Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for February 17, 2021

Good morning™, backup units!

Apparently, Mr. Tellum has made that mistake before. Would be be talking about the incident in his parking space? Anyway, Tellum is happy to point the way, even if he won’t venture down the steep bank with the officers. Imagine making your way down that bank carrying a dead body!

“Steep?”

“It’s amazing how grumpy insurance companies get when you lose a house in a whirlpool.”

Good morning™, crime scene directors !

Tiger probably let the body slide down slope into a tree where he picked it up for placement on the water. That was quite a movie. Those things should have sound and a popcorn stand.

Next panel: (Tellum) “If you like the raccoons, I’ve got some great footage of a Yeti with a meteorite being chased by a giant spider.” (Tracy) “Nah, save it for YouTube.”

Granted, the opening of the story was disappointing (not crazy about war-on-drugs stories), but since then, it is developing quite well.

Why does everyone have a smirk? Did Dick let one rip in panal one?

At least Pouch is off the hook for a murder charge. Tiger Lilly’s problems however have been multiplying by the day it seems.

Nice, vivid primary colours in today’s strip!

Snow scenes are a good place to see how well an artist can make use of ink-free white space. This is pretty good, though the master of the art of leaving space blank was probably the cartoonist Giles (see https://briansibleysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/snow-show.html)

Tellum, Get it? Sorry I’ll excuse myself.

I’d like a sketch to explain the positions of the park, river, Tellum’s house, and the location and direction of the trail cam. Is the house between park and river? Is house on other side of the river from the park? Something seems off to me, but I suspect it is simply the relative locations not being well enough thought out before the strip was drawn.

So that “Oh, no, not again” was for someone carrying a corpse? Has this happened to him before?

1-DT: We’ve had a report that you’ve been filming your neighbors in flagrante delicto and posting it on that Interweb thing. UGLY JUNIOR: Film? Interweb? Boy are you ever a relic…

2-…C’mon. Let’s walk and talk…

3-…The neighbors that complained live over there, right? Do you see any tracks in the snow that would prove I went over there to “film” them. DT: Ermmm, no.

UGLY JUNIOR: Then I’m innocent!

DT: Can’t argue with evidence! Sorry to bother you.

UGLY JUNIOR: No problem officer. Let’s go back to the house and I’ll get you a Discount Code for a free two hours on my Neighbors Gone Naughty website.

DT: Discount Code? Is that like a coupon.

UGLY JUNIOR: Sigh Yeah, sure.

Tellum is a bloviating radio talk host whose personality is as grating in real life as it is behind the microphone. He attempts to masquerade it by adopting the demeanor of a down-home, “friendly feller.”

There is no love lost between Tellum and Tracy.

In his last appearance his house was sucked down the hole when a drilling operation broke through the bottom of the lake he lived on into tunnels from a salt mine causing the lake to drain. Even a tragedy like this made me smile because Tellum is the kind of guy you love to hate.

Even though Tellum is not necessarily a villain (although he has broken the law on occasion), he is a recovering addict (probably why he was featured in this drug case) and can be very untrustworthy but not necessarily criminal. Trouble seems to follow him.

He allowed Wormy (who had a seductive voice) to appear on his radio show for ratings while Wormy hid out at Tellum’s house (well, actually, Wormy initially broke in, kidnapped Tellum and demanded to stay but Tellum buttered him up and turned the situation to his own benefit but didn’t notify the police).

Tellum is basically a rich, phony, opportunist blowhard with a radio show.

Thataboy! You Tellum!

How many members of the Um family are there? We have this Tellum guy, and our boy Sam. Are there any other Um brothers?

Tellum, BTW, is based on a rich blowhard with a radio show named Arthur Godfrey, who was such a prick he fired his featured singer, Julius LaRosa during his broadcast.

Tellum tells ‘em what they need to know to pour over the crime scene. Ted also warns Tracy that it’s a slippery slope….

So, here we go, slip-sliding away….

(I’m awaiting some policing after this investigation.)

has anyone mentioned, yet, Mr Tellum, Mr Mullet ???

I’m going a lil Off Topic here. Today, I saw this book cover and it immediately made me think of Pouch. https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30516329922&searchurl=n%3D100121503%26prh%3D10.00%26sortby%3D17%26gpcd%3DLOWASPUS%26an%3Dcharlotte%2Barmstrong&cm_sp=snippet-srp2-image24

Okay, I think this endless story has gone on long enough. Let’s get Shakey, and the lovely and gracious Edison back on the pages…..right now!