Imagine eating some eclairs you find stuck behind some pots in your cabinet. Disgusting
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Blondie, 9/13/26
This is, truly, one of the saddest Blondies I’ve ever seen. Of course, we all know that Dagwood’s every waking moment is dominated by his insatiable appetite. Today, we see that this drive has led him to hyperfixate on one specific food: some delicious eclairs that his wife made the previous day. He’s compelled to search for them in a series of increasingly implausible places, convinced that they’re hiding somewhere — convinced, perhaps, that they’ve been hidden from him somewhere, by his beloved wife, to thwart what he wants the most. But in the end, he learns that he has already consumed them, that the desire that has dominated his day was already fulfilled, but it wasn’t enough. It’s never enough to produce a moment of pleasure or even satiety that lasts enough to be remembered. There’s only the wanting. The wanting is all he knows how to experience.
Dick Tracy, 9/13/26
The villainous Widescreen, after incinerating his criminal associate, has decided for reasons not entirely clear to me to simply give up and commit suicide by cop. Anyway, I like how we go from the Crimestoppers Textbook entry about dealing with home improvement scams immediately to a panel of what I guess is a Sten gun glowing with divine light. Sure, you could consider gently but firmly closing the door on these potential scammers if you can’t determine that they’re legitimate, but have you considered simply spraying your neighborhood with submachine gun fire? Only way to be safe, probably!
45 replies to “Imagine eating some eclairs you find stuck behind some pots in your cabinet. Disgusting”
Mary Worth Mashup: Let’s spice up the scandal a bit, shall we?
Dick Tracy:
“Hey, you in there! No onomatopoeia! — just come out of there with your hands up!”
It goes pak! pak! pak!, so I suppose it must be a panzerabwehrkanone.. for very small panzers.
Today’s Dick Tracy teaches us that when the cops come to get you, you should also shoot through the wall next to the door. Thanks, Dick Tracy!
Blondie I feel like this strip starts to make a lot more sense if you imagine that Dagwood is just constantly high. The insatiable appetite, the afternoon naps, his general state of confusion. Intense cravings of a very specific food that you forgot that you already ate not long ago? Classic stoner behavior.
Never mind Widescreen, what kind of psychopath sits in an apartment with the door open? Arrest her.
Blondie: Note that Dagwood doesn’t even bother checking the fridge. He knows he wouldn’t keep eclairs in there. No, a true gourmet appreciates the delicate sour note that you only get from leaving a load raw cream at room temperature overnight.
Dick Tracy:
“Police! We have a Warrant! — to be precise, a copy of their 1990 double-platinum sophomore release ‘Cherry Pie,’ featuring the hit song of the same name and their hits ‘I Saw Red’ and ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ !”
Yes, that’s a Sten gun. I’ve actually fired one once as a cadet and it was a distinctly underwhelming experience. Not the weapon of choice if literally anything else is available.
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Wary Morth:
“Yes! It’s suspicious as hell! I mean, just imagine anyone sane being friends with either of these two!”
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Wrecks Moregone:
See the light? See what light? The light at the end of the tunnel? The one that’s the light of an incoming train?
At least we can hope that this story arc is over, right?
Right?
….
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Flylock Socks:
The helicopter crew then reports that they’re being fired on from the ground. The air force sends in ground attack aircraft to light up the locality and blows the red jackal and the yellow rat to bits. Harry, meanwhile, gets away. The end.
“Boss, I don’t see why you are complaining about me gunning down the suspect! I even announced that I had a warrant!”
“Yes, Tracy. But you should only announce you have a warrant if the judge DID grant you a warrant!”
“Baby step, boss, baby steps”
@Baja Gaijin:
Now that would be shocking! Shocking that Mary knows a penis even exists, I mean.
Blondie: Dagwood is obsessed with food …and ants!. If his wife has taken to hiding pastries in bookcases and under the counters, the house must be infested. OTOH, being a legacy comics from the 1930s, I expect the place reeks of mothballs. Crisis avoided.
Dick Tracy is a great example of “do what I say, not what I do”. What the text says: stop criminals by taking some precautions to ascertain whether they are legitimate operators. What the storyline shows: stop criminals by shooting the bastards!
Mary Worth:
Sunday Quote Box
“If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now; it’s just a nosy neighbor drawing incorrect, salacious inferences based on the flimsiest of evidence.”
— Robert Plant (adapted)
“Sten gun in hand where the gun is law…From Ovamboland to Nicaragua…” —Zevon, Warren
Of course he ate them immediately after they were made! Where would he put them for storage? They don’t have a fridge or he would have looked there first!
MW: With the shift of the focus from Nelly to Alma, we may be watching Moy and Brigman re-create Norman Rockwell’s classic “The Gossips.” But very, very slowly.
A glory shot of a Sten? The last time Widescreen killed someone, it was an elaborate plot that required setting things up months in advance. Now he’s trying to use a cheaply made antique. It manages to hit the sweet spot of under powered, unreliable, and expensive. But look at that halo around it!
MW: “It’s been said that TRUE LIFE…,” Mary muses, “is STRANGER than fiction….”
Still unaware of the rumors percolating behind her back, Mary practices her remarks to Jeff for their next dinner at The Bum Boat, knowing that he appreciates her random insights and will be grateful for her wisdom.
MW: just how long have Mary and Ian been standing in the parking lot laughing? They’re smoking weed I assume.
@Baja Gaijin: Dude, she’s only picking a peck of perfect peppers, not picking at the Professor’s peter!
Blondie: The Bumsteads’ kitchen has surprisingly little cabinet space, considering that she’s a professional cook and he’s a food (let’s just say) enthusiast. Blondie probably likes it that way, since she realizes Dagwood sometimes wakes up at night and spends hours searching for a slice of the especially good pumpkin pie she made for Thanksgiving in 2022.
Dick Tracy: Man, they created the Comics Code to stamp out violent comic books way back in the mid-’50s, but this sort of blood-soaked Dick Tracy mayhem has been delivered directly into citizens’ homes since 1931.
Next crime stopper hint:
Always keep treats around your house in order to prevent your food obsessed husband killing you in a glycemic induced rage.
DT: So much for ‘getting the landlady to safety’…
DT2: So, did Widescreen 3D print that weapon? No wonder it looks like he’s simply shooting BBs, using real ammunition would probably blow the thing up in his hands.
S4th: “We’re visiting relatives… and then going into a dissociative fugue state where it’s nineteen ninety-whatever and we get to tell our past selves to right some wrong that none of us will remember having righted when we wake up back in the present to find the holidays have already come and gone. Same as it ever was!”
@Baja Gaijin, MW: There’s only one definitive mash-up, and it involves Mary missing f=in the next to last panel.
DT Given the usual durability of 3D-printed plastic doodads my kids love, I’m actually more interested in just how Widescreen managed to print something that can repeatedly shoot without destroying the barrel – this actually *is* a long-running plan to go down “in glory” because he must have acquired an industrial-grade 3D-*metal* printer and you don’t get that off the shelf at your local store
MW Even on Sunday, the extra-details colourist can’t dig up a realistic skin tone for Alma, so nobody was ready for some non-white character. *Everybody* gave up on their “colours of the world” palette section, dumped it, and tossed in extra mauve ink to be ready for all of Mary’s wardrobe colouring needs.
His gun hurls slurs for Pakistanis! Stay tuned in tomorrow, when it begins to insult the Romani and . . . I’m sorry, I’ve just been informed Dick Tracy has been cancelled.
BLONDIE: Dagwood is exhibiting memory loss. (I’d say early -onset, but he’s a thousand years old) Anyhoo, this works to Blondie’s advantage; she can tell him he ate an entire suckling pig for breakfast and he’ll calm right down.
RMMD: No one should worry about the twins making the Most Wanted List; all of their time is taken up with assembling their revenge roster.
MW: Karma’s a bitch, Alma, you’ll see. Soon, very soon, you’re going to have some stupid-ass life drama, and do you think your “friend” Nelly is going to give you muffins and platitudes that somehow make you see the light? I don’t think so.
Mary Worth: I have to admit, I’m enjoying the sight of the other nosy neighbor attempting to spy on Mary and Ian while hiding behind a very thin tree. It’s like an episode of “Three’s Company,” except without being sexy, amusing, or featuring the skilled marital put-downs of Audra Lindley and Norman Fell.
Hi and Lois: Look how depressed Hi seems to be, until he realizes he’ll be grilling steaks for dinner and finally cheers up a little. Then Lois even takes that away from him — in the name of third-wave feminism, I guess? It’s actually pretty sad. Still, no matter how much Irma eggs her “sister” on, there are only two steaks, so she’s outta luck. She’ll have to head back to her own backyard for canned chili and the last beer from Thirsty’s six-pack.
Pluggers: You’re a plugger if you’re as bad at fishing as at everything else, so you may as well read Call of the Wild for the 18th time.
Slylock Fox: Whoops, Slylock accidentally shined a laser at the helicopter pilot’s eyes and made it crash. Looks like this time, he’s going to be the beneficiary of the revolving-door justice system around here.
Slylock Fox-Slylock will have Max flash the helicopter.
Archie-I’m going to assume they didn’t have any 9-11 tribute comics on weekdays.
Pearls Before Swine-The house was painted fifty shades of gray.
Blondie: I’ve made eclairs (my grandma’s recipe, good stuff), and I can affirm that they’re not a simple food to make. Certainly I wouldn’t spend a lot of time and effort whipping up a batch just so they could be devoured in five minutes by a human garbage disposal, especially when he’d be just as happy with a Costco-sized box of Oreos.
DT: Mrs. Kvetchman–the best and most criminally underutilized part of this entire arc–responds to the police breaking down her door and getting into a firefight with little more than mild surprise. But then, she’s been rather annoyed with her current tenants; she’s probably already gone back to watching her shows and contemplating how long it will take to spackle the bullet holes and paint over the blood so she can let out the room again.
@Liam: re: Archie – huh. It is their tribute and the Friday strip was a wildlife gag. Google claims they quit making new stuff in 2022 so you’d think they would have several weekday 9-11 reruns they could have tossed in instead.
Luann: I mean, that’s what you get when you decide Bernice is a good source of artistic inspiration.
MW: “How shocking! They’re discussing the hit Broadway comedy by Cole Escola!”
Blondie: We’ve seen Dagwood’s attempts at home repair, which makes it a relief that the treats aren’t in the kitchen sink cabinet. I mean, nothing tops a tray of eclairs like the constant drip, drip, drip of wastewater from the P-trap.
Blondie – We’ve previously seen how Blondie’s side-facing chair phases unpredictably in and out of existence. But today we see a new configuration of the Bumstead living room: Both chairs, but no TV. It’s truly pathetic how this leaves Dagwood staring sadly into space, with nothing to do but think about food. I suppose Blondie has long since given up trying to teach him Sudoku.
@matt w: You’d think that a guy who has presumably logged thousands of hours playing first-person shooters would have picked up that tip somewhere by now.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Every day it’s the same routine”
“Darn it, I can be anything I want! I could choose a whole new identity!”
“Polonio, what do you want for Christmas?”
yRxMD: No, it’s not your fault, and you can argue it’s their choice to grift. Trying to coerce and blackmail a grifter to do good is naive at best and hypocritical to force a choice at worst.
DT: As Wide Screen peppers the door with his TEMU knockoff STEN….Dick gets ready for his classic ‘break through the door, guns a-blazing’ panel.
But it’s been a long summer dealing with nerds, the FBI and damn porch pirates. Dick is a little out of practice.
Poor Mrs. Kvetchman.
Dagwood does not look like he’s searching for pastries. He looks like he’s reaching for a maybe, probably, dead mouse in each of the 3 panels he’s rummaging.
“Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas”
~Marie Curie
Or do they mean “Marie Curious?”
PV: We learn a new word today. ‘Scrying’.
I thought it was an amazing spelling error by a quality strip. Two of the characters are drawn with tears on their faces.
But according to our dear friend Wikipedia (which is never wrong), “scrying” is an ancient divination practice like staring into a beam of light to seek a message.
Previous stories have shown Aleta’s younger daughter has a ‘Psychic Friends Network’ connection with Morgan LaFay.
So — no more dancing. Put your clothes on, girls.
Who else here first learned what a Sten gun was from doing crosswords with their mom (or other beloved adult)?
I am guessing that is a less common clue nowadays.
Blondie‘s decades-long convention of showing Daisy the dog imitating every move Dagwood makes is pretty great.
On a related note, Dag, Daisy definitely already ate any floor-high eclairs hidden in your house!