Rex Morgan, M.D., 7/9/26

As predicted, the scam twins (who are named Jean and Jane, I don’t think anyone predicted that) are indeed the nieces of notorious non-twin scam artist/Rex Morgan, M.D., antagonist Rene Belluso, who I guess really is just going by “Jimmy” now. Remember how he got extremely hit by a car and super-duper injured, back in January of 2024? Well, he’s still walking with canes today, in July of 2026, probably at least in part because of the substandard medical care he’s been receiving in prison. Anyway, this got kind of dark pretty fast so let’s move on to the next strip, shall we?

Mary Worth, 7/9/26

Speaking of beloved characters from the past, you might think that this is Tommy’s beloved old crackhead pal Vin, but apparently it’s some similarly stubble-headed guy named “Reno.” You can tell the difference because Vin was outgoing, effusive, and eager to share his drugs with his good friend, whereas Reno is aloof, standoffish, and makes you do the work of coming to him and asking respectfully if he has any drugs to sell. Anyway, you can always make jokes about Tommy’s drug problems! It’s never too dark!

Pluggers, 7/9/26

Speaking of drugs, I used to make jokes about pluggers getting high when talking about the Pluggers panels that revolve around prescription meds, but then someone admonished me about this and pointed out that most prescription meds aren’t mood-altering or addictive and many people need to take them and you shouldn’t conflate them with recreational drugs. Which is fair! But check out the pinpoint pupils on this she-plugger today. Most pluggers are only taking the prescription drugs they need to keep their failing bodies alive, but this plugger in particular is definitely packing a bunch of fun pills on her vacation. She’s extremely zooted right now, before she’s even left!

Judge Parker, 7/8/26

Hey, remember when Neddy tried to be a TV writer, and managed to sell Netflix a pilot about April, the violent, terrifying CIA assassin daughter-in-law of the strip’s namesake? Well, having run out of ideas after her first idea, she’s now trying to pitch a TV show about Ann, the violent, terrifying scam artist daughter of the strip’s namesake. She’s gonna keep at it until she runs out of daughters!

Mother Goose and Grimm, 7/8/26

So the way a joke works, usually, is that you start with a setup that’s grounded in the known and the expected, and then you hit your audience with a surprising twist. Like, imagine beloved cartoon character Bugs Bunny giving us his classic line, “What’s up, doc?” That’s expected. But then the point of view expands, and we can see that he’s not just delivering a saucy greeting — he’s actually requesting medical data from a doctor, who has some tough news for him. Now, would that be a good joke? Enh, not really. But, I submit to you, it would be recognizable as a joke, in a way that today’s Mother Goose and Grimm most definitely is not.

Luann, 7/8/26

Luann, meanwhile, is beyond “jokes,” and I respect it. Bernice is going to become an influencer for toilet perverts! There’s some backstory leading up to this, but honestly you don’t need it.

Daddy Daze, 7/7/26

One of my favorite aspects of The Shining, which is one of my favorite all-time movies, is that for most of the movie’s runtime it’s not clear whether the evil hotel ghosts are real or creations of Jack Nicholson’s increasingly deranged mind, until a point towards the end when they unlock the pantry where Shelley Duvall has managed to trap him. My experience with Daddy Daze is informed by a similar narrative tension: Is the Daddy Daze baby really communicating something with his “ba”s that only the Daddy Daze daddy can understand? Or is the Daddy Daze daddy merely projecting his own thoughts and concerns onto incoherent babble, possibly knowingly and possibly delusionally? Today, the Daddy Daze baby’s whimsical antics seem to have produced a real physical object, which implies that the Daddy Daze daddy isn’t so much mad as he is living in a mad universe.

Blondie, 7/7/26

Real joshreads dot com heads know that I enjoy what Blondie has to tell us about how old people are navigating the modern age. Remember when there only used to be three TV channels, and the weather gal on every channel told you it was the same temperature? Now there’s a million channels plus apps on your phone and what not, and everyone is talking about “Real Feel,” which is different from just the regular old temperature in some way that’s hard to understand. How’s a person supposed to stay tethered to actual, physical reality in this kind of information environment? I guess you should probably just go with what your boss says, right? He must know what he’s talking about, that’s why he’s the boss.

Dennis the Menace, 7/7/26

Damn, Dennis, it seems like your notorious antisocial behavior is starting to have an impact on your personal life! I guess the person you’re menacing the most is … yourself.

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!

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.