Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for October 24, 2014

Is Rikki going to pretend to be Abner?

Didn’t think he wore a mask himself.

Good morning everyone!

Just in time for Halloween! I do like the skull phone! The Phantom has a similar model (possibly)! I did find many on Amazon!

All right Abner, just in time for Halloween!Gruesome, Venus, Apollo, Melies and now Abner, this is going to be good.

Veddy interesting indeed. I wonder if Rikki, Venus and a tossed in FMM might lead to a fierce chick fight? Now that would get noticed!

Checking back, Abner had “his” face in prison 10/10/2013. Doubt that the officials would have let him wear a mask (and I think they would have checked.

Morrow I thought I told you to keep your blasted Ebola in Texas! Thanks for nothing! Better send some goats milk over pronto!

Yesterday I wasn’t sure how close Rikki and Abner were, but it appears that they’re very close. I didn’t even suspect that they lived together.

A surprise phone call! I guess you can’t hid from the Blackhearts. Is Abner is trouble now for now killing Tracy when he was supposed to? Venus did promise that Tracy would be “dead fish dead” (within a week, was it?).

As for the mask, it doesn’t surprise me that Abner might wear a mask at all times. I always wondered how he could actually be alive and look so much like a skeleton. Now, I have to wonder what he looks like under the mask.

Yesterdays Venus: Comics Kingdom site—Blonde hair & a bright red dress. This site—Red hair & a pinkish dress. I wonder which site has the correct colors for Venus?

With the introduction of the mask, there is no proof now that the real Abner isn’t still buried in the concrete, with someone else now pretending to be him.

Maybe Mr. Melies is calling to remind Abner that he still has a contract to fulfill.

Just a thought, maybe Dr. Einstein has worked on Abner’s face since we last saw him?

I think that the Abner we see in the strip is not a mask but is what Abner really looks like! How else could he entice Rikki to live with him?

Perhaps he wears the mask because his real face is WORSE. In that case the prison might have let him keep it.

Perhaps it not a mask but just an eccentric wig stand. ;-)

Good morning DT fans. Is Rikki Abner’s ghoul friend? Just had to ask.

Good to see Rikki again. What a great phone! She was last seen reluctantly leaving Kadaver’s side to go and secure the Murder Mansion. This is where he is hiding “on the outskirts.” No doubt the Blackhearts would like the hit on Tracy to be completed as was promised. I take the mask at face value. It seems we have not seen the real face of Kadaver. What exactly is under that mask?

@WHH – Congratulations to your Royals! We’ll see what happens tonight in Frisco.

It is a mask! I doubt that Kadaver wore a mask. This leads me to think that Kadaver is still in the cement and Ricci is standing in for Kadaver…

Well, well! Rikki in her nightgown, evidently Abner Kadaver’s doxy, not just accomplice, awakened by a call on the Skull Phone from “Mr.” Meliès, and Abner—allegedly—in the shower.

Didn’t someone here speculate a day or two ago that Abner and Gruesome might be one and the same? The full-head mask-and-wig might just make that a possibility, though it seems unlikely, given that Abner’s peculiar visage has hitherto always seemed to be his real physiognomy. I suppose he could be even more horrible under the mask, but it does seem problematic. And of course he has, all along, been a sinister master of illusion and deception….

This is fun!

Wasn’t there a strip back when Abner was introduced where someone was telling about his earlier career as a TV horror movie host and said something like “he didn’t need make-up anymore”?

I think Rikki has been impersonating him.

This IS an exceptionally ‘ATTRACTIVE’ daily strip. \Wish I owned the Original Art !.

Rikki has (increasingly), with each appearance, emerged as a Favorite character among the many Conceived and Created by our New Team. Liked her right off, from introduction, coming with that thoughtful facial Mole and her rakish Purple Bowler Hat. UNIQUE ! A ‘package’ that seemed to set her apart.

Strange pick some may think – How would she stand besides (say) their near teens version of Honeymoon ? Or the bizarre, bare-footed, Earth girl Sprocket ?Honeymoon is indeed a classic, but Rikki Mortis has been a ‘winning’ presentation from - Day One !

Seems today, Joe Staton " forgot " to ‘touch on’ - the Mole - her right cheek, near that Skull phone. Oddly, she comes with the character (Abner Kadaver) that to my EYE is the Least of the Apostles (by the Team) judged in the unique Art/Design Culture established by Gould - for Tracy villains ! Today’s strip, aside from the appeal of Rikki’s appearance in 1 and 2, the composition of panel 3 really ‘grips’ you. It tells you straight off that he wears a MASK, And my early guess is that just like Downwind Jackson (Smilin’ Jadk) or B.O. And Gertie’s “leetle one” - Attitude Plenty, It’s a FACE we will never see !

*Kadaver

, may have the proverbial 9 lives, but one has to hope Rikki has twenty ;-) - and will remain with us - ‘way out’ into the future’ Hard for Staton or the Team to ever TOP this female creation.

In this modern era, of “Surviving” Rogues, where Jails never seem to hold them long. Rikki is an absolutely - ‘DELIGHTFUL’ addition !

Rikki COULDNT have been impersonating Abner from the start because they have been seen on panel together many MANY times.. perhaps she is replacing him NOW of course.. but i prefer to think that abner is definitely alive and that the mask is indeed legit… it’d be quite the twist if abner turned out to be someone we NEVER would have expectedlike, say.. JOHNNY ADONIS! lol! (sorry johnny, you know im only kidding)

As for Gruesome and Abner being one and the same, I am going to say not at all… Tracy and Gruesome have had interaction before obviously, and Gruesome has gone on (canon) record as saying that Dr Einstein has “given him a new face”.. so I dont believe them to be the same person.

How about Abner being DR. WILL CARVER instead?!?!?! :)

I think Rikki has been wearing the mask and topper to impersonate Abner.The call obviously woke Rikki, who didn’t have time to check where Abner was before saying “in the shower.” (She knew he wasn’t there.)—But this opens so many questions!Where is Abner? Is he really living there, but stepped out for breakfast?Is Abner impersonating someone else?And will the Trib Syndicate license those phones?

Rikki is playing the part of Abner now. I betcha!

@NightShade09:

I don’t know, the narrative box at the top of panel one tells us that Abner lives there with Riki. Dialogue may be misleading, but the narrative is usually straight forward.She could have heard the shower water running, I suppose, if she is telling the truth about where Abner is.

I’m not buying into the “Rikki masquerading as Abner” premise. As I recall there was a rather sizable height difference between the two.

Yow! New territory…On more than one level.

I hear Abner is really dead in bed.

Ba dum bump

That last panel reminds me of “V For Vendetta.” The comic, not the movie.

The mask nicely explains both how Abner escaped from prison, and especially how he survived being under the concrete…..it obviously is a disguised oxygen mask….

….although the idea that Rikki could be impersonating him, unawares he survived, and then having TWO “Abner’s” at the end sure would be fun……

Anyways, a big “THANK YOU” to Mike and Joe for bringing back the best villain, who in turn brings with him the best stories!

Abner Kadaver and Rikki Mortis . . .

It wasn’t quite as ‘obvious’ in earlier times, but now we hear(panel 1) : " . . . but he LIVES on the outskirts WITH Rikki Mortis. "

Seems to imply they’re “SHACKED UP” ?Visuals with pillows, her nighty, then her beside table with his personal effects. while he’s in a nearby shower ?

Added up, it appears to speak VOLUMES ! ?

i’d find it mildly HILARIOUS if abner wasnt really some emaciated skeleton looking horror but some “super hot hunk” hollywood type without the mask, cape and accoutrements

We know Abner’s skull-face is his real one, because that’s how he looked in prison. My own guess is that Abner had plastic surgery and has become Gruesome; he keeps the mask for those occasions when he still wants to look like his old self.

If it does turn out that Abner has a more or less “normal” visage, and wears a mask for his criminal activities, it would not be without precedent in Dick Tracy. Two I can think of are Open Mind Monty, who claimed to have a knife blade stuck in his forehead; it was plastic and make up. And The Blank, whose faceless “face” was a mask as well.

Abner doesn’t need a mask according to those who know him.

By the way, that’s Mike Curtis as Baron Clovis in the background in panel 2.

Ghoul? Is she? Does she feed on the dead?

Well, she seems to have a thing for Abner, who is kind of “undead.” As for Thanatos, I had to look it up, but I see that an Eros Thanatos used to be a common motif, so maybe she’s more on the Eros side.

@Ray Toler: lol on the “stiffs”

Shades of Doctor Anton Phibes…..