Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for June 14, 2014

Oliver Warbucks, Punjab and the Asp against Axel?

That must have been some fight.

Guy looks even more evil than a lot of Tracy villains!

So the MCU is processing Am’s file while Tracy debriefs Daddy Warbucks Axel. The case is underway. As I said to someone yesterday, we do have a flashback to an action scene from the past. I like the way the shading is done along the top of Panel 2.

Axel is a megalomaniac, intent on ruling the world from what I was reading the other day. Definitely a different kind of villain than we’re used to seeing in this strip. The only Tracy bad guy I can think of who’s similar to Axel is Mr. Intro, who sought to use moon gold stolen by Purdy Fallar to take over the world’s economy. Mr. Intro was the father of the late great Painted Lady – and perhaps of Venus, too, if my hunch is right.

Neil Wick said, “I like the way the shading is done along the top of Panel 2.”I agree the 2nd panel today is really great. Very retro feel. Well done, Joe Staton.

I’m surprised how much I’m enjoying this story. It makes me wish I had read Annie more often when I was younger.

As Daddy’s account informs us, the fight in panel 2 is not just Daddy, Punjab, and the Asp against Axel, but also against his "small army’; the image of Axel stands as a visual pars pro toto figure….

And I want to know who Professor Kenyon is!

Good morning fellow DT and Annie fans!

I was concerned that the Annie story would be too short. It appears that we’ll be having several months (?) of pleasure!

Here’s a thought. The fact that The Great AM doesn’t know who is holding Annie captive and doesn’t know exactly where she is proves that he is not omniscient. (Does not know all.)

Actually, by the time that Axel was “highly placed in the spy network of a foreign power”, Oliver was in another part of the world, and it was a “kindly” gangster chief named Nick Gatt who took a shine to Annie and manipulated Axel and his whole spy network onto an old tramp steamer, which took him back to his mysterious foreign country, where he ended up in the same concentration camp where Oliver was being held. That is where Oliver “disposed” of Annie – he told her when he came back to America that they would never have to worry about Axel again. It seems he was wrong.Anyway, the first time he went up against Axel, when Axel had armed men serving him down in a South American hideout, after he had kidnapped Annie, is the time that Punjab and the Asp were with him and fought Axel and his men in hand-to-hand combat.Oliver seems to be sort of compressing these two incidents in the re-telling. After all, it was a long time ago!

Is the scimitar Punjab is holding the one that Daddy Warbucks gave him this week over in the Annie strip?

Well drawn strip today although Warbucks thumb seems to be drooping awaywouldn’t you say? LOL!

Really enjoying this – a bad guy with Axel’s credentials could be up to almost anything.

A second straight day of two-panel goodness. I like it. Warbucks is ready to punch with his right and throttle with his left. More tremendous art from Mr. Staton. Axel looks to be a formidable villain.

The Axel of Evil…

Ooops. I just reread my own post above, recapping the Axel stories of old. Of course, I meant that Oliver “disposed of” Axel, not Annie. He told Annie about it later.

next up? DT meets Calvin and Hobbes?

I know I am repeating a few previous posts, but indeed the second panel is great artwork!

Is this a pilot, as it were, for a Little Orphan Annie redux? If so, I wish they would hurry up and finish.

I’m glad Joe has gone back to drawing Daddy and the other guest stars in the classic “Annie” style, with the blank eyes.(Have to wonder why Harold Grey started doing that. Maybe he wanted something distinctive for the strip. If that’s the reason, it sure worked!)

Aw, Axel is really really Sketch Paree with a fake beard, lol!

I’m getting into this now.

This story line has potential. Hope its as good as it can be!

Morning, Anniephans!

Axel was Annie’s arch nemesis during the Harold Gray Little Orphan Annie years.