Troubling Friday
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Crock, 11/6/26
The thing about wars — even low-level wars of colonial occupation, like the interminable one the Foreign Legion is fighting in Algeria — is that they’re dangerous. Even if you’re not shooting at someone, or getting shot at, you’re living in a milieu where there’s a constant baseline of violent chaos. There are weapons around, along with just a general sense of disorder, with civilians finding that their needs and safety take a backseat to those of the occupying forces even in their own homes. It’s the sort of place where a baby could crawl into an artillery piece and get blown up, is what I’m saying, which is one of several good reasons not to fight wars.
Dick Tracy, 11/6/26
I have no idea if Dick Tracy strips in the year 2026 accurately depict old-timey police jargon, or even current police jargon, so I can’t tell if this lady referring to a home that police investigated without coming up with any leads as a “dry hole” is realistic, but I am comfortable saying that it’s gross. I don’t want to hear about dry holes! It’s a very upsetting phrase! Also, I have a problem with Dick’s “different hole” line in the last panel here; for one thing, it’s somehow even grosser, and for another thing we’re clearly looking at two holes and also there’s zero blood or even bloodstains on this white nurse’s uniform, so this is yet another unsettling dry hole situation, in fact.
Mary Worth, 11/6/26
“So, Nelly, dear, are you going to tell me why you spread that rumor? Remember, you’ve already eaten the muffins, and only I have the antidote.”
38 replies to “Troubling Friday”
Mmm — olive muffins!
Wary Morth:
Because she literally saw you laughing it up with Pompous Axx in his car, with your hand apparently in a strange place? Could that be it?
Wary Morth:
Nelly takes a bite and spots the muffin out. “Are you trying to poison me? This tastes as though it were made of chopped up olive branches!”
MW-And thus the plot advanced to nothing.
RMMD-“Oh it’s signed by Tom Batiuk. Never mind.”
MW-When the carrot muffin approach won’t work Mary will use the stick of sending over Ian and Wilbur.
FC-“Way ahead of you,” Jeffy says pumping a shotgun.
Wary Morth:
Why isn’t Mary asking all her “friends” why they passed on this “false” rumour that they claimed they knew not to be true?
Crocked:
Well, a kid in the middle of the desert could die of dehydration, sunstroke, snakebite………..
MW: I could complain about how we wasted one week with Mary tracking down the source of the rumor and another week on Mary baking up recycled art and platitudes, but I’m more interested in what’s not being said. Here, Mary confirms that she doesn’t know Nelly, at least not well. Earlier in the week, she called her an “unhappy neighbor.” So Mary, Meddler Extraordinaire, knows full well that her neighbor is miserable but never bothered to interfere until Nelly’s wrath became directed at her? Why? Because there’s only room for one nosy old woman in Charterstone? Or was she too busy saving Wilbur from choking on a mayonnaise spoon?
MW:
“Here we go! An olive branch in the form of muffins! Or is it Olive Taylor? — I get so confused!”
RMMD: In the wise words of Joel Hodgson, “DO SOMETHING.”
Crock: Look at that man’s body. No neck, no shoulders, just an egg-shaped mass of flesh. If this were to be rendered realistically, I’d have no choice but to gouge my eyes out with my own car keys.
RMMD- “A copy “Lisa’s Story”! Autographed by Les Moore! And the people have the gall to charge a whole quarter for it! Oh wait, they’ll give me a quarter if I take it.”
Crock: Firing the canon would be more merciful than a kid crawling down the barrel of a spare gun, getting stuck, and slowly dying of exposure.
Dick Tracy:
“Stated in another way, Helen, what we’re facing now is holey different!”
MW – Is the Buzz! Buzz! label an indicator of Mary lacing the muffins with her secret ingredient as a way to mellow out Nelly?
Mary Worth:
Buzz! Buzz!
Gosh, I sure hope those are Killer Bees out there in the common area outside of Nelly’s place.
FC: Wrong, Billy. We’ll euthanize him and then I take over his strip! Ha-ha!
DT: (sigh) A “dry hole,” in this context, is a reference to digging a well and failing to find water. Josh, go get therapy–all those years of reading 9 Chickweed Lane so we didn’t have to affected you more than you realized.
Crock Lindy and Michael Chamberlain would like to have a word…
MW: Mary introduces Nelly to the interrogation technique of “muffinboarding”, outlawed by the Geneva Convection Oven Treaty.
Dick Tracy:
As I recall, this corpse was found floating in an industrial canal by urban exploration streamers, and yet Dick describes the death as occurring “at the Wodehouse Mansion”, so I guess the old-money Wodehouses can afford to have their very own industrial canal on their property. Do you think that they brag about it when they get together with other rich families? Do they crow about how many gallons of effluent it can handle per day?
Curtis: Well, you made it too obvious, Greg.
MT: Teacher is getting a kickback in blue shrimp. I’m calling it.
Luann: Yesterday: “Oooooo! Trouble in Paradise!” Today: “Oh. Trouble in Paradise. Oh well.”
Crock: “Of course, for safety reasons, we don’t keep the cannon loaded. It’s just common sense.”
DT: Clearly the Wodehouses fully exsanguinated Nurse Zippy to transfuse Wendell Wodehouse VI before dumping her into ye olde industrial canal. That should buy him another 2-3 weeks of agonizing infirmity.
MW: Why is Mary so sure the rumor started with Nelly? There has been a lot of this “what I know / what the characters know” confusion lately.
I’d be amused if Nelly lied, saying “Oh, I heard that from (random name) who moved out last week.”
Dick Tracy again:
A corpse with two small, close-set, bloodless wounds? Dick Tracy is a tough guy, but is he prepared to take on… the vampires of Neo-Chicago?
MW: “[sigh] One of those new Ring doorbells that actually says ‘buzz buzz'” Thinks Mary. “What an asshole.”
Crock:
I guess it’s Take Your Child To Work Day at the desert military outpost of a brutal colonial regime.
Crock: “How can a kid get in trouble in the middle of a desert?” I dunno man, maybe because IT’S A FUCKING DESERT? YOU KNOW, THE HOTTEST, DRIEST, DEADEST PLACES ON EARTH?
DT: People used to have to say the phrase “We’re facing a different hole now, Helen” a lot more often before the invention of reliable contraceptives.
Dustin: DustSis is just being cruel here, donning glasses while sitting at Dustin’s fern bar, waiting to shoot him and his dippy friend down when they try picking her up. She rightly knew they wouldn’t see through her low effort eyeglasses disguise.
Six Chix: Well, that explains the Oval Office.
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX: Marworthy: Josh’s comment matches Mary’s right-panel expression perfectly (and various laced muffin comments well enough)
Mark Trail: Why isn’t anyone worried about the invasive species standing to the left of the teacher, the thing with the three antennae? He’s far scarier than any tiny blue shrimps.
Wait, wait… let the kid play. This is how circus performers are made.
***
This really is a hole new Dick Tracy, huh?
***
Mary Worth can get back into my good books is if turns out that Nelly has Celiac disease and she freaks out at Mary for not even checking to see if she has any dietary restrictions before bringing muffins into her home.
When Nelly takes a bite, the muffins transubstantiate into the flesh of Our Lord, Olive.
Pluggers: Alternate caption: You’re a plugger if you’re too grotesquely fat to fit into a billowy hospital gown.
DT: When partners on the force trust each other, they don’t even have to say, “That’s what she said.” It’s just understood.
Crock: Spoken like someone who’s never been in a desert, or even heard of them.
MW: I hope Nelly is one of those sensible people who doesn’t answer the door when she’s not expecting anyone. Not that it won’t stop Mary from free soloing up the building and into her window while balancing her muffin tray in one hand, but still.
DT: Those aren’t bullet holes. The coroner drew a smiley face on the nurse, knowing that Tracy gets a kick out of things like that.
Marvin: Is this a record for the most characters defecating in a single comic panel at the same time? Congratulations???