Theosophy Tuesday
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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
63 replies to “Theosophy Tuesday”
MW: Wilbur’s in a full-out pout! Mary’s going to have to dangle a squeaky hamburger toy in front of him. “Who’s a good boy? Who?”
RMMD: He should have been tipped off by the diamond earrings and feminine hygiene products.
GT: As I suspected, it’s impossible to properly kiss with a grotesquely enlarged lower lip.
9CL: Lolly and Polly are adult married women. It’s time for them to stop getting their jollies talking about Mummy and Pater’s sex life.
Wilby is about to rush to the nearest liquor store and chug down a litre of their cheapest whisky. That’ll show Mary!
Alice:
“Alice, ‘I want you to want me.’ ”
“Steve, would you stop with that Rick Nielsen fixation of yours already? — I mean, you’re practically a doppelganger for the guy as it is!”
“Hey, Robin Zehnder said that, not Rick!”
Mary Worth:
“Of course, when you think about it, your having overcome that dependence gives you one less excuse now for your continually obnoxious behavior!”
I had no idea Wilbur was sober now, probably because he’s still an unlikable slovenly idiot failure, but also because I don’t care.
Dick Tracy:
“Hmm. What shall I type now that I have this keyboard in front of me? — say, I’ve got it!”
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Phantom: Those speculating what Chatu would throw back at VindictaBot, sorry, you underestimated the Python.
Mary Worth
Mary has never(?) regretted saving Wilbur from the bottle.
Well you know what?
I do, and I resent her for it.
GT: You may now smash your faces together.
GT: You may now form one of those old-timey ‘How many faces?’ optical illusions.
CS: The color monkey got so bored by Batton’s blathering they forgot to fill in his shirt. That or Batton is finally dissolving into and becoming one with the comic store as is his unspoken dream.
Ph: I’m beginning to suspect this group of clowns are never actually going to get around to fighting the Phantom and are going to cause their own self-destruction, like the Three Stooges.
JP: Just as we spent the last week or so waiting (and dreading) for Batton Thomas to show up in Crankshaft, I’m now waiting (and dreading) for CIApril to show up. Things are being just too darn idyllic for the raspberry-haired brat for it to be anything else.
Luann: Uh, you have a live-in manservant who will probably fall all over himself to serve *both* of you, and would probably be pissed if you get ash and human remains all over his kitchen because you inexplicably wore your filthy post-fire work clothes home instead of washing up at the firehouse.
@MKay: On MW – you mean a squeaky mayonnaise jar.
Dick Tracy : “What if I just ASK the internet troll if he’s going to commit crimes on his favorite victim today” shouldn’t be a tactic that works… except, regrettably, I’m pretty certain it would have worked in real life, too…
***********
Dustin : should have said [Insert “The Big Lebowski” reference here] in the fourth panel there.
[Insert tasteless joke about DustinDad also having the reason Walter Sobchak hates The Jesus in his past]***********
Mary Worth : ‘s expression in that first panel is the expression of someone who is feeling actual pain at having to tell that whopper; no, seriously, has Wilbur even SHOWN SIGNS that he’s PLANNING to get his drinking under control? And Mary has to praise him for overcoming an addiction!?
Also, it’s physically impossible to feel pride about Wilbur Weston (unless it’s pride of not being him)MW. Wilbur is just bitter that he missed out on all that prison sex. He’s extra very lonely right now, you see.
Alice: What I like about Alice is that it will add footnotes to tell you that A Christmas Carol is an 1843 novella by Charles Dickens or Spock was a fictional half human/half Vulcan character from the Star Trek series in the 1960s, but it just assumes all its readers are across the Akashic records. And maybe they are! Maybe its devoted Theosophical fanbase is what’s kept this baffling, baffling comic profitable all these years.
MW: I see Wilbur as more of a sullen, belligerent toad than troll. But that’s just me.
Pluggers: It’s shocking that the Plugger doesn’t understand inflation: has he never seen himself in a mirror?
MW: Is this a retcon from Moy, who is now pretending Wilbur’s drunken Matrix and Titanic reenactments either didn’t happen or happened before the cliff intervention? Or has Mary just decided that, since the last couple of Wilbur plots didn’t involve him getting blitzed, he’s now a teetotaler?
@Baja Gaijin:
DON’T USE THE WORD “INFLATION” WHEN REFERRING TO FURRIES GETTING BIGGER BELLIES! ESPECIALLY IF THE FURRIES IN QUESTION ARE THE GODDAMN PLUGGERS!
…I’ve *glimpsed* at art that I’d rather forget…
Alice: To paraphrase the late Roger Ebert, “The cartoonist, Andrea Beizer, has learned from great art that cubist masters sometimes draw both eyes as visible from one angle, but she has not learned why.”
Looked up Akashic Records.
Meh, the whole “Giant library that holds all the knowledge in the universe” is a concept older than anything.
Also, Alice is almost funny when she’s Snarky, “almost”
@The Rambling Otter: Also weird that it’s not an ancient religious thing, or ancient fable/legend. But a “New Age” creation.
MW – If I were writing this, I’d have Wilbur show some grace and welcome Tommy into their family. Then in the next panel, I’d have Dawn come home trippin’ on acid.
Pluggers can remember when the expression “Here’s a dime. Go call someone who gives a shit.” had some relevance.
Mary isn’t a great sobriety buddy, is she?
Mother Goose and Grimm: Don’t you hate it when you’re trying to publicly urinate on a fire hydrant and your friend won’t shut up and let you focus?
Baby Blues: Swim diapers don’t have any absorbency, They simply help contain the mess if a baby poops while in the water. The dad from this nationally syndicated comic strip wants to be able to defecate freely while sitting in this baby wading pool.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX:I did like that Simpsons joke, where Lisa is lecturing Sideshow Bob about his current evil scheme.
Sideshow Bob: Here’s a phone, call someone who cares.
Lisa dials “9-1-….” before Sideshow Bob snatches the phone back.
@The Rambling Otter: I thought “Here’s a dime” had more cachet than “Here’s a quarter” although it still worked. When phone calls went up to 50 cents, he destroyed the cadence. What do you do? “Here’s a half-dollar . . . “? “Here’s a 50-cent piece?” “Here are three dimes, four nickels, and 10 pennies”? At that point it was just as well that we got rid of pay phones. The whole effect was ruined.
Although you can still do this joke about two guys in the woods and one needs to take a dump but doesn’t have toilet paper. The other says, “Got a dollar? Use that.” The first guy comes back with his arm covered in shit. Asked about it, he says, “You ever try to wipe your ass with a half, a quarter, two dimes, and a nickel?” At least that one still works.
@16 Anonymous: I didn’t mean to trigger you. Sorry.
@20 Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: And that explains why you’re not writing the strip. Too interesting.
DT: Now I’m wondering how the NeoChicago CTU would interact with Mungeons.
Someone showed Gramps the word “n00b” and now he thinks “n00” is also a thing, lulz!
***
Mary, please remind Wilbur that not that long ago he had a break with reality and attacked random people in the street, and not only did he somehow avoid facing any consequences because his victims thought he saved their lives, he did not seek the help he needs and could go on a delusional spree again without any coincidental motor vehicles losing control.
Alice: Even if they’re not worth remembering? …Will this strip, too, be in the Akashic Records?
DT: [squints] Hm, yes, I see, this takes place roughly in…2004.
Alice doesn’t have the vibe of a comic strip that I’d trust with mystical misinformation. Hi & Lois can muse about Theosophy to their hearts’ content; nothing’s going to come of it. Alice always seemed like it was on the verge of starting a comet cult, and today it’s several steps closer to that goal.
@The Rambling Otter: Metratron has a sad, and just received 6 more fiery lashes.
MARY WORTH: Wilbur is extra concerned now because he knows what it’s like when someone’s delusional enough to think another person has overcome a substance abuse problem and how easily they can be fooled, apparently.
Oh, boy, Alice is about to start a deep dive in Theosophy and Edgar Cayce, Atlantis and root races, and I’m here for it, at least until they get into Aryanism and polygenism and then I guess I’m out because I’m not reading another 9CL.
Anyone else getting those athlete picture scam ads on this site? I’m on a work computer and I’m getting bombarded by them.
Dustin Try talking to a Zoomer age person about The Eagles. If you tell me you get a response other than “Who?”, I’ll know you’re lying.
MW-“But I had a perfectly good reason. My fish died.”
FC-“We’re going to have to get the spray bottle again, aren’t we?”
FC-“Then what the heck is he doing?”
MW: I foresee Wilbur, in his hilariously inappropriate job as an advice columnist giving spectacularly bad advice leading to alcoholism, murder-suicide and jail. Wilbur gets sued into oblivion.
Dustin-The Eagles also did a song called ‘Hotel California’. I’ll go sharpen the knives.
LUANN: “This is ‘Lilttle Peanut’ here. I’ve just gotten fertilized, and have barely developed. Calm the fuck down!”
LUANN (2): Toni: “I haven’t had a long shift because I apparently took maternity leave way before I even got pregnant. That’s how that works, right?” (just saying I don’t think we’ve seen Toni at the firehouse at all since this subplot started, despite the fact that Brad and Toni work at the same place.)
MW I wonder if Moy even remembers that Wilbur’s an advice columnist. Because I could see him pretending to go along with giving Tommy a chance and venting by inventing a gave a recovering junkie a chance and it was a disaster, what do I do?? letter to respond to. Of course, this plot would require Dawn to read her father’s column for it to go anywhere, and I think even *she* has higher standards for her reading material.
@Lauralot: The stupidest thing about this whole mess is that we never see Wilbur coming to terms with his alcoholism or making any effort to overcome it–he just popped up a year or two back with a thought balloon saying “Well, I’m not drinking anymore, yep, Wilbur Weston is clean and sober now and everything’s okay!” and ever since Moy has been trying to pretend that was the only thing that was ever wrong with him.
MW: Wilbur was clearly expecting Mary to validate his behavior, and now that he’s not getting that he looks like a five-year-old who’s been told he can’t have ice cream for breakfast.
@2+2=7: Ah, but you see, Wilbur wasn’t cured by one of those twelve-step programs — why, they even make a point of telling their members they mustn’t say they’re cured, and they have to keep fighting every day. No, Wilbur got a choice aphorism from Mary, so he’s completely cured and will never relapse or even feel temptation again.
REX MORGAN M.D.: Obviously Wilbur Weston can’t throw stones at Tommy considering that he’s about to stupidly let these two nitwits get away with committing the most ridiculous retail scam ever and steal a bunch of goods right in front of his face. (I do have to give Terry Beatty credit for somehow making this version seem even more pathetic than the belligerent, bipolar drunk we all know and er…”love.”)
REX MORGAN M.D. (2): And what can be more “suspect” than never-used, unopened, still-in-the-box merchandise? Maybe the idea of “corproate” deigning to do the labor that would be required of “inspections” instead of getting rich off of moving money around and composing unhelpful “notes”? (C’mon man, think!)
@2+2=7:
On Luann, point 2 : I’m getting increasingly concerned about how it seems that this strip is not just merely forgetting that Toni is a firefighter too, it appears to be actively denying it/trying to retcon it away to have Toni be a stay-at-home housewife instead? Because that’s more convenient for the story they’re trying to tell?
How embarrassing – I didn’t know that Akashic Records was more than just a name Steve Vai made up for the label that released his earliest albums. I would have wanted Alice to pull out a 7-string guitar and rip into a wild solo.
@CanuckDownSouth: Moy “remembers” when they need to give the column to Mary when they need to dial down her platitudes to something that’s slightly less “on-the-nose” a a lot more “passive-aggressive.” (It’s also important to remember that the point of Wilbur having this column in the first place is to emasculate him, because giving advice is “girl’s stuff”, I guess.)
C’shaft: Philosophers have been speculating on the possibility of infinite co-existing realities since ancient times, and the term “multiverse” itself was coined in the late 19th century, but sure, BatTom, you reading your silly little Silver Age comic book meant that you figured it out before all those egghead scientists.
Dustin: As far as Eagles’ songs goes, Dustdad puts me more in mind of “Get Over It:” “The more I think about it, ol’ Billy was right/Let’s kill all the lawyers, kill ’em tonight.”
GT: What is that thing above Beth’s lip? A beauty mark? A piercing? An undiagnosed melanoma that will kill her in order to fuel Gil’s tragic man-pain?
JP: Just when I think I can’t dislike Charlotte any more, I discover she likes waffle fries.
Luann: “Now that you’re fulfilling your designated purpose as incubator for my young, you deserve a little break.”
Phantom: Apparently this super-sophisticated AI, which can coordinate a drone attack in real time and come up with snarky comebacks, didn’t plan on the belligerent former terrorist not wanting to enslave himself to some unidentified benefactor, even if it meant being released from his open enclosure in the Wambesi village.
RMMD: The manager looks like Wilbur Weston’s less successful cousin, which may explain why he’s being such an idiot about this.
MW – In panel two – Wilbur’s look says the bran muffin just kicked in….
@48 TheDiva: on Gil Thorp: It’s a Hershey’s Kiss. That’s what I’m telling myself.
@TheDiva: On JP – You’ve piqued my curiosity. What’s wrong with waffle fries? This seems like one of the few things that make the raspberry-haired brat sound like an actual *kid*.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: 1980s country star Travis Tritt was right on time when he recorded his biggest hit “Here’s A Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares)”.
Also out of date: all country songs about putting a dime in the jukebox.
Dick Tracy: Uh oh, Sam is going into a gamer rage! Here’s hoping he doesn’t drop any slurs as he screams at Widescreen in the voice chat!
Mary Worth: Y’know, Wilbur, you’re kinda proving Mary’s points by glowering like you’re moments away from strangling her to death just because she very lightly criticized you and suggested you be a little nice to someone.
I’m very disappointed in the Alice narration box. It’s supposed to add nuance, a slightly different perspective, to the discussion, not mindlessly repeat what some other character said. It should make you think! Something like “Is it worth it?” or “All lifetimes?” would be good.
@TheDiva: That’s how it worked for my brother.
He had a very serious medical scare.
Scared him out of smoking and drinking, because he wanted to be healthier.
Went cold turkey on both and is doing fine.
Although he did gain quite a bit of weight from doing that.
@The Quiet Man: Just don’t care for them personally, is all. Something school-cafeteria about them that I don’t like.
UbuSoft, presumably, is the french company specializing in open-world surrealist games?
@The Rambling Otter: Good for him, and glad he’s doing better. I’m not saying cold turkey is completely impossible, but I do think it requires deep self-awareness, firm dedication to improvement, and the ability to resist impulsive behaviors, all of which are qualities noticeably lacking in Wilbur.
@TheDiva: We shouldn’t be surprised to see Batiuk trying to have his self-insert take credit for something like that. Lest we already forget that the last arc had him try to claim that Dinkle Sr. invented the concept of band uniforms.
@Anonymous: I legit did a double-take reading this because I’d completely forgotten about how Toni is supposed to be a firefighter; she hasn’t so much as mentioned it in years as far as I can tell. So yeah, seems likely that the writers are trying to memory-hole it because it’s a “masculine” job (lol) and not fit for Toni’s true calling of being Bwad’s broodmare. Honestly, it’s pretty shocking she was ever allowed to have such a job period, with Luann’s usual level of feminism, you’d think she’d have washed out of training and been mocked for thinking that women can do “men’s work”.
@Ken: Your joke is extra funny because most of Wilbur’s extreme drunken antics actually happened AFTER the story where Mary “cured” him by giving him a peptalk on the cliff (falling off the cruise ship, screaming breakup songs at or about his ex, karate chopping a glass while imitating Neo from The Matrix, etc.). Meaning Mary accomplished nothing with her meddling but making Wilbur even worse and even more of an alcohol-fueled trainwreck.
We know what this is really about: Wilbur’s jealous of Tommy’s hair! You think he wouldn’t try the classic little tweaker ponytail if he could?
PHANTOM: Hurrah for Chatu! His quick thinking merits the use of her s real name. Thanks for the surprise, though a competent machine would have zapped him as he tugged.
And muchas gracias to Uncle Lumpy for listing all the bad guys in The Phantom yesterday, plus their history and motives. In this strip with long arcs, a long memory is essential.
Flash Gordon for the quick bursts of adrenalin, Phantom for the narrative.
Don Abundio, translated:
“I envy you so much, Don Abundio. But at least you’re not on a tropical beach”
Dustin – I hate the fuckin’ Eagles, man.