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Dick Tracy, 8/6/26

So it seems that Dick’s latest antagonist, the VPN-happy “Widescreen,” is in fact a nepo antagonist and the son (or something) of Splitscreen, an avatar of an earlier age of screen-based crime. Whenever you get a reveal like this in Dick Tracy, you gotta immediately turn to the invaluable Dick Tracy wiki where you’ll learn that Splitscreen is in fact a villain from the ’80s, that his known associates are “V.H. Hess” and “Maxie Beta,” and that his real name Ed Vio is an anagram for “video.” Makes you think! Anyway, at least Splitscreen had the dignity to wear a suit and tie, unlike his slob of a son. The decline in formality in screen-themed villains really says a lot about society, in my opinion.

Luann, 8/6/26

Oh, huh, this is interesting, because I always assumed that Luann … was already a full-time student? Her academic status is as puzzling as her relationship status????

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Rhymes With Orange, 8/5/26

Stale legacy strips like Hagar the Horrible (start date: 1973) still find tired tropes like “Oooh, what if a human were to form an erotic attachment with a mermaid???” to be edgy. New, cutting-edge strips like Rhymes With Orange (start date: 1995), meanwhile, will tell you that everyone and everything under the sea, both natural and mythological, is fucking everyone and everything else.

Luann, 8/5/26

Look, man, I’ve tried to get my head around the question of how we’re supposed to parse the state of sexual relations in Luann for, literally, the bulk of my adult life, but mere minutes ago in strip time Luann and Phil were unpleasantly tongue kissing in front of her mom and now he’s like, “What if we were roommates, with separate bedrooms, to save on rent?” and … I am nothing. I am defeated utterly. I could live a thousand lifetimes and still not understand the mysteries this strip puts before me.

Rex Morgan, M.D., 8/5/26

So far all the scams we’ve seen the Scam Twins pull off have been things like “busking but only pretending to play the violin” or “lying about being from the health department so you can eat for free at the mall food court,” so yeah, you could say that kidnapping a child would represent something of a “bigger deal.” The twins aren’t exactly drawn with what I’d call expressive faces, but I’m choosing to believe that Driver’s Seat Twin’s sunglasses levitated cartoonishly in surprise at this suggestion before settling back down on her nose in panel two.

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Gil Thorp, 8/4/26

I have thought for some time now that Gil is universally considered the most important person in Milford, and perhaps even in whatever geographic region is covered by the whole Valley Conference (“the Valley,” I guess). Today’s strip is more evidence: I simply don’t believe that an ordinary person could call the cops and say “Uh, this guy at my wedding is being weird” and they’d show up in less time than it takes for said guy to finish his supervillain monologue.

Judge Parker, 8/4/26

The fun thing about Judge Parker is that there are two potential ways this could play out — April is furious that Neddy has left their child in the care of her perfectly capable adult sister, with a family rift and endless boring emotional processing to come, or the “April” calling Neddy is actually an AI deepfake voice program and this is part of a larger plot to kidnap Charlotte — and I’m not sure which it’s going to be.

Hi and Lois, 8/4/26

Hey, Irma is married to Thirsty, and Lois, her only friend, recently (in 1980, 1980 is recently in comic strip time) got a job as a realtor and can’t spend as much time hanging out with her as she used to. Let her have fun on her dang phone! Are a few afternoons lost to an infinite scroll through one AI slop reel after another really that much worse than watching her claw desperately at a block of wood like an animal?