me, it was “Ryan’s Hope” (“Hopeless” as we called it).
It was always on in the break room when the receptionist took her lunch.
It’s the sadness of time passing from the death of network radio to the daily serials to the fading of other staples of my youth.
MW: it seems Wilbur is unaware of the fact he is an unredeemed piece of shit asshole.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: I’ve found a few open letters from fans to Tom Batiuk floating around the internet… but nothing in the last 15-20 years. When Batiuk finally killed off Dead Lisa in 2006, and then immediately did a time skip/snap back that made her death irrelevant, comics fans just gave up on the strip. So fans don’t bother trying to improve the Funkyverse, or care how much it sucks anymore. Unlike, say, For Better Or For Worse.
@The Rambling Otter: I remember that game! I rented it from Blockbuster for my Sega Genesis one time. It was this weird, trippy puzzle platformer. It remember that it had a French language option for all the onscreen dialog, which was unusual at the time. I used it because I was studying French, and it was a good way to practice. I never saw how it ended, but from what you’re saying, I wasn’t missing much.
@Ukranazi Stepan: @Buck Ripsnort: One thing Questionable Content has taught me is that a robot with a substandard body aspires to obtain a humanoid female chassis with eye-poppingly large breasts.
They’ve figured out who’s REALLY in control in the meatsack world.
@Banana Jr. 6000: To be fair, the game did have good atmosphere and the platforming puzzles are cool, but really. I won’t spoil but… I really did hate that ending.
Mary Worth – I hate to say it, but once a self centered, repulsive asshole, always a self centered, repulsive asshole.
Rex Morgan – Oh, for fuck’s sake – get a smidgen of humanity, June. The girls are begging for money for food and MEDICAL EXPENSES, which I think should register in a medical professional’s brain. But no, let’s spend at least a week complaining about their lack of real musicianship. To make it worse, she’s drumming it into her daughter’s head. Instead of “Fake music!”, June could point out, ” Those girls need help. How can we help them?” How hard is that?
This story has just begun, and already it’s infuriating.
9CL – Why does Brooke continue to draw his female characters in profile? They are hideously unattractive from that angle. They’re no longer gorilla faced ballerinas; they’re now gorilla faced musicians.
Seeing these two in wedded bliss reminds me – what happened to the other twin’s husband, Guy? They had a boinkfest, and then he disappeared. By the way, he’s French Canadian, and his name is pronounced Gee, with a hard G. Maybe it wasn’t hard enough.
Crankshaft – Maybe they left because someone told them their names weren’t on the program.
How long is this garbage story going to last?
@Baja Gaijin: Mashup – I’m sure that’s what we’re all thinking.
@Ken: You’re right about the tropes, but keep in mind that the platitudes are forever.
@MKay: Re MW – or she innocently became his drug mule.
Dick Tracy:
Look how skeptical Dick looks about this plan! You know, there was a time when Dick’s equipment, like the two-way wrist radio/TV, was cutting-edge or even futuristic stuff, but now the relentless march of technological progress has left him and his equipment behind (or it has since they conveniently forgot about Diet Smith’s time machine and single-stage-to-orbit spacecraft and all that jazz). But now Dick hears about a criminal-catching plan involving high-end “gaming machines” and he’s not having it. “Using technology to catch criminals?” he thinks. “What happened to shooting criminals in the face?” You can do both, Dick! You used to love doing both! What happened to you, man?
DTM: You, Martha Wilson, a two-screen viewer? I never would have guessed. For shame. A lot of people put time and effort into making these shows. The least you can do is give them your full attention.
DT: “Or should I say … gaming machines. Yeah, I … I probably should have said that. So, uh … pretend like I did. Can we start over?”
DT – So “Gaming machines” is an euphemism for “mechanized sex toys?” She looks absolutely gleeful thinking about what she’s going to do to Sam with these things.
MW – Wilbur can’t believe that Tommy’s gotten clean. However, he can suspect that Dawn might be smoking crack.
Dennis The Menace: So much for “kids these days and their DAMN phones”. Now it’s the old people glued to screens. How the turns table.
Dick Tracy: I think by gaming machines, they mean gaming PCs. Given Dick Tracy’s prior engagement with furry fandom, I’m guessing next is introducing him to the world of online gaming and streaming, culminating in Dick becoming a vtuber.
“Gaming machines,” eh? I wasn’t aware Neo-Chicago had overturned their ban on pinball.
@The Rambling Otter: Yeah, it was ahead of its time. Platforming games were common in the Sega vs Nintendo era, but puzzle-solving wasn’t yet. Tetris was still a recent development.
I remember that you had to do odd jobs to advance the plot and build your resources, which was another gaming trope that became common later. One of these levels was some kind of timed mission dealing with a reactor meltdown. It always struck me as funny that this was a task posted to a job board for any random person to accept and do. I especially liked how the reactor patiently waited for somebody to take the job, before it exploded Chernobyl-style.
@Banana Jr. 6000: Are we talking about the same game?
You sound like you’re referring to “Flashback” which played nearly identical Out of this World/Another World, but you took on odd jobs in that.
Out of this world/Another World, had your character transported to another dimension, and soon a fugitive on the run from the alien locals, that was pretty much the entire game. (And has no dialogue that I can recall)
@I speak Jive: Honestly this RMMD arc is getting legit kinda creepy to me, if only for how bizarre June’s rage is. She’s talking about these two girls panhandling in the same seething tone as a raging bigot would about a transgender person walking down the street with a pride pin on their jacket. It’s so weird. Are beggers and con-artists some kind of oppressed underclass in the Rex Morgan world?
@Banana Jr. 6000: It does not shock me at all that Dead Lisa was what killed Funky-Verse’s following. From everything I’ve learned about this series since joining this blog, Lisa’s death and the ensuing time skip leading into endless swamps of Les Moore’s bullshit are the point where Batiuk well and truly lost the plot.
@The Rambling Otter: Your comment accidentally creates the image of an eternally looping fourth wall paradox where Mrs. Wilson is – by reading this blog – looking at a picture of herself looking at the picture of herself and so on for infinity.
@CanuckDownSouth: As the saying goes, the possibility of being attacked by a gorilla is often low but never zero.
@J.J. O’Malley: The whole timeline of Daddy Dinkle and Eugene is totally incoherent, especially when you consider the real life history of the genre Dinkle belonged to (which persisted longer than Batiuk seems to think). Just more proof that the Funky-Verse now takes place in some kind of time-warp.
Luann: What’s happening to Bets? Every time she reappears she gets more caucasian.
@Hibbleton: #12: And The Bold and the Beautiful are now The Timid and the Unattractive.
@The Rambling Otter: I think you’re right that it was Flashback, but I swear it was called Out of This World. But I’m working from 35-year-old memories, so there’s a good chance I’ve got it wrong.
@Guillermo el chiclero: That’s just what happens to anyone who interacts with Luann for too long.
@ectojazzmage: #75:
“the Funky-Verse now takes place in some kind of time-warp”
Back when Jeff the Eunuch and his imaginary inner child fled the wildfire by ducking into an old cave they wandered into one of those Kiran Veins, the kind where present day Flash and hundred years ago Ming could bump into one another yet still return to their proper times.
Dick Tracy: It’s just boxes of RAM, which is worth its weight in gold.
@UncleJeff: #59: “Ryan’s Hope” started out centered around a mostly blue collar Irish-American family but quickly got taken over by the uber rich jetsetters, eventually called by many Billionaire’s Hope.
Crank: Yo, dawg, I heard you liked retcons, so I put a retcon in your retcon…
DT: “Does your plan involve this equipment, Fritz-Ann?”
“Yes, Dick, that’s why it’s here. I’m not really in the habit of arranging for boxes of heavy equipment to be dragged into the conference room when my plan doesn’t involve it. Anyone else have a stupid question before I explain things?”
EC: Hooray, we’ve managed to get the “expensive restaurants have tiny portions” joke in there! Honestly surprised it took so long.
MW: It’s not so much that Wilbur hates to say that Tommy is irredeemable and everyone should give up on him, as that he’s out of practice now that he hasn’t been dating Iris for a while. (Seriously.)
RMMD: “Some would say that those girls don’t deserve to die of whatever they need medicine for just because neither of them can actually play the violin. Those people also deserve to die for being weak.”
(Of course, as I think I’ve noted before, because there is literally no such thing as a shade of grey in the Rexiverse, the fact June has identified these girls as liars and scammers automatically means that they are also lying about needing medicine. You can’t be a liar and be telling the truth, that’s like Epimenides’s paradox or something!)
S4th: I think it says something about what this strip’s become that I genuinely feel I should have seen “Ted’s desire to have the kind of road-trip he had as a kid literally sends them back to the days of two-lane highways and no cellphones” coming.
SH: It never fails to weird me out how casual these people are about the idea that Palmtop just … knows what house she’s meant to be at and goes there on her own. That is not normal cat behaviour! If you could actually explain this stuff to cats, it probably still wouldn’t be normal cat behaviour!
Re: Dennis the Menace
It was my interpretation that most of the soap operas Mrs. Wilson liked had been canceled. It’s quantity, not quality at the heart of her complaint. And I say that because soap operas have almost entirely disappeared from TV, apart from a few very hearty survivors. Was that anyone else’s interpretation of this joke? That it was about the slow death of soap operas, rather than their decline in quality?
BF: yesterday Kim couldn’t read her own list, today she’s losing her memory. Fighting old age looks hopeless. But it isn’t! Get glasses and start focusing.
CS: doesn’t look like Larry is going peacefully into the night. No sympathy here, he should have pre-sold tickets and given a few freebies for promo.
FG: lore help requested. How was Flash, a mere human, to blame that he should have died?
PLUGGERS” “Tonights the night” can also mean you’re wearing your last pair of clean undies.
S4TH: oh, no, they’ve entered The Twilight Zone. Good thing Ronan has Magical powers.
SFx: just want to congratulate Mr. Weber, that vow and calf in background are a nice touch. Jerseys?
You can tell Dennis and Mrs. Wilson are real homies because they have matching elbow tattoos.
BB: Wait…Have the animals always been able to talk, or do they only do so when the humans aren’t around? Or is there a new writer who wants to take a decades-old, out-of-touch strip in a new direction, like on Mark Trail?
@Rover Berkeley: I’ve been saying for years that Mary Worth should just focus on the cutesy/wacky adventures of Libby and Co.
Apparently the memo was sent to the wrong writer…
S4th: Since Curtis has ceded the ground of batshit craziness that used to be the Kwanzaa Arc, I’m willing to see how Ces’ Midsummer’s Night Road Trip turns out.
@Baja Gaijin:
MW #1: Baja this mashup is truly believable except it shows growth on Dawn’s part (her understanding, not her hair part). Hope it’s tomorrow’s strip
RMMD: re-last panel: Mr. Beatty, please don’t draw the faces of your characters from that back angle again. Sarah looks like a Cabbage Patch doll and June looks like Elvis, and I don’t mean the svelte, sexy 1950s Elvis.
@Activist: #85: re-FG: If memory serves correct Flash was going after the giant snow godzilla on one of those air scooters but got knocked off by the monster’s tail. Ronal quickly hopped aboard the now pilotless scooter and finished the job, but at the cost of his own life.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Oh gad, put’’em together and you have Arch Hall Jr., memorably described by Joel & The Bots as ‘a Cabbage Patch Elvis’!
@Rover Berkeley: A coconut falls out of a tree and bonks Sarge on the head, leaving him with the linguistic powers of Dr. Dolittle, preferably not the musical version.
Opening today’s strip with random dogs instead of the usual lumpy denizens of Camp Swampy really brings home just how childish and half-assed the Walkers’ art is these days.
@ectojazzmage: What gets me is that June isn’t saying anything at all about the begging part, or that they’re asking for money for food and medical bills. She is outraged because the girl isn’t actually playing a musical instrument. She’s going on and on about it. This shows a serious lack of humanity on June’s part. Talk about missing the point.
@Guillermo el chiclero:
#92 FG. Thanks, Guillermo, that would explain things. Just hope she realizes she could also right things by marrying Flash to be new prince, rather than killing him.
Beetle Bailey: The dogs sure are accepting of Otto who pretty much is halfway towards being human.
Case-in-point to compare: Early on in the Pokémon anime, the cat-Pokémon Meowth, used to be a stray who had a crush on another Meowth.
He wanted to impress her, by standing out from the others, so he self-taught himself to speak the human language and walk on two legs. Her reaction? She was disgusted by what a freak he had become and wanted nothing to do with him.
@I speak Jive: I don’t follow RMMD anymore, but based on the comments here, and having some idea how Beatty’s mind works, I’m guessing that he thinks he’s making a clever comparison to paying for AI art. That the analogy is not at all apt wouldn’t stand in his way.
@The Quiet Man: So far, I have seen a few people on here use the term “Oh Gad” (on this site alone)
I never heard that term before until recently.
Has Josh Gad finally risen as our new Lord and Savior? ;-)
@The Rambling Otter: Has Josh Gad finally risen as our new Lord and Savior? ;-)
We’ll be back! (Da da da da da, die yi-ee yi….)
DtM: Since most soap operas have been cancelled, Martha Wilson tries to recreate the old thrill with C-SPAN, but it’s just not the same.
DT: QX™ has gone into the video game console market after establishing themselves in the world of high value Scrabble tiles.
@The Rambling Otter: Beetle Bailey: The dogs sure are accepting of Otto who pretty much is halfway towards being human.
_______________________________
They know Otto has access to the poodle prostitute in her human form,Ms Buxley.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: DT: QX™ has gone into the video game console market after establishing themselves in the world of high value Scrabble tiles.
COTW nominee!
@GarrisonSkunk: Marge Simpson: Beetle Bailey became Safe Havens so gradually, I barely even noticed…
@Guillermo el chiclero: Michael Jackson Syndrome.
Her skin grows lighter. The hits stop coming. And the movie of her life goes to the credits without explanation.
@I speak Jive: 9CL: Seeing these two in wedded bliss reminds me – what happened to the other twin’s husband, Guy? They had a boinkfest, and then he disappeared.
And don’t forget the husband before that, Walter Bubbletea, who similarly disappeared after a week of being touted as her One True Love. And how about the hot lifeguard guy before that? Are we absolutely sure Polly isn’t a Praying Mantis in disguise?
C-Shaft: “Ever the wag, my mother was heard to say, ‘Why didn’t I ever think of that?’”
Dustin: My only objection to Dustdad appearing shirtless is that it draws attention to his combined head and neck’s resemblance to a Nintendo joystick.
Luann: It’s 2:30PM and Bernice just finished her scientific experiment on whether pet goldfish can hear vibrators.
MG&G: A transmission from an Alternate Earth where Robin still wears the micro-shorts but the Caped Crusader Who Shall Not Be Named is in a relationship with Catwoman, who has a sense of ethics so she’ll burgle jewels but not dairy products.
MT: The “WHAT??” alligator wanted to take a swig of ginger ale and do a spit take, but the director told him not to ad lib.
MW: Wilbur’s not being fair at all. If you say “once a drug addict former felon, always a drug addict former felon” you might as well also say “once a self-absorbed schlubby stalker always a self…” Okay, point taken.
Phantom: “You’re looking at a multibillionaire sweating himself to death because he hasn’t taken off that helmet since before his plane left the States.”
RMMD: June and Sara are still carping about the buskers working with a backing track. George Costanza could only aspire to this level of pettiness.
@GarrisonSkunk: Why thank you, my mephitid friend!
@ectojazzmage: Just more proof that the Funky-Verse now takes place in some kind of time-warp.
______
“Lets Not Do The Time Warp Again!” – The hit song from “The Funky Horror Picture Show”
@Artist formerly known as Ben: @GarrisonSkunk: Why thank you, my mephitid friend!
______________________
My pleasure,and good luck!
@The Rambling Otter: @GarrisonSkunk: Marge Simpson: Beetle Bailey became Safe Havens so gradually, I barely even noticed
_________________________________
Such a shame Sarge wiped out the merfolk when he went on that seafood binge.
Dick Tracy: I went on Reddit shortly after browsing this site.
Got an car ad for “Infiniti QX65”
@UncleJeff:
#105 the lightening of portions of the skin is a disease. I once had an adult student with it, a housekeeper, and the problem instead turned out to be the harsh cleaning solution she was required to use.
The Familliar Mucus : Is there some kind of “Phantom”/” Beetle Bailey” style curse if we actually see Bil’s eyes behind his white-outed glasses lens?
@The Rambling Otter:
Are we sure that he taught himself human language, though? He only communicates with barks and growls on-base at Camp Swampy. This looks more like those episodes of Lost where you see Sayid speaking English for 5 seconds before the rest of his flashback is everyone speaking English.
Re: Rambling Otter, Banana Jr. 6000
It shocked me to discover that Flashback and Out of This World were made by different people.
REX MORGAN M.D.: So the “medical plot” in this arc is Rex performing emergency surgery to extract the gigantic bug that had somehow logged up June’s ass?
I mean what the fuck are June and Sarah even going on about? Who exactly were those girls supposed to be “cheating” here? The store? The composer.of the piece who doesn’t have the “honor” of having to busk for his supper (who wouldn’t get any royalties even if the Bobsy Twins there were playing for real, so that can’t be the angle here.) And honestly, who were they “fooling”? The point of soliciting money in the first place was that they needed to keep a roof over their head and their medical expenses paid. I mean, I know “charity” is like a “dirty” word to the Morgan family, but that’s would be the main reason people would donate to this family. The music is just a bonus. This technically isn’t even a concert for God’s sake.
Late Thread Cuisine: Technically, it’s a burger.
For a moment, I thought Dick Tracy was about to mine crypto, or train an AI model, but on reflection, I think it’s more likely that he’ll have to put on a VR helmet to “enter cyberspace” and punch out a hacker. That seems more his speed.
MARY WORTH: I love that the central conflict for this story is shaping up to be over whether Tommy has “truly changed” and not “so just how unobservant and oblivious are the Westons anyway?”
As a reminder, Wilbur was dating Tommy’s mom since the beginning of this blog and was with her until about after The Big Artist Revolt. In all that time, he never paid any attention to what’s been going on with the son of the woman he (supposedly) wanted to have a long-term relationship with. The son who lives with her who’d he probably see every time he picked her up on a date.? The son he never properly introduced to his daughter (who also lives with him, I should point out) in some kind of “blended family bonding ritual?”
@Human-eared Dragon: Yeah, I kind of felt the same way with the (original) Alone in the Dark and PS1 Resident Evil, as the movement controls are exactly the same, were released around the same time and both pioneered the Survival Horror genre. (Alone in the Dark came first, but Resident Evil fully codified the genre)
If no-one ripped off the other, it’s just kind of weird.
LUANN: So Bernice gets herself all hot-and-heavy and then just… doesn’t do anything whatsoever to release the tension? No wonder she’s such a goddamn basket case. What kind of psycho deliberately blue-balls themselves?
@ectojazzmage: it’s even funnier when you compare it with June’s completelack of outrage or even interest in a parking garage downtown just straight blowing up from an otherwise boring Jordan plotline. Then, she could not change the story on that seemingly concerning development fast enough. (June: “Hey if it’s something I can’t Complain to the Manager about, I don’t give a shit!”)
RMMD: The girls throw it in June’s face when they show up at the clinic for treatment for Juvenile idiopathic arthritis which has robbed the one of the ability to play her treasured violin. June, however, gets the last laugh when she turns them away for lack of insurance.
@Hibbleton: Or June could relent, and do them a good turn. Give them some Medicine for the Family.
@117 2+2=7: “…extract the gigantic bug that had somehow logged up June’s ass?” Is tht the word you meant to use? Maybe the word “crawled” would be better?
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Family Circlejerk – “Daddy’s having a wet dream again!”
“Wait, no – my mistake. I went over and checked. Completely dry, as always.”
LUANN: I love that all of these people are pretending to be Bernice’s “friend” this one time just for the sake of rubbing it in.
LUANN (2): I know some people have suggested that the Evans have played “favorites” with Bernice, particularly when compared to how they treat Luann. But for an examination of who the actual preferred character is, just look at how Bernice’s erotic revery revelry gets a mere “Well that was steamy” while Greg devotes a whole week to drawing Toni lovingly drying off her wet sopping heaving breasts in explicit detail.
RMMD: While expressing her outrage at the two “buskers”, June is driving into a light blue void. She must be approaching 9CL, where the world is bathed in a white void.
@Baja Gaijin: I think they were going for the word ‘lodged’.
@Bryan: One who knows which side her bread is buttered on. A few more days and she’ll have Mr. and Mrs. Luann thinking the moron currently cosplaying as a camp counselor is someone they’ve never seen before. Then after arranging an ‘accident’ for the dear husband, she and Mrs. Luann can run off, Thelma and Louise style. Hopefully to the same ending.
I’m too lazy to go back through the comments and check, but did anyone notice Ruben Bolling’s hilarious sendup of sites like the Comics Curmudgeon ten days ago? Convenient Link for your viewing pleasure.
Follow Super Fun Pak Comics for this kind of against-the-grain wit every day!
Hagar the Horrible is a warlord? He has enough money, power, and serfs to be a warlord?
Looking forward to the Dick Tracy gamer arc, in which he is called several slurs on 4chan. This culminates in him arresting his computer. It mysteriously disappears before ever reaching the station. It is presumed at large, and definitely not dismantled in a bag under a local bridge.
@Ukulele Ike: she’s ot in Chicago?
@133 MEH: I’d expect Dick to shoot the computer in its
facemonitor.@ValdVin: A warlord that seems to have made some sort of Faustian pact with dark forces. As he dies onscreen (or is about to die) often but keeps resurrecting.
@Baja Gaijin: Dick: Does Facebook have an actual face?
“No.”
Dick: What about facetime?
@Ukulele Ike: Today’s strip:
They’re even huger seen from the side.
@Ukranazi Stepan: Ohmigod. Over much. She’s completely off-balance and will be falling on her face a LOT. Put the old body back on, Zlata, some people go for that sylph shit.
@Lester Edgar Helicopter: Chicago is full of weird and wonderful people and things, but I have never yet seen 1977 punk cosplay, with the safety pins and shit. Seems to me like a Hollywood thing.
@Ukulele Ike: 6Chx: YOU live in Los Angeles
Are you sure? Everything I can find about Bianca Xunise indicates she’s in Chicago:
“an illustrator, writer and educator based out of Chicago”
@Ukulele Ike:
#34 6 Cx: funny video distinguishing media’s “LA is heaven” to the real thing– “I Love LA” by Randy Newman in the alternate video with cover of headshot of blonde model, wind blowing her hair. On YouTube everywhere.
@Baja Gaijin: unagi between crunchy-crusted rice cakes? can I order them by the dozen?
@142 CanuckDownSouth: You can order them by the dozen; they’re about $36 per pair. Yes, thirty-six dollars for two of them. White Castle they ain’t.
DtM: I agree with the other poster who posits that this is a repeat strip and the original had a CRT. That’s obviously a remote. As if Mrs. Wilson would use a “smart phone”. LOL get out of here. And the “down the drain” is bemoaning the newfangled “Cable TV” that is making OTA network TV with her soaps obsolete.
@Little Guy: June is NEVER Wrong! Otherwise, Beatty might have to formulate an interesting storyline.
@Anonymous: There’s even a NEW soap opera called Beyond the Gates (CBS): It centers on an affluent African-American family living in a gated community in the Washington, D.C. area.