Jordan will be a character witness at their trial. “They seemed nice,” he’ll say
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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.
46 replies to “Jordan will be a character witness at their trial. “They seemed nice,” he’ll say”
Crankshaft-“Now let us all march ourselves right into the lake.”
RMMD-Rex is an expert on scams. He’s run a few himself.
RMMD-“Sure. You can take this bag,” June says as Rex takes the bag and her attempt at innuendo fails once again.
MW-Tommy then sobbingly runs off to Mary Worth who is waiting for him with a muffin.
Dick Tracy defies the tropes by having the computer hacker live in his mother’s attic, not the basement.
Was June posing for an Art Frahm illustration?
I don’t say this lightly, but I think this might be the greatest Crankshaft ever drawn. This is, like, experimental Soviet art film levels of bleakness.
RMMD: The ‘Dine and Dash’ equivalent wouldn’t work at the Morgan clinic. Hard to Dash after one of Rex’ extreme prostate exams. -And don’t even ask about his gynecological services.
CURTIS: And rabies! Where are your “protect family” instincts, Dad? (And every 11 year old knows about cartoon skunks)
MW: Being condemned by Wilbur just doesn’t have the zing of being condemned by someone who is, you know, NOT a waste of breathable air.
RMMD: Since most people don’t lose their life’s fortune to buskers, I’m not too worried about “The Old FAKE Music Scam.” But I definitely want to be there when Sarah learns about Dine and Dash!
9CL: OK, I actually laughed. First time for everything.
RMMD — How old are the twins supposed to be? Because these two have obviously developed a taste for the finer things in, if not life, then at least Glenwood. Thing Two even knows to hold her red wine in a way that will warm the beverage, which is not something you pick up hanging outside the local supermarket.
Oh, and I can’t believe the Morgans didn’t start using their own reusable shopping bags since Glenwood banned plastic and Rex found out that the store was going to charge fifteen cents for a paper bag. “And let me tell you another thing that’s dishonest, Sarah. . .”
For Better or For Worse: Would Deanna have found it more romantic if, instead of “Grab a Burger,” Michael had said, “Suck My Wiener” ?
MW: Boy it’s true what Benjamin Franklin said, except in this case, Tommy did multiple bad deeds, and only started rebuilding his good reputation after? Anyhow, good try, quote box, I’m sure you’ll get it one of these days!
CSh: It’s hard to know how to end a long-running comic strip. Calvin and Hobbes managed to finish with an iconic final Sunday strip that captured the real spirit of the characters and the world they inhabited. So what I’m saying is, guys, if you don’t feel like writing another Crankshaft tomorrow…
RMMD: It’s amazing that these two decided to make a living scamming people when they clearly have some kind of disorder that makes them say their entire inner monologue out loud.
Crankshaft:
I’m thinking maybe Messrs. Batiuk and Davis could use a hit of tryptophan.
A mall? Today’s Gasoline Alley might as well be taking place at a post-apocalyptic amusement park; at least the gang in Crankshaft know they’re walking through the loss of a bit of Americana.
H&L Somebody please tell Little Bob Dylan there that the words “America the Beatiful” do not appear in the beloved song of the same name.
RMMD:
“Tommy Beedie from over at Mary Worth bagged these groceries for us, Rex!”
“Wow. There must be illegal pharmaceuticals secreted inside!”
Crankshaft : and then The Kinks song playing switches to “Apeman” as Zanzibar the murder chimp jumps out from the bushes and guns down the entire procession.
*************
Dick Tracy : It took me way too long to realise that NYLE.COM is supposed to be a riff on Amazon. (Has it always been the case, or has Dick Tracy actually used the real name/a different fake name before?)
************
Luann : Frank whines that he has to do all the grilling on the BBQ, even though :
a) BBQ grilling is a “guy” thing, and the only other guy here is Bwad.
b) The strip has implied that every other day it’s Nancy who does all the cooking with no help from Frank.
So, I think he should suck it up and just be proud he’s the one making the meal a success. Am I in the wrong here?
************
Mary Worth vs Rex Morgan M.D. : “Once a thief, always a thief”, from different perspectives.
*Wilbur’s unwillingness to believe Tommy HAS sincerely tried to better himself is being portrayed as the wrongheadness of an archetypical senex iratus
*(even without taking into account that Wilbur himself needs to “clean up his act”).*The Morgans insisting that the twins were totally bad guys underserving of charity is constantly underscored by the “action” cutting away to the twins going all “MWAHAHA, WE ARE ACTUALLY MORE EVIL THAN THE MORGANS ASSUME!”
*…that’s the most pretentious way I could have phrased that, isn’t it?Crankshaft:
“The death of a clown…when there’s no one around.”
— Smokey Robinson and the Miracles
Wait. That’s not quite it, is it.
SFx: Sure, Rocket is holding the gold coins, but who stole them? Ask those fledglings where they’ve been the last hour– yesterday I heard them hatching plans on becoming high flyers.
RMMD:
I would say that it’s highly unusual that the two dogs wouldn’t greet their owners when they walked in the door, but I guess this is the Morgans, after all, so what would be the point?
Dick Tracy:
I see that Shaggy from Scooby Doo has, unfortunately, apparently turned to a life of crime. Needs glasses now, too.
MW: Will Wilbur’s overheard words drive Tommy into a downward spiral of self-loathing and drug use, ironically confirming Wilbur’s opinion of him? When answering, remember this is Mary Worth where no plot is too hackneyed for use.
@Pozzo: I think we can all be thankful Frahm was distracted, because who wants to see what would happen with *Rex* holding the celery bag…
@Activist: Oh yeah, “walks up and is willing to be held” is automatically “weird behaviour, suspect dangerously ill” for a wild animal in my books.
MW. Wilbur considers keeping Dawn away from Tommy so important that he cheated on his longtime girlfriend, Tommy’s mom, with a big bosomed South American scammer just to make sure Tommy and Dawn never became step-siblings. Or at least that’s the way Wilbur tells himself it happened. Wilbur is, of course, so easily scammed he can lie to himself.
Crankshaft:
“Let’s elevate the mood here by finding a TV set and queuing up Netflix to watch the fun and frothy Child’s Play!”
S4th I actually kinda like that this time there’s a specific date they’ve landed on and how in the last panel there’s some of what you’d expect for “what to do if you end up in the near past”. (I’d be quizzing others about whether this is still before the Challenger disaster and whether we can try to fix that.) YMMV but I’m watching this one with genuine interest.
Wary Morth:
“Why, Dusk, at this very moment he might be hanging around outside our door, eavesdropping on our conversation for blackmail material!”
“If he did, dad, he’d pay us to stop talking!”
@Bob Tice: I watch a jail-based reality show. It mostly just covers booking procedures, and I find it interesting the walks of life that come in (when they aren’t being beligerent jerkasses), and I’ve seen at least three guys that look remarkably like Shaggy.
But then again I also saw a few guys that look like the Youtuber/parody singer Brentalfloss.
Wrecks Moregobe:
“Besides, where else would the food come with a glass of tasty, tasty ink?”
Dick Tracy includes credits in the first panel. The “Guest Writer: Eric Costello” in the penultimate panel isn’t a credit, it’s blame.
Crunskshaft: Given that Batiuk’s interest in any spark remotely resembling light in this strip died decades ago, lyrics from Pagliacci would be more appropriate: “Finita la Commedia.”
Duck Twacey: Wait, something’s wrong; Vio (“Vio De’Games,” obviously) DOESN’T resemble Danny Devito, as required by Comic Strip Regulation 3:16! When Ray Davies’ solicitors are finished with Crankshaft, they should begin on this travesty of justice!
-Tommy bursts into the room to confront his accuser-
“Mr. Weston, I’m no longer a criminal!”
Tommy immediately gets arrested for breaking and entering.
DtM: Doesn’t Mr. Wilson’s ankle bracelet do the same thing, but without scraping all Martha’s financial data to some bot farm in Bulgaria?
RMMD: I’m going to search “miming music busking” and there’d better be something there, Rex. “Why, a con artist who can actually play an instrument? There’s no such thing?”
@ValdVin:
I just did and apparently….it’s a recognised art form and not scamming?
Popeye: OK, honest question– Where the hell did that giant water-fist come from? Even spinach can’t do water-bending!
Hagar: Loweezy and Helga are always placed in adjacent spots on the funny pages for a reason.
DT: Adding to what Josh already said…
The concept of “Widescreen” could have been done better, like with Amanda Waller from DC Comics, who had a huge square-shaped body, but she was an intimidating figure and NO-ONE messed with her.
Instead of being well… “wide” Widescreen’s entire gimmick is that he has a big computer screen. LAME….
@Ukranazi Stepan: Huh. I’ve heard of air guitar contests but this is a new one on me. (PS If you’re going to enter an air guitar contest: Really, really just pretend you’re Jimi, Pete, Clapton, Eddie Van Halen, Bo Diddley, or Chuck Berry. Nobody is going there to watch someone actually knows how to play guitar form the chords and hit the frets.)
@Buck Ripsnort: Well… actually… in the older Fleischer cartoons, eating Spinach allowed Popeye to break the boundaries of reality. Like turning Bluto into Salami after punching him, turning a Native American Chief into Ghandi, and pulling two sides of a canyon together after Bluto destroys the bridge.
In turn, nothing surprises me with Popeye anymore, even in the more grounded comics’ canon.
RMMD Somebody has never, ever gotten over their Milli Vanilli fandom
Dick Tracy: First Responders Roll of Honor. “Sheriff Benjamin Branch . . . thrown from his horse . . . died from his injuries . . . first American LEO to die in the line of duty.” Come on. I need more details. Probably riding home after a late night at the Bull ‘n’ Eagle.
Went to Chippewa Lake Park many times in my younger days. There were several such parks around and they started as having ballrooms and hosted big bands.
RMMD- “methinks thou dost protest too much”- Beatty must have fallen for this recently.
@nescio:
Costello has artistic assistants who collaborate with him. At first they were Attractions, but now they’re just Impostors.
@MKay: no, I,will not look at 9CL. Nice try, but I spend days trying to scrape myself clean whenever I read this strip.
@pugfuggly: I’ve quit the weekly Mary Worth quotevestigations but I guarantee you that Ben Franklin did not say this. The opposite sentiment appears to be expressed in Sempronia: A Novel in Three Volumes (vol. 2, p. 66), an anonymous novel from 1790: “Can one single act destroy the remembrance of so many good deeds? Impossible, my Valville.”
Crankshaft does a whole maudlin storyline about the death of the big bands and finishes it off with lyrics from the Kinks? Come on. You can’t find anything appropriate in The Great American Songbook? How about “No One Cares”?
Curtis: I call shenanigans. Curtis has seen and experienced at least one skunk before, Cuss Skunk!