Jordan will be a character witness at their trial. “They seemed nice,” he’ll say
Post Content
Mary Worth, 7/5/26
For years, one action item has popped up repeatedly in Charterstone condo association meetings: replacing the doors on the apartments, because they’re cheap and thin and easy to hear through. “Anyone walking by can snoop on your conversations!” residents complain. “Well, we’re going to have the improvements subcommittee look into that,” Association President Mary Worth says. “We’ll need to research new doors that can offer more privacy, but won’t cost too much — after all, a big expenditure like this could cause your association fees to skyrocket! And then we need to find a reliable contractor, of course.” In reality, there is no “improvements subcommittee,” and Mary has no intention of taking away one of her prime tools for assessing when her meddling intervention might be required. And now poor Tommy is paying the price, hearing something that nobody should ever have to hear: Wilbur Weston, of all people, shit-talking him.
Crankshaft, 7/5/26
I referred to the Starlight Ballroom (in Chippewa Lake Park) as “bombed out” the other day, and was mostly joking, but, uh. This panel pretty much makes it look like a bit of loredumping background detail in a post-apocalyptic movie, a monument to a dead but once-great civilization (ours) tagged with some of the most depressing lyrics penned by the Kinks (people living in post-apocalyptic ages love doing pointed, arch graffiti that caters to Boomer cultural knowledge, this is just science).
Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/5/26
Boy, wow, Rex and June both seem real intense about the twins’ extremely low-level “scam,” huh? Almost like they’ve been fleeced by more ambitious scams before and are very bitter about it. Well, have they considered that if they provided goods and services worthy of repeat business, they wouldn’t have been grifted in the first place? The twins are happy to hand over hard-earned (via scamming) money to Jordan in exchange for his delicious food, so maybe the Morgans just aren’t operating at a don’t-get-scammed level.
Dick Tracy, 7/5/26
So the mysterious hacker gang members are named “Wallhack,” “Lootbox,” and “Widescreen”? Come on. Come on. I’m a 51-year-old man and the last video game I was fixated on was Civilization II and even I can immediately tell how incredibly cringe this all is. And Widescreen should have a big wide flat head, to match his name. Come on! This is Dick Tracy, have some self-respect.
69 replies to “Jordan will be a character witness at their trial. “They seemed nice,” he’ll say”
Crankshaft-“Now let us all march ourselves right into the lake.”
RMMD-Rex is an expert on scams. He’s run a few himself.
RMMD-“Sure. You can take this bag,” June says as Rex takes the bag and her attempt at innuendo fails once again.
MW-Tommy then sobbingly runs off to Mary Worth who is waiting for him with a muffin.
Dick Tracy defies the tropes by having the computer hacker live in his mother’s attic, not the basement.
Was June posing for an Art Frahm illustration?
I don’t say this lightly, but I think this might be the greatest Crankshaft ever drawn. This is, like, experimental Soviet art film levels of bleakness.
RMMD: The ‘Dine and Dash’ equivalent wouldn’t work at the Morgan clinic. Hard to Dash after one of Rex’ extreme prostate exams. -And don’t even ask about his gynecological services.
CURTIS: And rabies! Where are your “protect family” instincts, Dad? (And every 11 year old knows about cartoon skunks)
MW: Being condemned by Wilbur just doesn’t have the zing of being condemned by someone who is, you know, NOT a waste of breathable air.
RMMD: Since most people don’t lose their life’s fortune to buskers, I’m not too worried about “The Old FAKE Music Scam.” But I definitely want to be there when Sarah learns about Dine and Dash!
9CL: OK, I actually laughed. First time for everything.
RMMD — How old are the twins supposed to be? Because these two have obviously developed a taste for the finer things in, if not life, then at least Glenwood. Thing Two even knows to hold her red wine in a way that will warm the beverage, which is not something you pick up hanging outside the local supermarket.
Oh, and I can’t believe the Morgans didn’t start using their own reusable shopping bags since Glenwood banned plastic and Rex found out that the store was going to charge fifteen cents for a paper bag. “And let me tell you another thing that’s dishonest, Sarah. . .”
For Better or For Worse: Would Deanna have found it more romantic if, instead of “Grab a Burger,” Michael had said, “Suck My Wiener” ?
MW: Boy it’s true what Benjamin Franklin said, except in this case, Tommy did multiple bad deeds, and only started rebuilding his good reputation after? Anyhow, good try, quote box, I’m sure you’ll get it one of these days!
CSh: It’s hard to know how to end a long-running comic strip. Calvin and Hobbes managed to finish with an iconic final Sunday strip that captured the real spirit of the characters and the world they inhabited. So what I’m saying is, guys, if you don’t feel like writing another Crankshaft tomorrow…
RMMD: It’s amazing that these two decided to make a living scamming people when they clearly have some kind of disorder that makes them say their entire inner monologue out loud.
Crankshaft:
I’m thinking maybe Messrs. Batiuk and Davis could use a hit of tryptophan.
A mall? Today’s Gasoline Alley might as well be taking place at a post-apocalyptic amusement park; at least the gang in Crankshaft know they’re walking through the loss of a bit of Americana.
H&L Somebody please tell Little Bob Dylan there that the words “America the Beatiful” do not appear in the beloved song of the same name.
RMMD:
“Tommy Beedie from over at Mary Worth bagged these groceries for us, Rex!”
“Wow. There must be illegal pharmaceuticals secreted inside!”
Crankshaft : and then The Kinks song playing switches to “Apeman” as Zanzibar the murder chimp jumps out from the bushes and guns down the entire procession.
*************
Dick Tracy : It took me way too long to realise that NYLE.COM is supposed to be a riff on Amazon. (Has it always been the case, or has Dick Tracy actually used the real name/a different fake name before?)
************
Luann : Frank whines that he has to do all the grilling on the BBQ, even though :
a) BBQ grilling is a “guy” thing, and the only other guy here is Bwad.
b) The strip has implied that every other day it’s Nancy who does all the cooking with no help from Frank.
So, I think he should suck it up and just be proud he’s the one making the meal a success. Am I in the wrong here?
************
Mary Worth vs Rex Morgan M.D. : “Once a thief, always a thief”, from different perspectives.
*Wilbur’s unwillingness to believe Tommy HAS sincerely tried to better himself is being portrayed as the wrongheadness of an archetypical senex iratus
*(even without taking into account that Wilbur himself needs to “clean up his act”).*The Morgans insisting that the twins were totally bad guys underserving of charity is constantly underscored by the “action” cutting away to the twins going all “MWAHAHA, WE ARE ACTUALLY MORE EVIL THAN THE MORGANS ASSUME!”
*…that’s the most pretentious way I could have phrased that, isn’t it?Crankshaft:
“The death of a clown…when there’s no one around.”
— Smokey Robinson and the Miracles
Wait. That’s not quite it, is it.
SFx: Sure, Rocket is holding the gold coins, but who stole them? Ask those fledglings where they’ve been the last hour– yesterday I heard them hatching plans on becoming high flyers.
RMMD:
I would say that it’s highly unusual that the two dogs wouldn’t greet their owners when they walked in the door, but I guess this is the Morgans, after all, so what would be the point?
Dick Tracy:
I see that Shaggy from Scooby Doo has, unfortunately, apparently turned to a life of crime. Needs glasses now, too.
MW: Will Wilbur’s overheard words drive Tommy into a downward spiral of self-loathing and drug use, ironically confirming Wilbur’s opinion of him? When answering, remember this is Mary Worth where no plot is too hackneyed for use.
@Pozzo: I think we can all be thankful Frahm was distracted, because who wants to see what would happen with *Rex* holding the celery bag…
@Activist: Oh yeah, “walks up and is willing to be held” is automatically “weird behaviour, suspect dangerously ill” for a wild animal in my books.
MW. Wilbur considers keeping Dawn away from Tommy so important that he cheated on his longtime girlfriend, Tommy’s mom, with a big bosomed South American scammer just to make sure Tommy and Dawn never became step-siblings. Or at least that’s the way Wilbur tells himself it happened. Wilbur is, of course, so easily scammed he can lie to himself.
Crankshaft:
“Let’s elevate the mood here by finding a TV set and queuing up Netflix to watch the fun and frothy Child’s Play!”
S4th I actually kinda like that this time there’s a specific date they’ve landed on and how in the last panel there’s some of what you’d expect for “what to do if you end up in the near past”. (I’d be quizzing others about whether this is still before the Challenger disaster and whether we can try to fix that.) YMMV but I’m watching this one with genuine interest.
Wary Morth:
“Why, Dusk, at this very moment he might be hanging around outside our door, eavesdropping on our conversation for blackmail material!”
“If he did, dad, he’d pay us to stop talking!”
@Bob Tice: I watch a jail-based reality show. It mostly just covers booking procedures, and I find it interesting the walks of life that come in (when they aren’t being beligerent jerkasses), and I’ve seen at least three guys that look remarkably like Shaggy.
But then again I also saw a few guys that look like the Youtuber/parody singer Brentalfloss.
Wrecks Moregobe:
“Besides, where else would the food come with a glass of tasty, tasty ink?”
Dick Tracy includes credits in the first panel. The “Guest Writer: Eric Costello” in the penultimate panel isn’t a credit, it’s blame.
Crunskshaft: Given that Batiuk’s interest in any spark remotely resembling light in this strip died decades ago, lyrics from Pagliacci would be more appropriate: “Finita la Commedia.”
Duck Twacey: Wait, something’s wrong; Vio (“Vio De’Games,” obviously) DOESN’T resemble Danny Devito, as required by Comic Strip Regulation 3:16! When Ray Davies’ solicitors are finished with Crankshaft, they should begin on this travesty of justice!
-Tommy bursts into the room to confront his accuser-
“Mr. Weston, I’m no longer a criminal!”
Tommy immediately gets arrested for breaking and entering.
DtM: Doesn’t Mr. Wilson’s ankle bracelet do the same thing, but without scraping all Martha’s financial data to some bot farm in Bulgaria?
RMMD: I’m going to search “miming music busking” and there’d better be something there, Rex. “Why, a con artist who can actually play an instrument? There’s no such thing?”
@ValdVin:
I just did and apparently….it’s a recognised art form and not scamming?
Popeye: OK, honest question– Where the hell did that giant water-fist come from? Even spinach can’t do water-bending!
Hagar: Loweezy and Helga are always placed in adjacent spots on the funny pages for a reason.
DT: Adding to what Josh already said…
The concept of “Widescreen” could have been done better, like with Amanda Waller from DC Comics, who had a huge square-shaped body, but she was an intimidating figure and NO-ONE messed with her.
Instead of being well… “wide” Widescreen’s entire gimmick is that he has a big computer screen. LAME….
@Ukranazi Stepan: Huh. I’ve heard of air guitar contests but this is a new one on me. (PS If you’re going to enter an air guitar contest: Really, really just pretend you’re Jimi, Pete, Clapton, Eddie Van Halen, Bo Diddley, or Chuck Berry. Nobody is going there to watch someone actually knows how to play guitar form the chords and hit the frets.)
@Buck Ripsnort: Well… actually… in the older Fleischer cartoons, eating Spinach allowed Popeye to break the boundaries of reality. Like turning Bluto into Salami after punching him, turning a Native American Chief into Ghandi, and pulling two sides of a canyon together after Bluto destroys the bridge.
In turn, nothing surprises me with Popeye anymore, even in the more grounded comics’ canon.
RMMD Somebody has never, ever gotten over their Milli Vanilli fandom
Dick Tracy: First Responders Roll of Honor. “Sheriff Benjamin Branch . . . thrown from his horse . . . died from his injuries . . . first American LEO to die in the line of duty.” Come on. I need more details. Probably riding home after a late night at the Bull ‘n’ Eagle.
Went to Chippewa Lake Park many times in my younger days. There were several such parks around and they started as having ballrooms and hosted big bands.
RMMD- “methinks thou dost protest too much”- Beatty must have fallen for this recently.
@nescio:
Costello has artistic assistants who collaborate with him. At first they were Attractions, but now they’re just Impostors.
@MKay: no, I,will not look at 9CL. Nice try, but I spend days trying to scrape myself clean whenever I read this strip.
@pugfuggly: I’ve quit the weekly Mary Worth quotevestigations but I guarantee you that Ben Franklin did not say this. The opposite sentiment appears to be expressed in Sempronia: A Novel in Three Volumes (vol. 2, p. 66), an anonymous novel from 1790: “Can one single act destroy the remembrance of so many good deeds? Impossible, my Valville.”
Crankshaft does a whole maudlin storyline about the death of the big bands and finishes it off with lyrics from the Kinks? Come on. You can’t find anything appropriate in The Great American Songbook? How about “No One Cares”?
Curtis: I call shenanigans. Curtis has seen and experienced at least one skunk before, Cuss Skunk!
RMMD: “The oldest trick in the book;” says Rex in his best Don Adams voice. Forget it! exclaims June. “For the umpteenth time, I’m not styling my hair like Barbara Feldon.”
DtM: Not sure I’d let a kid as irresponsible as Dennis know I have feet made of white china clay.
I’m hung up on how you “pretend” to play the violin. Okay, you’ve got recorded violin music going… and you tuck your violin under your chin and pick up the bow and — do what? Presumably you have to move the bow in a realistic manner, but (a) you can’t let it touch the strings — that would make a noise audible over the music; and (b) if you’re moving it back and forth half an inch ABOVE the strings, that’s gonna be pretty obvious, not to mention hard to sustain without accidentally hitting a string (see (a)). Do people actually do this?
mary worth- no daughter of mine is gonna hang out with a man who eats FRO_YO
C’shaft: Okay, I’ve been traveling for a couple days and I haven’t been able to properly vent, so forgive me if all of this has been said before, BUT:
1.) The timeframe is complete bollocks. Batiuk has apparently resigned himself to the fact that his elderly characters can no longer realistically have been young adults during World War II, but he still wants to keep his nostalgic images of a dapper young Eugene squiring his beloved Lucy to a dance at the Starlight Ballroom before he was tragically shipped overseas. The mention of Elvis puts this scene in the late 1950s at a minimum, too late for “overseas” to be Korea, so he would have had to wound up in Vietnam, making his last dance with Lucy 1964 at the earliest–two embarrassingly square kids alone in a ballroom while their peers are squealing over the Beatles and joining civil rights marches (or, as is more likely the case for these two extra-white white people, counter-protesting them). In an attempt to make things make more sense, they make even less sense than ever.
2.) The title “In the Name of the Father” suggests Harry will be wrestling with his complicated feelings regarding his dad: a man in whose footsteps he followed but whose absence from young Harry’s life left him with a lot of resentment which remained unresolved after his father’s sudden and possibly alcohol-related demise. But he doesn’t “wrestle” so much as nudge them lightly: a bitter comment here, a knowing smirk there. It’s not a deep introspective, it’s barely getting its feet wet in the zero-depth entry area.
3.) Much hinges on the rediscovery of “Sunrise over Kilimanjaro”–something that we can assume Larry Dinkle wrote for his big-band ensemble. If Harry had premiered this lost masterwork with a similar ensemble (I suggested the Bedside Manor band, thus bringing Eugene back into the story), it would have been cloying, but it would have made sense. But no, Harry plays his trumpet for a handful of hangers-on in the ruins of the old ballroom. I mean sure, Larry probably wrote himself some good solo licks, but so what? Try playing the violin part of “Danse Macabre” without the rest of the orchestra and see how effective that is.
4.) And after all that, how do we end? Peaceful closure? The bittersweet joy of passing down memories of the past? Nope, we close in true Batiukian fashion: resigned misery. The world sucks, nothing lasts, life is just watching everything you care about die before you die yourself. This is the legacy he wishes to leave the world, and it’s frankly sadder than his self-aggrandizing self-insert character yapping about his career.
MW: Yikes, Wilbur, any more stones you want to lob at the walls of your glass house? Thoughts on the kettle?
RMMD: I’m not sure what’s more laughable: the Obviously Evil Twins cackling over an expensive dinner they were somehow able to buy with their busking money, or the Morgans being so indignantly outraged at this low-level grift (nobody tell them about the off-brand Mickey Mouse in Times Square, we’d never hear the end of it).
Crankshaft – That post apocalyptic background is a reference to The Burnings. You know, that half assed attempt to burn down the bookstore with a burning paper bag on the stairs, which weren’t up to code to begin with.
Rex Morgan – It’s unbelievable that Beatty would spend four panels on carrying groceries into the house. He would usually spend at least three weeks of strips on it.
Mary Worth – Give Tommy some credit. At least he never faked playing a musical instrument to beg for money.
Seriously, why are June and now Rex Morgan going on and on about the fake music? Faking playing an instrument should be extremely low on anyone’s list of things to be outraged about.
@Twinkles the Elf: Muting the strings by touching the finger but not pressing it to the fingerboard, maybe? I’ve never played the violin but that would be pretty effective with a guitar. Or some kind of fake bowstring that didn’t create enough friction to make a sound?
Somehow this Latin or French or Ukrainian phrase automatically translated to coitus interruptus in my brain.
Dick Tracy: “Sheriff Benjamin Branch! His achievements included: being thrown from a horse, dying, and no other successes. Hey! Who writes this stuff?”
I was told of a Simpsons episode where Homer comes home and wants to pet the dog. Marge tells him that Bart has taken the dog for a walk but that he could pet the cat. Homer says, “What’s the point?”
So you make a good point that with the Morgans, it doesn’t matter if we’re talking about dogs or cats.
@Twinkles the Elf: Apparently yes–the scam primarily hinges on using an electric violin which is turned off while the speaker plays the pre-recorded music. The top article hits I found come from 4-5 years back, so it makes sense the Morganverse is only now becoming aware of the trend.
(Real buskers obviously have a lot of hatred and resentment towards the scammers, who both take money from people without providing an actual performance in return and make savvy passersby more suspicious and therefore less likely to dole out tips to anyone. I would forgive a great deal if this ended with Rene Belluso and his nieces getting pummeled by a street dance crew, a card magician, and a long-haired guitarist that smells faintly of weed.)
Funky Crankshaftbean: Very few parcels of land get an official mausoleum when they die; Chippewa Lake Park is pretty lucky in that regard! And it’s got some pretty high-class graffiti, too. I’m especially impressed by the Air Graffiti inscribed on the sky over the concrete structure that dominates this image. People don’t appreciate how hard tagging is, and getting the paint to stick to the air is especially challenging!
JP: And yet, somehow this is the best guardian Charlotte has had in months.
Pluggers are not making sense anymore, and their children should seriously start looking into assisted living facilities.
Crankers: poor Ray Davies.
SF: at least they are trying. Give them credit for that.
PV: military training as family bonding.
Doonesbury: Trudeau pays tribute to the late Nicole Hollander (“Sylvia”).
I haven’t checked GoComics or my local paper but the Seattle Times website chopped off the title panel which included a drawing of “Sylvia”. The strip as a result doesn’t make sense. (Except as an insult to BD)
@Buck Ripsnort: I thought it was a waterspout or something. This Sunday Popeye story arc has long since passed the limits of comprehensibility so really nothing surprises me anymore.
Family Circlejerk – No, Bil, you’re supposed to put the melonheads in the hole before you dump the dirt into it.
Rex Morgan, MILF Diver – Are we sure the twins are eating at Jordan’s (not the basketball player) and not at the Glenwood Morel diner?
That’s fantastic news about Jordan. I’m really looking forward to reading The Enthusiast – newspaper comics are a lost art!
@Rocco:
#49. CS: Rocco, I was a little too young for ballroom era, but it was age progression. Sock hops for high school students, community center dances for recent grads, square and line dancing for seniors, and now aerobics for the elderly. Thankfully, I don’t dance.
RMMD: “We could always dine and dash.” “Naw, Beatty needs to stretch this out for weeks. ”
This plot is if Dr. Weirdly took the old Gil Thorp “DVD knockoff movie arc” and grafted it onto a Reeky Rat scheme with prerecorded music.
You know, in terms of moral complexity, these twins make Dr. Weirdly look like Victor von Frankenstein.
CS: There’s a couple hundred bottle caps, some Stimpaks, and rare laser rifle called “Dinkle’s Misery” under the graffiti on that wall.
@Activist: In St. Paul, we had the Prom Ballroom, which lasted until 1987.
It opened with Glenn Miller’s band…hosted one of Buddy Holly’s final shows….one of Prince’s first shows…had both Whoopee John Wilphart and Weird Al Yankovic and was up to the end anchored by monthly shows by Jules Herman’s big band fronted by “Lawrence Welk’s Original ‘Champagne Lady’ Lois Best”.
*sigh* _actual_ scam alert – Spam at #62
@CanuckDownSouth, RMMD: I’m going further and cite The Archies.
(And if Beatty is this vindictive about fake groups, let’s be grateful that “KPop Demon Hunters” is still off his radar.)
@UncleJeff:
#66. Uncle Jeff, thanks for dusting off the memory..Nearby Clear Lake had the Surf Ballroom (imported sand so kids wouldn’t have to to go to LA) where Buddy Holly and the Bopper did play their last concert. The night, the music died .