Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for May 19, 2022

How could you do better than living in Paradise? Or on Paradise anyway.

Good morning™, all!

If he scored “more than enough” cash for his electronics hardware needs, maybe he’s done with ATM robberies. I wonder what his ultimate goal is.

“Paradise Ln”: it seems that our new villain’s small house and garage is in B.O. Plenty’s neighbourhood. Street signs like this one, with names like Ecstacy, Love, Joy, Hope, Rainbow, and Sunset are all over B.O.’s property, Sunny Dell Acres.

In case there’s anyone here who doesn’t know the story, I’ll tell what I know. B.O. got his farm as a gift from Diet Smith. It had been planned to be a housing development, but the developers only got as far as putting up streets and street signs and a sales office which became B.O’s home.

Laying the groundwork for grander schemes. ✨

That has got to be the smallest steering wheel in the world!

Good morning™, plans of Paradise !

Will these plans be of a humanitarian nature or just for better crookery ?  Nice sun streaks through the clouds in P. 2. If they are for dirty work he can make Bribery look like a piker. Perhaps he has a plan for resurrecting Abner …. one more time.

Headlights is going to buy himself a mansion and name it The Kash Inn.

Let see if “crime doesn’t pay”

I wonder what is going to happen ?

Public Service Announcement: See, even villains know to put on their seatbelts. Wear yours.

makes one wonder, i’ve actually been given ‘out of cash’ response at ATM before

Is B.O. going to be involved in this story in some small way, like being this villain’s landlord?

I must say, not in criticism, this looks like it is going to be a long story line……long!

Shelley’s art is good as usual. The cell tower is an interesting addition to the Plenty’s neighborhood.

I do wonder as to the un-colored items in the first panel. With the attention to detail of the sunbeams (or distant rain?) in the second panel I can’t imagine the first panel was an accident but was perhaps left uncolored to draw attention to our as-yet-unrevealed crook.

I also wonder as to whether Team Tracy is passing coloring notes to the MC these days.

Panel 2 is simple, yet contains enough details to set the scene and tell the story.

The puddle in the road and the sunbeams breaking through the clouds tell us rain has recently ended. A narrow road passes through hilly terrain and disappears into the horizon. Only a single car on the road, no buildings, just trees… we are out in the country. But the cell phone tower reminds us we are not that far from civilization.

Like the old adage, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Letting Shelley Pleger take over the visual aspects of this strip was a great decision. The artwork gets better every day.

Why not just keep getting money from ATMs? Why spend money on a plan to make money?

How far is this territory from the city limits of Tracy land? Was B.O. Plenty staying in the rural equivalent of suburbs all these years? Only difference is that he did not have to contend with pesky neighbors.

Whoa! This guy’s place of residence reminds me of the tiny houses built for Veterans in my home town.

“My fortune is about to change” …where is he moving to? A motel like Pouch or high rise apartments? Maybe a house costing three figures with a large car port to accommodate the stuff he has stashed in the shed.

1-TRENCHY: I wish I’d learned how to shift gears. I’d never escape from the cops if I had to do it in first gear.

2-…HA! That puddle of pee I left this morning is still there! My little puddle of protest against cutesy street names. I’m a born rebel!

3-… I’d better check on the Plentys Hello Plentys! Comfortable? Oh, I forgot – your mouths are taped. I bet you regret being “neighborly” now. I wish I could tell the world how I rid it of some moonshine and / or meth makers but it’ll have to our little secret. I’m a born rebel HERO!

_EDITOR’S NOTE: Well, that took a dark turn! Speaking of dark turns, the streetlight at the end of my street is out. Speaking of out, check your zipper. Speaking of check, will you accept one from me?

Two words- Robot Tonsils.

MOVIE QUOTE

“Why would anybody want to kill a decent man?”

“Maybe his murderer didn’t stop to ask if he was decent”.

Edward G.Robinson—A BULLET FOR JOEY—1955

Okay—-from Influence to X-Ray Specs to another idea—that B.O.and Gertie will somehow get mixed up in this.

And maybe “Little Attitude”,who probably isn’t so little by now.Most crooks who encounter The Plenty’s end upsurrending themselves in despair.

The greenhouse isn’t deserted—-Curtis in an early story re-occupied it with the original Greek owner—-and Mina The Nurse;who kills you with kindness.

And in the neighborhood is the long-forgotten Felton’s Barber Shop;where B.O. made his phone calls frombefore he got his own phone.See BIG FROST story—late 1948.

I’d really enjoy the Plenty family being part of a storyline but I think that’s unlikely to happen.

“And the first thing I’m going to do is buy and automatic garage door opener.”

Johnny Mintworth paid the price for living a loose,careless life.His first mistake was to keep company with a girl who was a perfume thief.He thought she was cute.

That little beginning was his downfall.He realized he had paid his debt to society before he died,and he died happily.

Crime doesn’t pay because it CAN’T pay.It has the world against it.Remember that,boys.

DICK TRACY—1937

A can do attitude, that’s what more people need! So many positive vibrations here, I can’t help but like this guy!

As Horace Rumple used to say, crime pays … but only a little at a time.

Location, location, location!

I don’t want to put too much stock in the idyllic setting of panel 2, but it does look as if Hypno-Guy’s temporary hideaway is a tiny cottage somewhere not far from B.O. and Gravel Gertie Plenty’s Sunny Dell Acres. And I would not be surprised if the Plentys made at the very least a token appearance in this story. Maybe they will even have a bigger part to play. Our “mad scientist” villain has unspecified bigger plans, which may or may not involve more gadgets designed for crime! And they might ensnare his neighbors, too, somehow….