Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for April 09, 2021

Doesn’t exactly look like she’s going anywhere…

Good morning™, groggy victims !

Someone(s) are alive and ready for packaging. Once again we are on the edge of a cliff here. With the impending battery of questions Kelly will wish she were still unconcho.

Good morning™, fans!

Well, we’re not going to find out “who stabbed who” (or if there was a stabbing) today. At least we can rule out Cheesecake in the attack, because she was apparently made it out to the living room of the suite before she collapsed and she was not in the bedroom during the fight.

The hotel detective is left with Cheesecake, who doesn’t look too dangerous at the moment, leaving Tracy and Sam to confront the combattants.

The girl’s still alive. Does that mean Auntie Bellum is too?

Oscar: “Tracy! I just called for you! Man, you’re not half-fast, for a detective. Alex attacked me. He’s crazy, crazy I tell you.”

Good morning™, fashionably-late ‘freeze’ fellows!

Well, now we know that Cheesecake wasn’t on the delivery end of that “Auggh!” from yesterday. And — no fair! — we have to wait until tomorrow to see who came out on top of the villain vs. villain penthouse cage match.

Great “camera angle” in panel 3! (Didn’t want to get all hoity there again with that mice on sawn film-school jargon.) Looks like a scene from a Tarantino flick!

The colors are blinding me!!!

LOL!

The strip has been extremely weel presented lately, lov it!

The third panel is great.

Will our murderous friend make a run for it?

This is the best story I’ve seen from Mike and Joe in a long time! And they’ve had plenty of time to develop plots and sub-plots.

How the police can freeze when they are wearing heavy overcoats is a puzzle to me.

Anticipation, cliff hanger, etc. Wait till tomorrow!!!

That ends my guess from yesterday that Cheesecake/Kelly came to the rescue

Finally

1-DT: YOO HOO! IT’S THE PO LEECE! SAM: I never stayed in a hotel you couldn’t clear by just turning your head left and right. This place is yuge!

2-SAM: Looks like hippie chick was on a bender. I was on a bender once with a gal named Betty Bender! I guess you could say I was on a double Bender. Or ‘doing’ a double bender if you catch my drift. At least the hangover took my mind off the flaming fire in my…

DT: You know I’ve shot men for less.

3-DT: LOOKS LIKE WE GOT HERE JUST IN TIME, SAM! SAM: Uh, how’s that?

DT: That Meatloaf song is my motto: ♪♫_Two out a 3 ain’t bad…_♪♫ It represents my crime clearance rate – 66%. And we got the perp right here – SLAM DUNK!

SAM: 66%??? HA! Only if you count the frame-ups you’ve used to put innocent men in jail just to claim a cleared case!

DT: You know I’ve shot men for less.

Freeze….we will find out soon….I hope!

Call an ambulance, but don’t let her leave. Sounds like conflicting orders.

I guess the drug Oscar used in the tea was not very long lasting, Cheesecake seemed to regain enough consciousness to crawl out of the bedroom while Oscar & Aquarius were going at it.

Thanks again Neil for explaining what we can see and read. BTW, this art looks different, but still good.

As Tracy and Sam burst in on whatever went down yesterday, let’s all be thankful the Pierview doesn’t have any impenetrable steel doors….

P3 is a classic cell. Are they for sale?

Is it the colourist the problem I have with action depiction of DT’s face every time I see it depicted or is it the angle perspective? For example in the last panel I can clearly tell that’s Sam but I couldn’t tell you if that was DT or not.

Tracy and Sam in action!

Cheesecake Kelly is stirring, though still groggy, and left in the care of the hotel security staffer, who isn’t quit clueless but clearly needs the direction he’s getting from Sam, then from Tracy, as they enter the inner room, Auntie Bellum’s bedroom and fight arena.

They’ve got the drop on someone—but who is it? Who lives? Who dies? Who recovers?

Alex “Aquarius” Bellum, drug-distributing devoted nephew, de facto leader at The 1312. Alive, dead, unconscious, triumphant?

Devious Unctuous Obsequious would-be Assassin Oscar, the ostensible corporate flunky to Stephan “Big” Bellum, but who may have his own Bolivian agenda. Alive? Triumphant? Menacing? Or (surprise!) dead? Or unconscious?

Auntie Peggy Bellum, current owner of prime property at 1312 Bedwell in a green zone of Tracyville. Drugged. Smothered? Dead? Alive (if only barely)? Reviving just as the cops burst in, guns drawn and leveled?

Looks like a momentous weekend for the Tracy bunch….