Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for November 28, 2018

Good morning™, visitors to strange hideouts!

The bell tower reminds me of the one on Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) and that is not a place you want to be.

Good morning™, strikeouts !

Looks like we’re going to have a death or something worse…

This will look good on Lafayette’s job performance review.

Hmm, will Polar make Ballpark like the “Hunchback Of Notre Dame??”

Time for some punishment.

So yesterday’s dust was just that, dust.

RATS!

This story has become the proverbial “Ship without a rudder”

I’m surprised it hasn’t sunk yet with all the holes in it.

Infiltration, Go!

Lafayette has ‘em both fooled.

For whom will bells toll? ✨

Impressive backgrounds today, too. ✨

With “Striker”, “Ballpark”, and “Bell” I can’t help but think this could be a shout out to Gus, Buddy, and Mike Bell: three generations of top-notch baseball players who played for many different MLB teams but whose careers all eventually connected with the Cincinnati Reds organization. If Mike is a baseball fan I can definitely see him being a Reds fan since he’s a Tennessee native.

Props usually mean something in this strip…I wonder who Polar was talking to on the phone when Devil came in?

Betting Striker is offered that gig as a replacement, too….

Hmmmmm…..then Crystal sees him “dealing”, and the fun begins…..

Ask not for whom the bell tolls, Ballpark!

I do not think Ballpark will like the way they ring his chimes!

a criminal enterprise run like a “legitimate” business? Does Vortex take out for Social Security, and, income taxes? Does he issue W-2s?

If this episode were filmed as a movie I imagine Nathan Lane to play the part of Mr. Pitchblende.

Not (gulp) “The Bell Tower!!”

The Bell Tower is bad enough, but the real torture is the wicked tinitis that Ballpark will have to deal with for weeks afterward…

Nice to see Mike’s mish mosh style of writing is still going strong.

This story has gone from peddling drugs to school kids, to kidnapping to avenge a father (that died 3 million years ago!), to parental discovery, to what seems like some sort of cash fraud scheme, and now BACK to the peddling drugs angle.

Seriously…this thing has more twists and turns than Lombard Street.. the only difference is that the twists and turns on Lombard are EASY TO FOLLOW AND ENJOYABLE

What exactly is the “Vortex” image that surrounds Polar? What does it do? Does it follow him into diners too?

For another look at the dangers of “audible soliloquy” be sure to see yesterday’s Rip Haywire.

https://www.gocomics.com/riphaywire/2018/11/27

Meanwhile, today’s Annie has a link in the comments to another story from 9 years ago, and today in that continuity, Agent Shuter of the FBI is also talking to himself while passing the vending machines in a hospital.

http://www.gocomics.com/annie/2009/11/28

Ballpark??? Does Quasimodo lurk? If this episode was filmed as a movie, the editor would have to work 8 days a week to make it intelligible.

Looks like most of us have given this story our “ringing” endorsement! O<|];o)

The day this “Story on Crack” ends;;; ♥

Yikes! I am put in mind of the grim opening to The Eiger Sanction (the novel, that is).

It’s hard to feel pity for a pusher, but Ballpark is really going to be sorry for his poor work ethic….

cue the ominous music

Loved both the book and the movie of the same name,,,“The Eiger Sanction”

Nine Tailors

https://archive.org/details/TheNineTailorsByDorothyLSayers/01+-+The+Bells+Are+Rung+Up.mp3