Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for December 01, 2021

Good morning™, everybody!*

Mumbles: “It’s a raid, you guys! Forget the Jack… We’ve got to run for it!”

Now here is a four-panel strip that really stands out! I don’t think there has ever been a daily Dick Tracy strip with two panels arranged vertically like this. Maybe the secretary was upstairs after all and she can hear them arriving down below. Dick Tracy has been unmasked by Doubleup, and Doubleup is no friend.

I want to see who the Ace is

I can actually understand Mumbles now, not sure that’s a good thing…

mumbles have the right idea, run as fast as he can!

Tracy’s lucky it didn’t turn into a hostage situation…

Good morning™, Whipper Snappers !

Dick didn’t pop Doublebubblegum hard enough and now he’s gonna have to move quick before that whip winds up for the hit.

Joanne’s gonna hafta throw bail if she wants to be out in time to go caroling this year. No Christmas office party for this bunch. Maybe Sam can find their booze and smokes stash to “confiscate”, for evidence of course.

When Tracy hits him, shouldn’t Doubleup say, “Oof! Oof!”?

My question is WHY Tracy is doing this…..it can’t be to locate the Apparatus headquarters since Briar Rose could tell them that….

Great illustrations

Great action

Ridiculous plot

Great strip today!

Tracy IS the Jack. The Jack of all trades, that is.

Mumbles runs off, Double up stays to fight (fight) Joane makes and appearance and the Ace …Vanishes? (Perhaps after a hypnotic gesture?) The Ace is Mandrake!

The images are just fantastic today . WOW ! Great job again today , hats off to Shelley for a great cartoon . The fists in the last panel are just super .

they are way to close to use the whip.

Let me repeat,,,

Great illustrations

Great action

Ridiculous plot!!!

I like how Mumbles is a little bit less mumble-y when he’s shouting! It makes sense to me. Also, DANG that is a close shave for Tracy!

I assume it’s been said before, but the stupid black stretchy outfit is probably a rip-off of the Hollywood ninjas who always wear black. Ninja’s tried not to stand out, to look like anyone else. That’s what made them ‘invisible’ in plain sight. Japanese art sometimes showed them wearing all black as a symbol of invisibility – taken from kabuki theater where the audience treated the black attired stage hands as invisible. This outfit screams for attention.

And the hood is attached? (They had to cut the mask off Tracy.) So, it this a two-piece suit (top and bottom) or one piece – with a zipper up the back, or did Tracy crawl in through the trap-door?

Will Doubleup be getting a double bruising from Tracy? From Tracy?

Only one ‘Oof’?

left hook! left hook!

Tracy doubles up Doubleup who looks like he “had the stomach for it”; Mumbles does the “Imoudahere boogie!”

I went to the orthopedist yesterday for a follow up appointment on my broken leg. It is healing well and quickly despite the steel plate and 7 screws. The Doc took off the cast a few weeks ago and gave me an orthopedic boot instead but did not allow any weight to be put on the leg. So, I was confined to a wheelchair but could remove the boot to sleep and shower. Yesterday, he told me to begin walking on the leg with a walker and gradually wean myself off of the walker as I gained more confidence. He also ordered 4 to 8 weeks of physical therapy depending on progress—4 weeks for good progress, up to 8 weeks if range of motion is not easily achieved. I am expecting the lesser time because I still have pretty good movement with the leg and it is not particularly painful. Now, by using the walker, I will be able to go upstairs to my actual bedroom instead of sleeping downstairs in the guest room. Hopefully I will have graduated from the walker by Christmastime when my grandchildren are coming to visit from Washington, DC.

Ace of Spades really should have heeded maxim 1 of the Evil Overlord List: My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not face-concealing ones.

From today’s Comics Curmudgeon:

You know, I never pegged Dick as a supergenius or anything, but I have to respect the fact that he saw the flaw in in this criminal gang’s “Let’s wear identity-obscuring gimp suits at all times, even when we’re just hanging out with each other at the office” shtick before they did.

1-RATFACE: ♪♫ SNIP SNIP HEAR, SNIP SNIP THERE AND A COUPLE OF TRA LA LA LAS! THAT’S HOW WE PASS THE DAY AWAY IN THE…

2-SECRETARY: THEY DIDN’T DEFUND THE POLICE YET! RUN!

3-DT: One in the breadbasket and a stomp on your shoe. One in the nutsack and that’s it for you! That’s TPD Self Defense training in case you wondered.

MUSHMOUTH: CHEEZIT – Wait. I dintdo nutin…

4-WHIPPY: HA! You didn’t get the nutsack blow in so ♪♫ I’m still standin standin! ♪♫

DT: YEAH WELL I AIN’T DONE CAUSE IT’S ♪♫ SATURDAY, SATURDAY ♪♫ and Saturday nights all right for fightin!

WHIPPY: You call this fighin ♪♫ Tiny Dancer in my hand ? ♪♫

DT: Oooh. Looks like ♪♫ The Bitch is Back! ♪♫

WHIPPY: Uh, whadaya say we call it a tie?

DT: Fine by me. It’s ♪♫ Your Song ♪♫ I’m just dancin’ to it. And apropos of nothing ♪♫ Daniel’s flying tonight on a plane ♪♫

WHIPPY: Yeah, yeah, I know. ♪♫ I can see the red taillights headin’ for Spain ♪♫

Mumbles has it right…..cut your losses…..and get out of Dodge….with the quickness.

If Ace of Spades is smart….he’ll cut out too….as opposed to trying to cut up someone.

Oh, oh, Tracy has done it now….got Doubleup in a rage…like the Incredible Hulk. He won’t be busting out of his suit. Doubleup is about to use his “whip appeal”.

Aw.Dick’s honesty gave him away.

Seriously,Doubleup,what was your first clue?

MOVIE QUOTE—-

“One of us is going to jail.Well,it ain’t gonna be me!!”

James Stewart—IT’S A WONDerfuL LIFE—1946

Yes it is. Yes it is. Well I’ll be durned-jiggered; durned- jiggered!

Action scene! And Tracy isn’t so helpless as he let on. He can take care of himself, though he could have doubled up on Doubleup (Oof! Oof!) and made him double over.

About that truly brilliant scream bubble: it effectively turns the strip into a sequence of five panels, one of which is “audio only”:

(1) Ace slices Jacks’s costume. The eye is drawn to the bright knife in the middle, and the slicing action. But the jagged speech bubble intrudes and guides the eye downward (essential, to keep the eye from gliding to the right and missing the lower panel).

(2) The jagged bubble is centered in the gutter between panels, in effect creating an extra (very brief) panel. We experience what the characters do: they hear a shouting voice before they see anything.

(3) The longest point on the jagged speech bubble is the tail indicating who is speaking, drawing the eye further downward, focusing our attention on Joanne and her second speech bubble as she bursts into the room. (The starburst lines (emanata?) around her head further enhance this effect.) Only then is the eye drawn to the reactions of the others.

(4) Middle panel.

(5) Last panel.

All that layout stuff over on the left to keep the eye moving along the correct path is very subtle and very skillful. Much appreciated.

Also, pitch-perfect dialogue from Doubleup in the last panel!

@Avenger..you’re not taking ESL classes from Double-up are you, are you?

One blast from the past—Larceny Lu should get betterconsideration as one of the tougher female Rogues.

She was comic relief when she was first introduced,butin sUMMER 1934 ARC SHE PROVED TO HAVE A MEAN STREAK A MILE WIDE.

Still alive,if probably somewhat decrepit.

I would’ve thought Tracy could throw a mean enough punch that he could take crooks out with one blow. His left to DoubleUp’s stomach seems to have had little to no effect at all. Unless maybe DoubleUp’s the Pillsbury DoughBoy in disguise.

Nice shot to Double-up’s mid-section, but it didn’t even slow him down.

Upon Joanne’s frenzied warning, Mumbles immediately turns to run! Self-preservation is his priority (though some might call it cowardice).

Tracy takes advantage of the momentary confusion to deliver a powerful left to DoubleUp’s midsection, which doubles him over for a second; but DoubleUp’s a big man and rebounds to stand his ground against Tracy. He does not run, like Mumbles. His instinct of that of the predator, who cannot imagine being bested by another alpha. Since quarters are too confined for him to bring his whip fully into action, he is ready to slug it out with the cop, the cop. But, meanwhile, the raiding force is advancing; the fight will be brief. Maybe DoubleUp should have run, should have run….

Where’s Ace of Spades?

“What’d he say?”

Mumblespeak translator: He said, “It’s a raid, you guys! Forget the Jack…We gotta run for it!”