Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for April 23, 2016

.Good morning guys!

Warbucks slowly puffed awayOblivious of the time of dayConfidence eked from every poreRespect was all he asked, no moreTake the money I will provideUntil you clear your wrinkled hideFamily is all that truly mattersEverything else explodes and splattersToday this blessing I give to youTo earn it this is what you must doSome day, and that day may never beI will call upon you to do a service for meBut until that day, consider my justice a gift for my daughter’s continued bliss

Warbuck in Panel One reminds me of someone …

… but who?!

Good morning Mr. Bill“OH NO!”

Nice tip about a future Annie & Warbucks crossover story.

Yes, Tracy, work with the Asp!

I’m sure Tracy will feel much safer with the Asp on the job.

Asp is here now goodCan Punjab be far behindWhat does Warbucks wantThis group is unbeatableCity rest easy now, no?

I notice that unlike all the other characters from Annie, The Asp is drawn with pupils in his eyes.

That can’t hurt.

Because they go meep meep !

Haha, nope! (Would be a little too funny, though.) There is a certain Chuck Jones style to it, though.

Warbucks is doing his best Vito Corleone impersonation.

be careful. you know what happened to Cleopatra when someone assigned an ASP to her!

“Some day, and that day may never come, I’ll call upon you to do a service for me.”

Nice to have friends when you are in need. The asp should be an important ally for Tracy! Thanks for the review of Jungle Book. My daughter wants to see it!

If Daddy can smoke cigars, why can’t Vitamin Flintheart pop his vitamins?

Diet gave Warbucks some prototype “e-cigars” (which look like real ones!) to try out :)

Tracy: “Where’s Punjab?” Warbucks: “You got to use him in the last storyline. This time it’s the Asp’s turn.” LOL

The Jungle Book animated feature was directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, not Chuck Jones—although Jones is one of my favorite animators.

I wonder what the “special matter” is.

If the DT team reads this, I just want to say many thanks for bringing Annie characters back again, I really miss the strip. Maybe sometime a visit from Brenda starr?

If there was any of the Looney Toons crew influence I’m pretty sure I would have felt it.

You would have seen the Disney feature film at that drive-in. If you look at the picture I just posted, you’ll notice that Tabaqui from the Chuck Jones version does bear some resemblance to Wile E. Coyote.

Besides, Mowgli’s Brothers, Chuck Jones also made two other TV specials based on the stories in The Jungle Books, Rikki-tikki-tavi and The White Seal.

Here is the Chuck Jones version. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7qnp_HUREM. It’s only 23½ minutes and I notice now that it says it’s “read” by Roddy McDowell, so it does follow the text of the original story very closely.

Happy Passover to you, too.

How does the Asp rate getting eyeballs?

Oh, yeah! Thanks, Daddy! Tracy and the Asp!The Asp can handle the wet work, and Tracy can maintain plausible deniability. TCB.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to let me know you liked my poem. I am courious if anyone caught my Godfather reference?

.Look what Abner just brought in, Gweedo! If he can get it started, you’ll get a ride in ’er!.

I might write a bit fuller review of The Jungle Book, but I really want to answer boboscar‘s comments from two days ago and Ken in Ohio’s comments about protagonists. I just haven’t had time.

Yup, Mary Perkins did a play with Vitamin Flintheart just over two years ago when Silver & Sprocket Nitrate was trying to scan Flintheart out of his money.

Tracy + Asp = Win

boboscar wrote 2 days agoBy April 16, the Jumbler case is wrapped up. On April 17, the scene abruptly shifts to a seedy bar at nighttime where 5 recurring villains are hanging out: B-B Eyes, Mumbles, Doubleup, Mrs. Flattop, and Blackjack. This sequence lasting over a week from April 17-25 has nothing to do with the Jumbler and very little to do with Moon Maid’s return.

These sorts of sequences are often hard to classify with either the story before or the story after.

You were saying in another comment:Overall, I prefer a “neat” ending to introducing new subplots on where I place endings in comic strip stories.

I suppose this might be a place where we differ. After the climax of a story, it’s time to resolve problems and tie up loose ends and I don’t mind teasers for upcoming plots in there, but I don’t like to place irrelevant stuff as the absolute first few strips of a new story sequence. I think that the first thing you need to do is to introduce the setting or some of the characters in the new storyline. After that, you can go off on a tangent for a bit before giving those characters some action.

That being said, other considerations usually control my decision on where I like to put a dividing line. These stories are very much character-driven and I think it’s been like that almost always. Short sequences go better in whichever of the adjoining stories where their characters appear. I have other criteria which I’ll get to later.

So what was established in this sequence? We now knew that Doubleup, B-B Eyes, and Mumbles would be free but not Kadaver. More importantly, we were introduced to Stiletta Jones, who wouldn’t come up again in the next story. Blackjack crashed the party, but that was just an opportunity for Stiletta to contrast her take on Dick Tracy with his. In the end, I’m happy to switch this sequence to the Return of Moon Maid story that follows, although the Stiletta and Blackjack parts serve more as teasers for stories to come later.

Gweedo indicated,I would just Die to get a ride in That !!!-————————————————————————.Abner’s a class act, Gweedo!.