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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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Alice, 7/21/26

… but … but that’s just the Internet, isn’t it?

Dick Tracy, 7/21/26

Sam is on the trail of a gang of hackers including “Widescreen” (gamer handle “WSOD”), a rude and extremely undisciplined lout who brags in open forums about his taste for upscale takeout and gaming chairs found only in neo‑Chicago, and now reveals the timing of his next heist to Sam’s undercover identity. This calls for a burst of Rapid-Fire Typing, and you can tell by his look of grim determination that Sam is here for it.

Mary Worth, 7/21/26

Oh come on, Mary—this is Wilbur Weston, for crying out loud. Does that sullen, belligerent troll look like he’s about to show anybody some grace? NO GRACE WILL BE SHOWN!

—Uncle Lumpy

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Dick Tracy, 7/6/26

This Dick Tracy storyline isn’t just about the seedy, underground world of hard-core video “gamers”; it also introduces the strip’s readership to advanced cybersecurity and network concepts, like virtual private networks, or “VPNs”, a cutting-edge networking technique that was invented in the early 1990s and is only familiar to such tech-savvy users as “people who work office jobs from home” or “people who want to access offshore gambling sites.” Anyway, the big brains over at the FBI have narrowed down the hacker’s location to somewhere in North America, probably, so this case should be wrapped up in no time.

Heathcliff, 7/6/26

I like the fact that both the dogs and the humans are letting us know, each in their own way, that the vision of Heathcliff on a slug-chariot bothers them. Seeing him (I assume) inch forward agonizingly slowly yet standing tall in triumph unsettles the mind across species. You’ve gone too far into off-putting whimsy this time, Heathcliff. Too far!