Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for December 03, 2021

Good morning™, everybody!

Hiding under the desk provides pretty good protection from Double Up’s whip. Luckily Tracy did find a way to hide a gun in that outfit. Looks like Ace of Spades and Double Up may be getting away, though.

Bad perspective again in the last panel, assuming the desktop in parallel to the floor and the door is perpendicular to it, something is a little off.

Tracy & Pat cameos over on ‘Gasoline Alley’ today …

https://www.gocomics.com/gasolinealley/2021/12/03

Artwork today is too cartoony for my tastes.

In Panel 4, is the Ace shooting at Tracy or is that a ricochet of Tracy’s shot?

Nice to see a Tracy cameo in today’s Gasoline Alley strip.

Tracy’s staying pretty trim for a man his age.

Good morning™, emergency departures !

Looks like “repeater man” will be getting away and Mumbles will be getting gaffled. Maybe he knows the secret way out too ?

Sam will be waiting for them at the emergency exit

Today seems like a rush job. Artwork inferior to what we’ve seen recently which has been A+

Tracy gets shot by a rookie cop because he’s not wearing a POLICE vest and is wearing a black onesie with a Jack of Spades on it.

“To the hydrofoil!”

I’m assuming it’s the MC, but today Doubleup is meh.

The exit has got to come out somewhere. Hopefully the cops have that angle covered.

Attention, long-time DT readers. Max Allen Collins, who wrote the strip after Chester Gould passed, was a guest on Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast 2 weeks ago. Quite the resume on the guy.

Someone should tell Dick Tracy that you can shoot right through an interior door. They aren’t made of steel plates. They aren’t even made of solid wood, generally. They’re hollow.

Double Up looks to be “WHIPPED” unless he skedaddles fast!

1-DT: DAG! I SAID I WAS SORRY FOR PUNCHING YOU IN THE STOMACH! LAYOFF ALREADY!

2-DT: Heh heh. He don’t know I’m strapped… Oh Whippy! I got a surprise for youuuu!

3-RATFACE: C’MON STUPID! LET’S BEAT FEET! And lose that useless whip already!

4-DT: WAIT! TAKE THIS WITH YA! BLAMMO Now you gotta ask yourself – did I shoot once or six times? Well, did I punk?

RATFACE: YOU figure it out Tracy. I’m outta here.

DT: Yeah. I’m not sure either…

The cops ARE here! Tracy is a cop!

He left so fast he didn’t have time to repeat himself! That’s going to set off his OCD!

Hmmmmm, Double up did not double up to Tracy?

Y’know…. I REALLY hate to do this but it’s just gotta be called out. First off, I really like Shelley’s work, it’s different and distinctive and “puts her fingerprints” on it…but, yesterday Sam’s head looked too big for his body and his arms looked too short…today we get “stationary blocky doubleup” in panel 1..there’s no “sense of movement” in the panel at all…same with panel 3, and in panel 4 doubleup mysteriously vanishes…hell, if he can move THAT QUICK then he doesn’t need an “emergency exit” at all…and dont try the “he’s off camera” excuse either, cuz if the last panel’s perspective is correct (and I see no issues with it regardless of Neil’s comment) then Dubbs would be TO TRACY’S RIGHT if he was still in the room…and if you ask me, a guy with a bullwhip to my right is more of a direct threat to me than a guy who, seconds earlier DIDN’T have a gun that is 99% obscured by a wooden door

“Double Up!…Double Up!” I get it!

It would seem the story is really going south right now. I know I’m not the only one to notice.

Of interest:

Doubleup’s bull whip, bull whip: Of course he’s going to try to use it on Tracy; he’s in front of the boss man, and he knows what will happen if he makes no move. But as others have noticed, how effective is that whip at that close range?

Nevertheless, everyone gives up kind of easy once it’s clear the cops are at their doors. Leaving me with the question:

If Doubleup had lashed out at Tracy, would he have meant it, meant it?

(Still exploring the possibility that Doubleup is not as bad as he’s drawn, so to speak)

First order of business—-praise for GASOLINE ALLEY andScancarelli doing an uncanny Gouldian version of Tracy and Pat(especially Pat).

Where ARE the “Junior Crimestoppers”?We’ve certainly got enough honest kids in the cast to make up a quorum.

“Some other time, Tracy”…could be translated to we’ll be seeing each other again. Double Up hustle, hustle, we out of here.

The ankle gun came in handy. Similar to when Tracy had to draw one out against Smallmouth Bass in 1963.

We’re being left to guess “Who’s where”.

Pick a strip and somebody’s always unaccounted for.

Don’t look now,but I think Doubleup just violated his parole.

And where’s “The Board Of Directors”?Just follow the cigar smoke trail.

….gotta see this “emergency exit!” The laundry chute? The dumb-waiter? Old-fashioned outside fire escape? A rope fashioned from bed-sheets?……….

MOVIE QUOTE—-

“We just made a killing in the market”

Rod Steiger in “AL CAPONE”—1959

Fanboys need jobs,

I understand that times change and cultural tastes change, but the Dick Tracy villains have become less and less threatening as they have become less grotesque and more just hyper-stylized. Then again, Dick has also become less threatening.

BAM BAM i love it

Lot’s of action today, including an old-fashioned shoot-out! That’s all good.

But what to make of the odd perspective in panel 1, with big-headed, short-shanked Tracy and DoubleUp?! They look like puppets rather than like real (cartoon) characters!