Hats on hats
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Dick Tracy, 9/2/26

So I guess that computer didn’t just magically explode, but had actually been already fitted with some kind of internal incendiary device without noticeably increasing its size or weight, which definitely is a real thing that we should believe might happen. Anyway, I personally am loving our jaunty fire inspector here, who loves nothing more than using big, theatrical gestures to walk people through the aftermath of some horrifying incendiary event. Now, obviously he’s seen a “USB killer” used before for pranks and pyrotechnics displays and such. The occasional gender reveal party, you know. That’s just the normal stuff you encounter every day in the fire marshall biz. But murder? Well, that’s a new one on him.
Pluggers, 9/2/26

Now, an unlucky angler pulling a non-fish object out of the water is a classic cartoon bit that we must respect. Usually it’s an old boot or a tin can or something, but given that our dog-man plugger has caught himself a hat, I’m a little puzzled here by what the … excitement? activity? … lines emitting from his bald head are signifying. Are we supposed to understand that this is a beloved long lost hat that blew into the lake weeks or months ago, and his scalp is tingling with excitement at being reunited with it? That this is just some random hat he’s discovered, but he’s been immediately seized by the intrusive thought that he should put it on, despite the fact that it’s no doubt very wet and very disgusting? Or has he in desperation and despite his scalp’s protests decided to use that hat he put on this morning and wore out on this fishing trip as a lure?
Alice, 9/2/26

Hey, you guys heard about the omnipresent surveillance state? You heard about this? Thank goodness information on that topic has now been provided to the no doubt large share of people who only get their news from the comic strip Alice, though I think she’d be a more credible speaker on this point if she wasn’t also convinced that space aliens live in her floorboards.


35 replies to “Hats on hats”
The Plugger hooked his hat on his cast, Josh. Desert elites like you simply wouldn’t understand!
FC: Got any whale oil left, Thel. Suddenly I’m in the mood for “pre-electronic” lighting.
DT In a well-plotted strip, the fire investigator’s contradictions of the event (a capacitor surge isn’t a programming language sequence doing noob-b-gone.exe! setting off a bomb planted in the laptop wouldn’t have left it singed but intact!) would be Serious Clues about Something Being Up. But here you can be pretty sure it’s just a technobabble word salad served on the side of a gruesome death story entree
Alice has learned about the “New World Order” conspiracy theory, I guess. Or maybe Hulk Hogan’s New World Order wrestling stable. Either way, I’m not sure her 75% increase in monthly internet viewing has been good for her.
New World Order my ass! There is nothing orderly about the world!
Alice:
Is experiencing today’s installment kind of like what it was like going to a Grateful Dead concert; i.e., you had to be under the influence to really appreciate it?
Dick Tracy:
“I always wear this slicker, Officer. Even when it’s not raining. It’s part of my trade dress.”
Mary Worth Mashup: These Missing Final Panels validate Nelly’s ire, doncha think?
DT: Isn’t he supposed to be a takeoff of Jim Carrey’s Fire Marshal Bill?
Pluggers: He’s located Andy Bear’s corpse, who drowned in that pond last week.
Usually, in the Dickverse it is criminals that have deformed physique and body horror, but there is some uncanny valley about this fire marshal. Is this to show that even the thin blue line is not so innocent, after all? Is Dick Tracy going woke?
Seems like the real message is: Pluggers use a traditional but difficult bait casting style reel instead of a spinner even at the risk of bodily harm.
Pluggers: “Wait a minute! Doesn’t that hat belong to Carl Rhinowski, who went missing two weeks ago? Guess he finally ran out of stuff to hock and decided to end it all.”
Perhaps the flock cameras are laughing at you because you’re using lettuce as a bookmark, Alice.
MW – Has Sex-Negative Nellie changed the spelling on her name?
Alice : I’m glad SOMEONE looks at Alice and finds it funny.
*************
Beetle Bailey : …wasn’t Pvt Blips dating Chip Gizmo at one point? What happened to that?
*************
Luann : And here we have Frank flat-out admitting he’s NEVER helped around the house, and deliberately avoids being involved with raising his kids.
*************
Pluggers : Imagine what would have happened if the Plugger hadn’t worn a cap. Imagine the awful dog-man winding up his throw, the hook getting caught in his scalp, the swing towards the lake causing a layer of it to start ripping of…
What I’m saying is that the Plugger isn’t pulling a cap out of the water, he somehow yanked it off his head while throwing his line.
DT — A fire bomb so powerful so as to kill a man and bend the table support into some Chihuly shape but discerning enough to leave a recognizable thumb drive which can no doubt be used to track the perpetrator. The designer is a genius!.
Alice: Looks like Alice is about to vandalize some Flock cameras.
DT: A story about a tech-based hitman with the handle “USB Killer” sounds interesting. More interesting than whatever the hell is going on here, anyway.
Pluggers are terrible at absolutely everything they do.
PLUGGERS: If he lost the hat on this fishing trip, then there are sharks in that water. And now they know what he tastes like.
MW: Way to go, Mary. While you were out carousing with Jeff, Ian and who knows else, this poor, miserable Charterstonian has actually reached the point of abandoning ship. A pox on your licentious life!
RMMD: Are we now in for a week of the twins deciding that they WON’T listen to Gramps, and they WON’T go back to school, and they WILL kidnap Sarah Morgan? And then failing miserably at kidnapping Sarah Morgan? Better make it two weeks.
H&L: Lois: “You’ll calm down when you’ve had him for 71 years.”
LUANN: I feel like the more Luann’s parents extol her virtues, the greater are the chances that she’s out there doing something stupid.
@Guillermo el chiclero: That is DEFINITELY Fire Marshall Bill.
Imagine how much the cameras would laugh if they were positioned to look up Alice’s dress.
MW: Geez, Negative Nelly, you’re gonna give yourself a stroke, and then instead of this being a story about Mary changing your whole outlook on life with One Weird Trick, it’s gonna be about Mary providing cleaning tips to Mr. Ahora about how to get the stain of a rotted body off of linoleum.
ALICE: I feel for Alice. I mean I know that every time I go out I suspect that someone (from the government, most likely) is following me whispering “How does it feel, to treat me like you do?” almost like a taunt.
I feel like this strip should have happened on a Monday though. Call it a hunch.
MW: Talk about scratching the surface …
C’shaft: So no more of Crankshaft yelling about the server robot? Pepper must have killed him already.
Dustin: So this week is going to be about Dustin actually doing things well for a change only for people to insult him anyway, then?
Luann: It’s funny because Nancy does all the domestic labor in addition to having her own job, and Frank cheerfully refuses to help out.
MW: So Nelly is the Frank Grimes of the Worthiverese: the only person who sees the absurdity and idiocy around her for what it is until it drives her to madness and death.
Phantom: Or it would be if you weren’t loudly narrating your every move…
RMMD: More proof that the twins are terrible at this: their home is furnished like the lobby of a Holiday Inn.
SH: So it’s also got residences for outdated legacy comics?
MW: Is this woman being set up to be like Mary’s opposite number? Her *evil* twin? Let’s see here:
Mary *loves* Charterstone and everyone in it = Nelly *hates* it
Mary has pure white hair = Nelly has dirty gray hair
Mary cooks wholesome muffins and eats wholesome seafood = Nelly eats dry cereal
Let’s get Nelly outside and see what she thinks of the ‘Supplemental Nutrition’ agricultural plot. If she stomps on the zuchinni because she can’t abide the color green, that’ll clinch it.
Ph: Okay, now we know this is a wish fulfilment fantasy. When was the last time Africa was blessed with enough moisture to have mist and fog? Hasn’t Stripeypants heard the gospel of climate damage?
MW: To quote the great wordsmith Ludacris: “Move bitch, get out the way.”
Alice: Yes! May I please order a new world? This one is defective.
Maybe Narnia? (Narnia is cool)
Alice: Oh shit, new Alice-based conspiracy theory just dropped: the artist is actually an over-oated Nelly Fenely screaming silently at a world she neither understands nor loves. Nothing will change my mind on this, nothing, do you hear me?!
PLUGGERS: Yeah, whatever dude. I’m pretty sure this is not the most humiliated this plugger has been fiddling with his rod in public.
PLUGGERS (2): Plugger (hearty chuckle): “Well, shucks, that was an embarrassing faux pas. Oh well, back to my job of being a JRPG protagonist….”
RMMD: Lyle checks back in a few years and finds one niece has become a successful time-share agent and the other an accomplished telemarketing recruiter.
He falls to his knees and screams; “What have I done!!!!”
MW: Once was a woman named Nelly
She was bitter and probably smelly
Will she be changed
By a date Mary arranged
With Wilbur, or just a muffin with jelly?
Dick Tracy: I can only read this as a vamp on Fire Marshall Dan, which dates me, and leads to the sad realization that I might be the target audience for Dick Tracy’s nostalgia tour, which in turn…uh. I’m ready for my ice floe, fellas.
MW – So is this just some grumpy old woman who Mary will help to see the beauty in life? Or, in an earthshaking development, is this the introduction of the anti-Mary, a new, major character who will shake things up by consoling Toby, Wilbur, Dawn, et al to “Fuck this shit. You don’t have to put up with it.” I’m sure that Ian, for one, will definitely be on board with it.
GA: Who?
Phantom: “Ha ha! I will defeat AI again!”
FLASH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!: We all knew “Somehow, Ming returned.” Now they’re getting around to telling us how that happened. Hopefully, the filler backstory will be better than explaining Palpatine for the Sequel Trilogy.
Dick Tracy: That rictus grin! The way he turns everything into a performance! We are exactly one “Let me show you something!” away from resurrecting Fire Marshall Bill!