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Dick Tracy, 12/14/25

For a month now, we’ve all been like, “Who or what is the Ghost Cat? We’ve been told he’ll appear when needed — obviously that will be some time during this storyline but when?” Well, today we’ve got answers. What is the Ghost Cat? He’s Batman, or at least as close to Batman as you can get without infringing on the intellectual property rights of DC Comics, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Netflix/Paramount Skydance [TBD by 2027]. He’s close enough to the real deal to strike fear into the hearts of criminals, anyway, so much fear that they self-censor when saying even mild swear words. Who is the Ghost Cat? Well, it seems pretty clear that he’s just Buford, the lawman who showed up in Neo-Chicago with this case yammering about the Ghost Cat in the first place, in an elaborate costume.

Honestly the part I’m most unsure about is the “when” component. Sure, sometimes the conventional law enforcement apparatus can’t deal with a specific injustice and only a costumed vigilante can restore righteous order, that’s something we understand and believe, but Dick and Buford were in hot pursuit of some suspects after an informant planted a tracker on their vehicle, and then said suspects ran out to confront them while they were just parked legally at the curb, a scenario where I’m pretty sure the police-friendly Neo-Chicago courts would give retroactive license for them to go nuts, so I’m not sure why he felt like he had to go “Ghost Cat” mode. Who am I to judge, though? If he needs a fursuit to fight crime properly, that’s his business.

Mary Worth, 12/14/25

A lot of Sunday strips just pad out what could’ve been a two- or three-panel gag and don’t take full advantage of their length. Not today’s Mary Worth, though! Today’s strip takes us on an emotional roller coaster, from the highs of “Ha ha, Sunny shat in Ian’s shoe!” to the lows of “Oh, man, the reason Toby and Ian never had kids is because Toby knows, in her heart of hearts, that Ian would beat them.”

Marvin, 12/14/25

Speaking of shitting, Marvin is, of course, primarily about shitting and pissing. But it’s also about a set of characters who actively dislike each other, and that’s why I refuse to believe that Bitsy thinks of Jeff as “dad.” He almost certainly just refers to him by name, or, if he refuses to learn his name on principle, as “that asshole.”

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Andy Capp, 12/13/25

Hartlepool is part of the Tees Valley Combined Authority, a conurbation of 700,000 people in the far northeast of England, and it’s frankly sad that brain surgeons are so thin on the ground there that this young (?) woman would call the profession “exotic.” Ditto for pilots, especially given the poor state of the British rail system! Anyway, I used to read Andy Capp as a kid and one of the strip’s running bits that puzzled and disturbed me the most was when women at the pub would flirt with Andy. How old were they supposed to be? Were we supposed to read them as attractive? Didn’t they know he’s married? These questions still haunt me today, but not as much as this woman’s unnaturally located and shaped breasts, which I think is a 21st century addition to the strip.

The Phantom, 12/13/25

Hey, kids, were you wondering what the Phantom was up to? Well, there’s a lot of plot I haven’t gotten into over the past few months, but frankly you don’t have to know about any of it to enjoy this drawing of him just firing two pistols down a hallway at nobody in particular. The Phantom: The Superhero Whose Superpower Is Guns™!

Dick Tracy, 12/13/25

Speaking of guns, were you wondering what clown-criminal Rojo Ozob was up to? Well, it seems that rather than “playing it cool” when a potential adversary is parked out front of his hideout, he instead orders his underlings to charge out with whatever weapons they have at hand, which can lead to unpleasant results if the potential adversary turns out to be the cops. I guess this guy really is a clown, ha ha! (I’m using “clown” here in the metaphorical sense, so as to highlight his incompetence.)

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Your top comment is here, and it’s spectacular!

“You have to wonder about the parents who remain in line with their children. They can see, right? They know what awaits them at the front of the line, correct? ‘Just twenty more minutes, Tyler, and you can be the one awkwardly perched on the lab of the unsettling pizza box automaton.’” –Joe Blevins

Your hilarious runners up are also a delight!

“Henry wears a lot of layers for just reading the paper at home. Maybe he’s one of those low-thermostat guys (laudable).” –Joe Friday I’m In Love, on Bluesky

“Writers advise avoiding ‘shoe leather,’ the depiction of how characters get from one scene to the next. Just go straight from one interesting part to the other, they advise. These writers never had to fit a two-panel joke into a Sunday strip.” –matt w

“One of my peeves is comics that mix speech balloons for adult humans with thought balloons for animals and babies yet both supposedly work as communication with others so I guess we’re to assume that horrifying telepathy exists in these worlds and nobody says anything about it. However, if a thought balloon was just a thought balloon, it makes this comic actually amusing if it’s just a bartender staring at the dog sitting at his bar with a big stupid grin on its face, unaware that its joke wouldn’t make sense even if anyone could hear it.” –Tabby Lavalamp

“Look at that smile and sudden healthy glow in the third panel, we’re about to launch into Gil Thorp’s Day Off.” –Charles Louis Richter, on Bluesky

“That’s some look on Hi’s face in the last panel. He knows he’ll surely die if he sticks around to watch this racy(?) action-packed(?) film, but he’s going to anyways. It’s like if they made The Ring for middle-aged dads.” –pugfuggly

“Thor lives in the emptiest cave ever half-imagined into existence. Get some rock-based furniture, a fire pit, some skins, guano, anything to liven the place up!” –Victor Von

“I don’t blame Ian for being upset. After all, Othello’s autograph is pretty rare.” –seismic-2

“You have to respect Sunny’s ability to distinguish Ian’s possessions from Toby’s. Though maybe Toby put all her stuff safely away a couple days ago, when she realized parrots have no bowel control.” –Ken

“‘Sir Richard Wellbottom’ sounds like an adult film star who specializes in Shakespeare parodies: Much Ado About Pegging, King Leer, Romeo and Juliet and Rosaline…” –TheDiva

“If there’s one thing Herb loves, it’s staring off into the middle distance while making smug faces for no reason as a mysterious omnipotent narrator rambles incoherently.” –ectojazzmage

“Some might point out that Ian’s accusation doesn’t really imply the bird can read at all, as there’s a number of simpler ways a parrot could notice an association between the Playbill and Ian. However, that actually makes Toby’s accusation itself logically consistent, as she herself can’t read and assumes that Ian’s daily wistful stroking of the cover is what constitutes the act.” –NotImportant

“Of course birds can’t read! But Othello is a play, they just need to listen and watch it! Think, Toby, think!” –Ettorre

“Due to the scrawly font I misread ‘platforms’ as ‘flatworms’ and, honestly, I think it was an improvement. Alice would at least have an opinion on those.” –Hergen

“And so the fumbling attempt to unionize Dithers & Co comes to an abrupt end. The workers shouldn’t have picked a foreman who’d sell them out not even for spare ribs, but for the idea of spare ribs.” –Schroduck

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