Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for December 12, 2022

At last we know whar Art Dekko was up to!

Good morning™, everyone!

How much can he get for a “newly discovered” Leonardo da Vinci? Probably a lot! Da Vinci had lots of sketches in his sketchbooks.

Another week, another horror

Greatness gone for the almighty dollar

Pump them out, ignore the holler

Done with ease, no sweat on the collar

and when it all falls apart for WHATEVER reason and circumstances, they can ALL retire for a long stretch in the Tracyville county calaboose…

Like rain on the fourth of July

Fireworks ruined by drizzle

The wrap-up of this story

Put an out in back of fizzle

Good morning™, scheming smokers !

Someone is chugging away full suck while his modern day Da Vinci is ready to splop some ‘lost designs’ on canvas. Love the dome effect and cross hatch in P.3

I get the feeling Dekko & Paul deal with the kind of suckers who pay top dollar for ancient Roman coins that are dated B.C. The smoke in panel 3 is a nice touch.

Nice perspective in the first panel…….

Dekko’s hairstyle reminds me of the slicked down hair of the 1930s movie actors! He needs the “dry look”!

This ‘Paul’ is a forgery himself! If you read the strip backward, it clearly says Paul died!

So, Paul the Forger is going to create a “lost Leonardo” masterpiece for Art to pitch as “Find of the Century”? And when some some gullible billionaire collector shells out a few hundred million bucks for it, Art (and Sue Reel, if he lets her live so long) can retire for life to some luxurious hideaway in a No Extradition Treaty country?

Sounds good, indeed. What could possibly go wrong?

If memory serves me correct, Leonardo did his sketches on parchment and his paintings on wood, not canvas.

……"AND, Art adds, “take up post-retirement jobs in other areas of crime…..imagine the wealth of possibilities!”

And then the pseudo Mona Lisa is carelessly signed ‘Leo’…

So Paul is one of those people who can do near perfect imitations of others works. (But supposedly can’t do anything original.) Neal Caffrey (White Collar) had that talent. (But could also do original Caffreys.)

Leonardo spent some time in Tracyville, I’ve heard.

If he is looking at selling a fake daVinci to the wrong people (such as Mumbles) he may be retiring permanently—to the cemetery.

Did you notice the right smoke “ring” in p.3 creates a $ sign? Does the “E” on the left mean “Easy?”

Actually the sketches are worthless. The belong to a guy from New Jersey know as Leonard the Wino.

Period canvases? The paints?

Just getting the supplies necessary to create a realistic forgery would cost a fortune. How do you hide something like that?

1-ART: How’s that DaVinci coming, Paul?

2-PAUL: I’m looking at the finished product now. Are you sure DaVinci was the first person to famously paint A Polar Bear In A Snow Storm ?

3-ART: THAT’S what we’re claiming Paul! Get with the program! Everyone has made or heard that ancient joke at some point in their life so imagine the interest when they “learn” that it is based on a “real” DaVinci painting ! Why, Elon Musk will probably give us Twitter, a billion dollars and a rocket for it!

PAUL: Really? DIBS ON THE BILLION!

Art Dekko will next get into counterfeit baseball cards !!!

There’s a sucker born every minute !!!

MOVIE QUOTE—

“There’s a certain kind of scum that will travel 100 miles for a good fight”

Glenn Ford—THE FASTEST GUN ALIVE—1956

And what will Sue Reel’s cut of this grand scam be?Or shouldn’t I ask questions like that?

Panel One is perfect.The ultimate arrogant snot.

He’s probably under 24-hour watch right now.The MCU has long memories for insults.

Leonardo was really good in Titanic

As the old joke goes—How can you tell when Art Dekko is lying?

His mouth is open

Art Dekko is shooting for the moon, here!!

Kudos to the several folks today who caught the clever “smoke rings” coming from Art’s cigarette! I can’t remember seeing anything like that since Gould drew Cinn’s smoke ring in the form of a skull, while she pleasantly assured Mumbles that she was not angry with him, for trying to hold out on her when they were in a scam together.