tzzzzz FARRRRRSH! AAAAHH– !!
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Dick Tracy, 8/30/26
I had kind of lost interest in this Dick Tracy computer hacker storyline, mostly because both the ways in which it got computer stuff right and the ways in which it got it wrong were fundamentally boring. But today? When one of Widescreen’s gang members tries to quit and demands to get what he’s owed, and Widescreen gives him a USB drive shaped like the Space Shuttle, which I guess we’re supposed to understand the implication is that it has crypto on it or something, so the henchman goes online via a coffee shop’s public Wi-Fi network and plugs that USB drive into his laptop like any savvy hacker would, and then the laptop explodes in such a way that henchman himself is immediately engulfed in flames and dies in agony? Well, that’s extremely not how computers work, but it’s also pretty exciting, so I’ll allow it.
Mother Goose and Grimm, 8/30/26
So, yes, Grimm’s liminal position between human and animal is extremely discomfiting to think about. But on the other hand, it allows him to talk to cars and know their True Names, so who’s to say if it’s good or bad?
Mary Worth, 8/30/26
Extremely sinister that the inspirational quote about self-respect and being a role model in today’s strip comes from notorious steroid abuser Barry Bonds. Are we meant to understand that Mary is, in some way, juicing? Is she using performance-enhancing drugs to improve her level of meddle? Truly disturbing.
39 replies to “tzzzzz FARRRRRSH! AAAAHH– !!”
Mary Worth Mashup: This is what really happened in The Bum Boat.
DT Expendable Henchman was sufficiently suspicious to question just what was on the drive, but not enough to refuse the offer of the “burner” laptop a couple of days ago. Which leads to the question about whether the writers think you can make a program that turns any computer into a bomb, or whether Widescreen was relying on Henchman making this request and then using a device that somehow can still emulate a desktop while the whole thing including the fireworks-starting screen is built of explosives.
Mary Worth:
“Don’t you know that I danced/I danced ’til a quarter to three/With the help, last night, of Tommy B.”
— Gary “U.S.” Bonds
Mary Worth:
“I gave you that gift, dear, because you remind me of the sea!”
“Because I’m so restless and unconquered?”
“No, because you’re all wet, and you make me sick to my stomach!”
Is Foxtrot the first comic to make a cyclosporiasis joke?
Haha relentless diarrhea ;)
Dr. Jeff – you can give Mary those puppy dog eyes in panel two, and awkwardly eat the seafood platter with your left hand in panel three, but we all know you ain’t spending the night with Mary. No amount of groveling and flattery is gonna change that.
MW: “You were right again, Mary. Her transformation from shrinking violet to confidant twenty something is amazing.” Says Doctor Jeff. “Even a loser like Dawn can benefit from PEDs.”
Mary Worth:
How exactly does Mary make this guy a “better man”? They go out once every two months or so to the very same restaurant, and then they spend the bulk of their time there talking about other people.
Mother Goose-“This annoying ventriloquist dummy that I have to take fishing now.”
MW-And how has Mary made Jeff better? This is the only time we see him.
RMMD-Just ship them off to ‘Mary Worth’.
Mother Goose and Grimm:
“Who’s Rusty?”
“He’s the longtime kid from Mark Trail. But with the current artist, he looks like a cross between Marine Boy and Chucky from ‘Child’s Play’ !”
So “NooBGone.exe” didn’t give you a clue, Nooby?
I remember reading Uhnak’s first book, the autobiographical “Policewoman”, sometime in the mid 1980s. It ended with her waiting to find out if she were about to be fired from the police department. I had no idea that she actually was either fired or forced out, or that she went on to become an author. In fact I had forgotten her name until I saw the Dick Tracy post here today.
Mother Goose and Grimm: Oh my god!! What happened to the artwork in panel 2??
Not that the art was that great before, but it really took a nose-dive. The art looks especially juvenile and Mother Goose looks like she’s melting.
Did Mike Peters simply forget how to draw his characters? (Can that even happen?) did he have a stroke?
Wrecks Moregone:
“The Mirakle Method? We’d prefer prison!”
Mary Worth:
“From whom did you purchase that beautiful abalone pen, anyway, Jeff?”
“An itinerant vendor on the beach who’s originally from the city of Victoria, on Mahe Island.”
“You mean — ?”
“Yep. She sells Seychelles sea shells by the seashore.”
“You made me a better man, Mary! I was a doctor devoted to my profession, I even volunteered in a Third World Country. But you came to me and told me to stop with this nonsense and return home to overprescribe pills and cheat Medicare! These days I only care about my very polluting muscle car and gigantic boat! You made me who I am today!”
Mary Worth:
“Wow. I’m in the ‘Mary Worth’ Sunday Quote Box. But I’m not going to get a big head about it or anything.”
— Barry Bonds
MG&G: Grimm can drive?! But he’s like… 3 feet tall. How does he reach the pedals?
The barista in Dick Tracy: “Oh my God a man is on FIRE!”
Customer: Finally gets a chance to stare directly at the barista’s rack.
Pluggers: Suggesting that it’s good for 90+ year old people to be left outside when the temperatures are are 90° sounds like a conspiracy to kill off a lot of seniors and you know the kind of people who are taking advice from Pluggers are highly suggestible and will absolutely try this.
DT: Not as brutal as “man in gimp suit gets eaten alive by rats” but still pretty good.
@The Rambling Otter:
Mike Peters is 82 years old and it’s kind of amazing he hasn’t completely lost his mind after drawing this comic for over 40 years.
@Sonneta: Many Dwarves are able to drive. I’m not exactly sure how though.
Well, that’s nice of Mother Goose (Her, and in turn the comic) to be open about this.
Before he said that it was the car, Grimmy says that he went on a date with a guy named Rusty.
Mother Goose’s response is “That sounds fun!”
How nice that old crotchety Mother Goose, at least isn’t homophobic.
Steroid abuser AND notoriously arrogant closed-off piece of shit Barry Bonds.
@The Rambling Otter: Custom-built hand controls.
PV: Get out of there, girls.
Mommy is about to get stabby-stabby.
DT: I didn’t know Samsung made laptops now.
MGG: He’s talking about Rusty as in Mark Trail’s adopted son. He’s never seen a film before. Mark won’t take him, says a pine tree is “nature’s movie theater”.
Dick Tracy: As I understand it, the reason computer prices keep rising is a worldwide shortage of a critical component: napalm.
Dick Tracy:
Now obviously you can’t make a computer violently explode with a program, but I suppose it’s possible that the laptop was rigged with an incendiary device of some sort. But if that’s the case, why bother with an executable on a USB drive to trigger it when you can just make it go off when it’s turned on? The only explanation is that Widescreen wanted the last thing Henchman Whose Name I Forget to see to be the name of the file calling him a noob, just to rub salt in the fatal burn wounds.
DT: I’m not really up on the latest tech but I’m guessing that nitroglycerin filled thumb drives are a niche market.
MW: The fly on the wall for this conversation wishes for nothing more than a quick death by swatter.
RMMD: Too dumb for crime, but smart enough for school? The Mirakle Method claims to raise self-awareness, not IQ.
Dick Tracy : Is Guji Coffee’s logo a face-eating leopard? Seems kinda on the nose for the place a henchman gets killed by his criminal master…
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Six Chix : that’s not quite how the “Anakin/Padme : ‘For the better, right?’ ” meme works.
MW: Jeff is a great role model for fawning sycophants everywhere. Unfortunately, that directly contradicts anything resembling self-respect, so the Bobby Bonds quote might not be the most applicable one here.
SF: Look, I was already switching to plant-based alternatives. I didn’t need this nightmare fuel to help.
@Tony Benne: Yeah, probably the greatest ball player to ever live, and will never be in the hall of fame as long as the voters are people who actually knew him. Amazing choice for an inspirational quote.
Marvin: Has there ever been an American businessman and entrepreneur who has been as disrespected as much as Colonel Sanders has by KFC? They have reduced him into some kind of chicken obsessed weirdo and now even “Marvin” is mocking him.
@Phantom Phan: I’m not certain if you’re referring to today’s Sally Forth or Slylock Fox. As both are themed around food and both are visually terrifying.
Inside the Man’s Head: The strip debut of a comic where a retired postman hallucinates that the Mitchell boy next door is constantly tormenting him.
FC: Bil engages in some Sunday morning racist whataboutism.
DT: Called it.
MW: Panel 1: Isn’t Bonds also the player who raised eyebrows for using skin-lightening cosmetics? Or was that Mark McGwire?
Panel 2: There’s that trademark happy ‘daiiiuuuuhhh!’ face again. A few days ago Josh linked back to the famous ‘Wilbur Plays Neo on a Date’ strip and it’s becoming clear to me that Brigman is just phoning it in now. Maybe not as much as Beatty or Peters or Merrill, but phoning it in all the same.
CS: If only ‘die in the dream, die in real life’ could apply here…
Luann: ‘I drank half of it on the way back. Ms. Neighbor Person also told me to come back for more whenever I want!’