Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for April 29, 2021

Good morning™, last milers !

♪♪ How do you handle a crooked snitch, man handlers ! ♪♫♪

I wanted to come up with something witty here but since it took over a week to get to this obvious plot point….. I’m stumped on a zinger.

Can Sam and Tracy protect him against Abner?

Good morning™, handlers!

Well, he doesn’t look dangerous, at least. When the man says, “your last handlers,” does that imply that there have been several other “handlers” up until this point?

And they’re having entirely too much fun, you can tell.

Tales of the keystone kops!!

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Charlie: “I’m dead.”

And the guy with white hair keels over dead, with a poisoned dart in his left hand that had caught the dart meant for Charlie’s back.

The man needs a disguise!!! Man or a hat with thick sunglasses!!!

“Abner Abner Cadaver, He wants to reach out and grab him”!

“Now you just stay right here by chief of detectives Tracy until the bomb I planted in your pocket goes off.”

“BOMB? What bomb?”

“Oops, look at the time. Gotta run. Paycheck to pick up.”

Charlie’s escort bears a strong resemblance to Sam Waterston, of Law and Order.

Our boys are clearly less than thrilled.

1-ANDERSON COOPER: Thank you for the exclusive interview on how you are single handedly going to take down the Apparatus…

2-…Our cameras have followed us to the Police Station where we’ll be leaving you in the capable hands of Dick Tracy and Sam Catchup. Detective Tracy – can you tell us how you’ll be keeping Charlie safe through the end of the trial?

3-DT: That’s confiden…

SAM: IF I MAY, ANDERSON. FIRST, we’ll get him a better disguise. The one he’s wearing now is ridiculous. Then we’ll take him to one of our safe houses at or near Fifth and Vine. We have several but they’re all located next to each other. That way, should trouble erupt at one, the police we have stationed at the others can come and help…if we happen to have more than one dirty snitch in Witness Protection at the time. In this case, we don’t.

ANDERSON: There you have it viewers. I believe I speak for the police when I ask that you don’t congregate around Fifth and Vine in an attempt to get a peek at this Stoolie…whoops, I’m getting word in my earpiece that the area is already being flooded with cars and foot traffic. Oh well. Back to you, Laura…

All I can say is, Tracy and Ketchum ride together!

Love those glasses!

Check out the bow ties on Charlie and Sam.

In other news, I’m interested in the coloration of light here:

1. Charlie’s glasses are in no way reflective given that he is approaching the lamp shown in panel 2.2. There’s a white dot in an odd location at the sconce in panel 2 partially defined by the stopping of the lines of the base. That’s not the location of the bulb? Is it supposed to be a lens flare of some kind? The dot defined by color only was planned from the sketch stage? Thoughts?3. The reflection of light on Charlie’s head in panel 3 is done is more classically.

I’m glad Sam shook hands when Tracy hand-picked him for this handlers job. I’ve got to hand it to Tracy. He certainly needed a helping hand and there was his right-hand man.

Before being handed over to his new handlers, Charlie (wearing a hand-me-down suit) was previously in the hands of his old handlers. While in their hands and being handled well by his old handlers, he handily evaded any injury at the hands of his adversaries, none of which got blood on their hands. For that, the handlers deserve a hand.

On the one hand, the Feds believed he needed to be removed from the hands of his handlers and handed over into the hands of second-hand handlers to handle him. Tracy didn’t want to sit around holding Charlie’s hand but the Chief’s hands were tied because the Feds had the upper hand.

On the other hand, why hand him over to be handled by hand-me-down handlers after the handy success of his old handlers when they were handling him (a bird in the hand and all)?

This creepy guy looks like he enjoys being handled. But that is something I suppose you have to experience first hand and I don’t think Tracy or Sam want to take those kinds of matters into their own hands anyway. They probably want to keep their hands to themselves.

Rather than get their hands full with the business at hand, Tracy and Sam should shake hands with him, wash their hands of this episode at hand and then hand off this assignment to some other handy cop. They can call for all hands on deck and have a whole police force at hand to handle the handling. And, they might need more hands to handle this guy because he looks like he might be the kind to bite the hand of the handlers who feed him which could cause the situation to get out of hand.

So … after he testifies before the grand jury & dimes out all his Apparatus associates, he’ll have no more protection … & a life expectancy of about 10 seconds … & the prosecutors will no star witness going into the actual trial. Explanation, please.

Charlie 21 is handed over to Tracy and Catchem by the taller, white-haired guy, who could be some kind of G-man (an agent from one of those three-letter organizations), or someone from the State’s/District Attorney’s office.

“And it shall be my duty as District Attorney not only to prosecute to the limit of the law all persons accused of crime perpetrated within this county, but also to defend with equal vigor the rights and privileges of all its citizens” (intro to the Old-Time radio show, Mr. District Attorney).

Let’s not fumble the hand-off, guys. (Where’s Abner right now?)

One thing for sure….Charlie 21 looks just like his photo.

Now we the readers will learn just how reliable Abner’s grapevine is. Another unseen moment off of the storyboard whether the Apparatus provided him with a picture of Charlie 21. Somehow a description of be on the lookout for a guy who is the same height as Napoleon Bonaparte won’t be enough to work with.