Live your life so Mary Worth never bold-face yells “AGE DIFFERENCE?” at you
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Dick Tracy, 2/26/26
The number of human beings who, over the past 18 months or so, have wondered to themselves if minor Dick Tracy villain Silver Nitrate is still having a hard time in prison can probably be counted on one hand, but I assume all those people read my blog and have only come to care because of my occasional efforts to bring the matter to their attention. So anyway, this plot update goes out to all of you Nitrate trufans: the Russians launched a drone attack on a Neo-Chicago prison in order to facilitate a mass jailbreak, and now Silver Nitrate is about to get extremely killed, by a machine gun.
Mary Worth, 2/26/26
“Oh, wow … just 32 and a widow already! You know, most young women don’t really have a sense of how long a man can live, and when they meet one who’s older than them they assume he’s got like 5 or 10 years left in him, tops. Anyway, good for her!”
Blondie, 2/26/26
“Blondie wants Dagwood to prove his humanity by displaying sexual interest in her, and Dagwood doesn’t care if Blondie is a robot or not so long as his dinner is made of real meat” is, uh. It’s a little on the nose, I think.
84 replies to “Live your life so Mary Worth never bold-face yells “AGE DIFFERENCE?” at you”
MW: Well, this got creepy fast.
CS: Yes, “Batton”, they should have bronzed the bed where you invented “Finkle.” With you in it, Han Solo style.
Pluggers still use 1990s-style cordless landline phones. And nobody but telemarketers actually calls them.
GG: I don’t know much about NASCAR, but I know it isn’t a ski jump.
[reading Blondie]: Why did Ian McDiarmid just materialize in my living room and say “Let the hate flow through you”?
“Her name’s Trixie Dumguise, she’s going to come visit me when she gets some time off from her job at MegaCorp! And my, is that salmon pie over there?”
“Yes, only 32, and assures me she’s a widow. Long distance is hard, but she sends me bawdy boudoir pictures and the occasional credit card bill (the poor dear has such trouble with finances), so we’re making it work. Everything about her is so alluring! Even her mellifluous name just rolls off the tongue… Trixie McGrifter.” *sigh*
Daisy is enjoying watching the Bumsteads kiss WAY too damn much. Spay or neuter, people! Did Bob Barker live his live for NOTHING?
MW-“Oh wow. I had no idea you were thirty-two. That is one rough life of yours,” Toby says.
9CL-Oh there most definitely was a standing ovation.
Luann-He’s a Mafia accountant.
MW – “And did I mention she’s a Nigerian princess?”
“Oh, wow! And how many millions did her late husband leave her in a bank account in Burkina Faso?”
[Archeology professor voice:] An important event in the migrations of the 21st century was the land bridge between Cavelton and NeoChicago, suddenly created when Judge Parker and Dick Tracy hit on the exact same plot at the exact same time.
@matt w:
It could be the greatest crossover since Magnum P.I./The Munsters!
Blondie being a sex/food bot answers the question of how she handles hot cookware without pot holders but why she insists Dagwood not also be a bot must be part of her legacy programming.
MW – Trixie may have to fight off Dawn Weston to get Ascot Man.
Toby’s being triggered by that “age difference.” Toby’s in a May-December marriage herself! She’s been waiting for Ian to fall of the perch f-o-r-e-v-e-r, but he just keeps chugging along. She could tell “Trixie” a thing or three about the joys of elderly husbands! Controlling, cantankerous, flatulent, rude, and not nearly as rich as you thought they were when you rashly tied the knot. Run, Trixie, run!
DT: Yeah, Th’hyckyudun to you too! /glances around looking for approval/
MW: God, Mary seems absolutely delirious thinking about what this new situation could bring. “A May-December phishing scam with a closeted widow? Oh…god…I’m feeling light headed…”
Blondie: You know, I was never clear where and when Blondie was set, but I have to admit, ‘Alternative Future Timeline in the Terminator Universe’ was not something I had considered until now.
MW: These plots are like Baja’s vintage Late Thread Cuisine meals, with stories made from the same nasty ingredients to create an unsavory experience that will be set before us. Mix the regular Charterstone staples with the likes of predatory characters like Fabiana, Bats Belfry, and now Trixie, coated with a thick sauce of Mary’s moralizing, and served with animal dramas on the side. It’s not appetizing, but by God! you’re going to STAY at the table until every last bit of it is FINISHED, do you hear me?! There are starving children in China who don’t get to read Mary Worth!!
Dick Tracy:
Wow. They’re all speaking Esperanto, to increase their understanding of one another.
DT: The estate of Chester Gould received my substantial payment and snuck in some subliminal advertising for my new product: Lezzgo! The only plastic construction toy aimed at the women-loving-women market.
Blondie: The difference between Dagwood and a machine is that Blondie has been given orgasms by a machine.
I’m not sure whose voyeurism is more disturbing: the Bumsteads’ dog, or the DeGroot children.
@A Grave Mind:
Daisy is highlighting that a robot uprising (complete with spies killing and replacing your loved ones) is a needless worry; the more immediate threat is the Animalocalypse.
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Dustin : DustinDad, your daughter is texting you instead of calling you because you’re in a public space, and a text is more discreet than a loud ringtone, and the ensuing conversation. (Which, of course, DustinDad throws away by loudly whining about emojis).
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Luann : Frank and Nancy joke that the reason he’s being cagey about WHAT exactly he does as a living is because it’s sensitive, borderline illegal stuff, because they don’t realise that’s true about their ownership of the Fuze/Kafé Kablooie (Mr Gray launders SO MUCH money through it…)
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Mary Worth : “But isn’t Trixie uncomfortable dating a man twice her age?” “Of course not! Her previous husband had the same age gap! And the guy before that too! And the guy before that too!”
“…How many husbands has Trixie had?” “About 7 over the last 5 years. Crazy thing, too, they all died on the honeymoon from slipping in the bathtub! But I’m confident OUR relationship will last!”
Beetled Off Daily:
Is “fireplace” what the kids, er, Korean War era eyeless soldiers, are calling it these days?
MW: “Pool Party at 2:00, be sure to wear something mauve.”
DT: “TH’FCKYUDUNE?” couldn’t pass the censors.
Wrecks Moregone:
Unfortunately for Lorna Starr, the timeshare she just bought to get away from it all happens to be in Charterstone.
Silver Nitrate is going to have his insides exposed to light [by M-16 5.56mm bullets] and they will immediately break down to silver oxide and particles of metallic silver.
MW- I guess they need to run these catfish/scammer storylines now and then because the older readers need to be reminded to keep safe.
Either that, or Moy is just phoning it in.
MW Anyone who can get two braincells to fire simultaneously would be saying “Oh, wow…” as a way to avoid commenting about how suspicious / creepy H’s declaration is. But this is Toby so she is genuinely excited. This is great! There could be a young-wife-of-old-guy-buddy for her at Charterstone soon!
I think Toby may have stopped by the edibles table when she got to the party.
RMMD Hiding in a maid’s outfit without any sign of friends who visit or even expensive hobbies or tabloid rumours that she’s the anonymous bidder collecting, say, art – doesn’t look like she’s *enjoying* her millions. Look, just say you wanted to be able to eat a normal meal without being shamed for it and be done with it.
Blondie – “Hath not a non-robot eyes? If you prick us, do we not bleed? Scratch that part about the pricking. I’ll just kiss you.”
Mary Worth: February 26th, 2026: Dear Penthouse, I never thought it would happen to me, but today I saw Mary and Toby’s O-face at the same time.
MW: Of all the people in the world to side-eye an age gap relationship, Moy chose Toby. I guess someone other than Mary had to do it, as Mary’s too busy staring off into space, fantasizing about how best to meddle.
@Pozzo: You would, too.
@Anonymous: Yeah, Frank DeGroot being some kind of white-collar criminal would explain an awful lot about this world. There’s no way the income from The Fuse/Cafe Whose Name Evans Borrowed From Bill Waterson is supporting two adults plus Luann.
DT: It took me awhile to figure out the guy was saying “(what) the heck (are) you doing?” Walt Kelly and Al Kapp were way better at writing regional dialogue.
Dick Tracy: Before the NRA fans show up, Nitrate is about to be extremely killed by a semi-automatic rifle, not a machine-gun. I’m very sorry to do post notes, but I think it’s important to honor the lives (and deaths) of minor Dick Tracy characters.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: (By the way, it’s been surprisingly long — just over a year — since Uncle Lumpy’s classic post was referenced on the front page, at least as far as I could see.)
@Banana Jr. 6000: That’s Mumbles. He mumbles.
Blondie: Dagwood doesn’t care that Blondie is a robot which she must be because no human could hold a hot dish right out of the oven with their bare hands. Thanks, Dagwood, now you’ve got me wondering if Daisy dreams of electric squirrels.
Blondie: Comic-strip time and all that, but did Dagwood and Blondie wait until after she served a whole-ass meal to decide that yes indeed, a kiss is better than a Captcha? The only thing I can figure is that they’re experiencing small time skips before being launched a thousand years into the future. Or more likely, Blondie has sensibly decided to wait out Dag’s Yankee pot-roast-induced fugue state before wrapping up their conversation.
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV:
Gold, Jerry!
I’m still not sure whether it was the kiss or the eating that convinced Blondie, since she clearly waited until bringing out a second pot roast before she responded.
That, or they’re pondering what they’ll use his skin for. Mansuit. It’s always a mansuit.
MW:
“Tell us more about Trixie.”
“Well, her married name was ‘Black,’ and she played for Richmond’s women’s college basketball team.”
“In other words…?”
“Yep. She’s a Black widow Spider!”
JP: Randy frees Mark Trail villain Bog Dan. “Rusty lied!”
At 32, Trixie is… what, 50 years younger than Dead Astaire here? Even if she turns out to be a gold digger and Mary needs to convince Thirsty Howell the Third that she’s only in it for the money, this is still modern day Mary Worth so it will be a tedious slog where it will take the Meddler-In-Chief several weeks to make him see the light and settle for a pet rabbit or hamster or something that will hang on his every word.
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It seems like some weird-ass role play but Blondie looks genuinely scared in that first panel so maybe the strip is finally giving up on the gag-a-day format and into a science fiction drama? Still, it seems like a waste of resources for whoever is making these robots to do one of friggin’ Dagwood who spends his day sleeping at work and can be bought with a BLT.
Age difference? Long distance relationship but never actually met or seen them? Mary thinks back to the heady days when Estelle had a similar arrangement. “Oh my. I never thought I’d get this lucky again! Charterstone, you are Paradise!”.
C’Shaft: Okay, first…EEEWWW! Poor Cathy was probably still in the other room watching TV while Batton was in bed fantasizing about Fritzi Ritz…or maybe Gearhead Gertie. Second, if he was hanging out at the actual Westview High in the ’70s, then Batton didn’t “come up” with his “band director character Mr. Finkle.” He simply copied the “real-life” Harry L. Dinkle and changed his name…probably without permission or compensation. This is a person we’re supposed to care about and want to see more of?
GG: Okay, I’m calling Shenanigans. The 2026 NASCAR season began a couple of weeks ago. Why in the name of Dick Trickle would Gearhead Gertie, whose raison d’être is to watch NASCAR to the exclusion of all other sports, be tuning in to the Olympics when there are races going on? What a fair-weather fan she turned out to be!
MW: What’s with the beatific smile, Worth? There ought to be more red flags flying over your head than a Stalin-era May Day parade right now! All the online romance scams you’ve “advised” people through over the last 30 years, and nothing Waldo Lydecker here is saying is setting off alarm bells?
As the infiltrators spread through humanity, complex challenge-response routines were established. The robots, though, evolved and advanced, learning to ‘use tongue’ and ‘store food in internal container for later disposal.’ Humanity was soon doomed.
MW: Surprising background character in P2. TBH, I always wondered whatever happened to Madam Mao.
Dick Tracy‘s commitment to its central conceit – grotesque criminals with on-the-nose names – has waned a bit over the decades. At least Silver Nitrate’s hair is silver, but we don’t get horrors like Pruneface and Flattop anymore, and I miss it!
My heart tells me the two gunsels here are Mumbles, Jr. and Baldo Shaddup. I’m sticking with that until I hear otherwise.
Things I would have preferred not to know: Daisy likes to watch
DT: I’ve been saying that to this strip for years–“Th’hckyudune” indeed?
MW: “Age difference?” Mary cries, with the eager wide-eyed expression of someone who has won a lottery jackpot. To hell with squabbling over parrots, this is the kind of neighbor drama she lives for!
Not news, but Mary Worth has a serious pacing problem. Everyone knows this storyline is going to drag out for at least a month plus a week of Mary and Jeff recaps, you can’t just blow “new guy’s girlfriend is an obvious catfish” in the first three days. Show some restraint!
Dirk Twacy Hollistic Defective: Where’s Coffeepothead? Did he get horribly maimed after his encounter with Twacy?
It’s left to Toby to say “Wow” because Mary is *quite visibly* struck dumb with pleasure at the vision of the meddling to come.
MW: I guess 32 is still young enough to trouble Mr. H’s daughter Sharon. But I suspect such potentially-interesting interpersonal conflicts aren’t going to happen, and we’ll just get a boring “online dating is bad” PSA. There’s a good chance we won’t even hear of Sharon again.
@Tabby Lavalamp: It seems like some weird-ass role play but Blondie looks genuinely scared in that first panel so maybe the strip is finally giving up on the gag-a-day format and into a science fiction drama?
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“Beyond DagWorld” Coming to HBO
Mary Dynamite – “I mean, we chat online for, like, two hours every day so I guess you could say things are gettin’ pretty serious.”
The only thing that would add to this is if Trixie is from Canada.
C’shaft: Bronzed? Nah, man, for that you should be crowned–specifically in the manner Khal Drogo did to Viserys.
Dustin: Here, we see a rare glimpse of the fear that drives Dustdad’s loathing of the youth and everything associated with them, the existential angst of realizing his insignificance in a world that continues to move and change in spite of him and will care little when he finally leaves it. It’s a beautiful sight.
JP: “Sure, just point out which corpse is his and I’ll tie him to the back of the snowmobile.”
Luann: Did….did they forget that the deGroots own and run the Fuze?
Pluggers are desperately, desperately lonely.
RMMD: Look, either Lorna willingly retired and his happy to be free from the rigid beauty standards of Hollywood, or she’s so ashamed at having fallen out of those standards that she’s become a recluse and has to disguise herself to leave the house, but you can’t have it both ways!
@Anonymous: “…How many husbands has Trixie had?”
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“Her’s or other people’s?” (Joke stolen from “Clue :The Movie”).
9CL: Look, if the audience hasn’t been put out by people fooling around inside the grand piano Every. Single. Time (which is about to happen AGAIN), they’re not gonna be fazed by people showing up onstage in bikinis. I’m just sayin’.
BLONDIE: I’m thinking by now robots can make out with desperate people, so I don’t see how this proves Dagwood is human.
…And in a twist of comic irony, when I looked up today’s JP strip on Comics Kingdom, the usual Popeye cartoon pop-up showed Olive Oyl covering her face with her hands. Which is pretty much what Randy might have done in yesterdays strip.
I just gonna say it – Dick Tracy dishonors the memory of Dwight Eisenhower by putting him in a prison jumpsuit. Or maybe it dishonors Charlie Brown. It’s hard to tell.
The Familliar Mucus: Looks like Little Billy is busy and has his little hands full already, Dolly.
@A Grave Mind: You know, once dogs or cats are spayed or neutered, they become insufferable prudes right? Daisy is judging them.
MARY WORTH: “‘Age Difference?’ Happening at Charterstone, where I already have two friends who are robbing the cradle/grave as we speak? Impossible!”
Luann: Dad deGroot tests his daughter on what he does for a living while Greg Evans frantically searches 40+ years of strips to see if he ever decided exactly what the answer is. “Goddamn it, have I never shown him at work?”
“The love of my life was taken tragically from me, leaving me a widow at an age most people are not even married”
“Wow, we have so much in common!”
@Voshkod: I just gonna say it – Dick Tracy dishonors the memory of Dwight Eisenhower by putting him in a prison jumpsuit. Or maybe it dishonors Charlie Brown. It’s hard to tell.
________________________________
Charlie finally snapped and stuffed the football down Lucy’s mouth in “You’re In Jail,Charlie
Brown!”
JP: Bogdan? Well, I didn’t plan on killing him but yeah, sure, why not.
Blondie, The Neighborhood Bumstead: Say what you will about Dag and Blondie’s humanity, but in my opinion, it was darn nice of them to install a doorbell at a height low enough for Daisy to poke it with her nose.
JP: Bogdan? Well, I didn’t plan on killing him but yeah, sure, why not.
MW: It would be a nice twist if Trixie is a real person but extremely ugly. The reason she’s a widow is because she turned her last husband to stone.
@GarrisonSkunk: Charlie Brown’s heart raced as he ran toward the football. This time would be different. This time he would connect. How many times had Lucy pulled the ball away? How many humiliations, bruises, grass stains? But not this time. The ball, Lucy, both loomed. His foot came back as he saw her, again, start to pull away the ball.
Contact. A shuddering in his foot, the feeling of a solid hit, and Charlie looked up to find the ball, which must be soaring in a screaming arc across the sky. Instead it slowly rolled to his feet. He turned back and there was Lucy, twitching in the grass, the side of her head crushed by a size six sneaker.
When the police came, he didn’t claim it was an accident, because, in his heart of hearts, he knew it wasn’t.
JP: ‘We have to get Bogdan!’ ‘Randy, I don’t care what little pet name you have for it, we don’t have time to get your teddy bear!!’
Luann: Luann overhears Mommy’s stage whispers and thinks ‘oh boy! My daddy’s a secret agent! Teacher will give a gold star for SURE when she hears my presentation!’
HtH: Relax, folks! That “plucked Chicken” you see there is not really being exfeatherated by Helga! No, it’s a rare, exotic, featherless breed from… uh, Brazil. And she’s wearing a rubber suit to shield against the Scandanavian cold … also to protect her modesty and get past the censors.
Clara is doin’ a great job here – just look at how she’s conveying her dismay, anguish, and the indignity of her situation! Since it’s a simulated nude scene, she’ll be gettin’ a sizable bonus. Not Chicken feed!
Blondie: “Prove you’re not a robot.” “Well, I have the posture of someone whose joints were installed incorrectly, I go through food like a blender combined with a vacuum cleaner, and I’ve looked basically the same since the 1930s. What do you think?” “Eh, love is love!” [Smooch!]
Mary Worth: “She’s 32, and widowed like me. Also, she’s a South American salsa dancer named Fabiana who lives with her cousin. All I have to do is get them green cards and she’ll be with me forever! That’s pretty easy these days, right? I don’t really keep up with the news that much.”
Trixie’s husband was washed away while at work in the sewers of NYC, He spun in, there were no survivors. Then he turned up on “The Cher Minus Sonny Comedy Hour” in a raft, shouting “I’m ok! I’m ok!”
@Voshkod: When the police came, he didn’t claim it was an accident, because, in his heart of hearts, he knew it wasn’t.
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…In the background,the only witness, The Kite Eating Tree, grinned to itself,never to reveal what it knew.
This Charterstone pool party is lame. Even Luann’s high school graduation pool party had more revealing swimwear. Look, even a wealthy Plugger could rock a Speedo and an ascot at the same time. Surely Toby and Estelle could get away with low-slung bikinis. But noooo! Dowdy mauve velour track suits. Ugh.
@Voshkod: Is it too much to hope Josh will award us Co-COTW honors?
@Ettorre: Daisy likes to watch
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…and participate, Les we forget the unspeakable filth that takes place when Dagwood is out of town.
@GarrisonSkunk: I believe that someone did an analysis of the COTW trends and found that replies almost never get the nod. That said, we may get a scratchy scrotum, so stock up on penicillin.
MW: @Sid, Agent to the Animal Stars! Looks like your contract agreement with The Ladies for Mary’s hypoallergenic feline fell through. But I guess that hypoallergenic chicken from Brazil makes up for that…until she gets eaten. Maybe Clara could do a reprise as one of Baja’s Late Thread Cuisine items?
@GarrisonSkunk:
This WAS brilliant, guys
MW: This is a replay of the Arther Zerro story, isn’t it? Just switching out the genitals, like they resuse panels?
Luann: I knew what my dad did for a living when I was 6. He worked for IBM, which had a contract with the Navy to program submarines. He worked on the Navy base in an office full of terminals, and would bring home punch cards (that’s how old I am, punch cards were still a thing) sometimes for my sister and I to play with.
MW- “I’m H@rvey Hart the eighth I am, H@rvey Hart the eighth I am I am. I’m older than Trixie by forty years or more, now Mary can meddle like never before!”