Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for January 29, 2023

Parcel misplaced. Must now make haste

No longer a myth

With great delay it made its way

Contact Diet Smith.

Punjab agrees, thus clearly sees

Wisdom of inspection

Reduce the cost of time now lost

Call for skilled detection.

Good morning™, everybody!

Apparently, it’s preview time again! I know that will annoy some of you, but let’s see what we’ve got here.

Daddy Warbucks has received a package from Mr. Smith, but wait, this parcel is from Diet Smith’s area. I’m very confused!

What a terrible waste of a Sunday strip!

Just what we need, a commercial interruption!

“Dick? Garage Guy is mailing boxes of junk to us again. You have to convince him that’s the not the way to do a clean out.”

The other day from Gweedo’s birthday party!

https://youtu.be/vtkflEaeGjo

Roll of Honor

Fighting fires is a risky job, but a death like that of Charles McCormick affects the whole department. After the floor collapsed taking McCormick with it, it took a long time for the others to be able to recover him. More details here:

https://www.firehouse.com/safety-health/news/21120226/most-horrific-thing-feds-investigating-fire-that-killed-west-peculiar-mo-firefighter-charles-mccormick

“A” Dick Tracy?

and now for something completely different and unrelated… for now…

Good morning™, unrelated story contents !

The “Roll of Honor” is the best part of today’s strip. :-(

This strip is a little confusing, maybe just the result of some rushed or careless writing on Mike’s part. Punjab announces the package is from Mr. Smith, presumably Diet Smith, & it would follow it would be from Diet Smith’s area, so why does Warbucks make it seem like the return address is some sort of big clue. It’s also unclear why he immediately jumps to the conclusion that he needs “a” (I’m assuming this is just a typo error) Dick Tracy, without even seeing what’s inside the package, unless he does open it before Punjab leaves the room, off camera as it were. Sometimes Mike thinks withholding information from the reader is a way to build suspense, but usually, like today, it only creates confusion.

Now Daddy BigBucks is involved! Does any of this have to involve Dekko ?

He’ll be in need of a what again?

And for something completely different…. again…again…ag…

So finally the Garage Man comes into play?

Great illustrations today by Shelley Pleger! A new case opens before the other closes…Tracy must act accordingly! We hope Diet Smith’s package has not the time element to misplace anyone or anything, chronologically, of course! Perhaps, Tracy will solve this riddle…Tracy! Tracy! Tracy!

Well, aren’t you at least going to shake it?

knowing how common the name “Smith” is, I wonder if Warbucks received something from 1) Diet 2) the Garage Man or 3) Snuffy…

Preview of coming attractions? I like the Orphan Annie beginning!

will be in need of “a Dick Tracy” -they come in sets of three, you know.

I don’t think the “a Dick Tracy” is a typo, I think Mike might have picked it up from sportscasters, which is an affectation that annoys me. “It helps if you have a Derek Jeter.” One of many, I assume.

Must alert

The story will divert

Away from the main theme

Visit there

Spend some time here

Things are never as they seem

Mike does play

Mind games each day

His focus seems adrift

He doesn’t care

So reader beware

You’re most likely heading for the cliff!

‘True, I’ll need a Dick Tracy again, but any old Dick Tracy should do.’

‘A’ Dick Tracy?

I have av ague idea of what’s going on. So, join in on the wacky fun as I mis-guess time and ever loving time AGAIN! Absolutely Safe For Kids and most small pets.

I wonder which universe the Dick Tracy he needs is from. (I’m assuming Smith now into parallel worlds, since it’s all the rage now.)

Today’s art and colors are excellent. The depiction of the light coming from the desk lamp, the shadows in Warbuck’s study. Just fine! Too bad that it has nothing whatsoever to do with the current story. If Mike does read the comments here, it is very apparent that he does not care one bit what his most loyal readers think. How many of us have pleaded with him not to interrupt the story flow like this?

Last week we saw that Dick Tracy had visited Sue Reel. What happened there? What did he tell her? What did he ask her? What police procedures are the detectives of the MCU using to solve Paul’s apparent murder? A Sunday page could be used to advance the story and answer some of these questions. Instead, we get this, with dialog so poorly written that we really don’t know what’s going on here, either.

1-DADDY-O: Hmmm. Pretty good start on my autobiography I WAS BORN A GREAT MAN… What the… COME IN!

2-POONTAIN: Here’s a package that the mail room lost for a while. It feels important so I thought I should bring it right up!

3-DADDY-O: Oh Poontain. POONTAIN: Si, Jefe?

4-DADDY-O: Fire the mail room staff and hire new people and make yourself a note… POONTAIN: Was soll es sagen, mein Chef?

5-DADDY-O: It should say: The next time something “feels important” enough to bother the boss during his Private Time, just smack myself in the sack until the feeling goes away POONTAIN: The feeling of “importance” or the feeling in my sack? DADDY-O: Make it both. POONTAIN: Oui…

Back when I lived in Darkest Iowa, I sometimes corresponded with cartoonist Joshua Quagmire, the creator of CUTEY BUNNY for those of you familiar with ’80s era independent comics. Josh would sometimes send me thick envelopes full of photocopies of cartoons he had done. I never asked him, but apparently he had access to a photocopier and did that for a lot of his friends.

The first time he sent me such a package, the mailman couldn’t fit it in my apartment’s tiny letter box, so the carrier left me a note informing me that there was a package for me at the branch Post Office to pick up. The note didn’t say who it was from, it just gave me the zip code from which it had been sent.

This didn’t help me much, but then I remembered I had a volume or two of The Comics Directory, a massive address list of comics and SF fans created for fan groups and businesses catering to fans to help them build their own mailing lists. They also ran a lot of fan art as space fillers, which I suspect was how they got some of their sales. But the important thing was, the volume was organized by Zip Code!

So I looked up the Zip Code of my mysterious package and found that it had been sent from Hollywood, CA. Who the heck would be sending me a package from Hollywood???

I didn’t have a car at the time, to the package remained a mystery until I could hike the twelve blocks to my local Post Office over lunch break at work.

Anyway. Daddy Warbucks’ mystery package made me think of that one I received. I wonder if it will be full of pin-ups of Cutey Bunny.

Daddy must be taking that “Ageless Male” supplement that they are always advertising on TV. He’s looking a lot younger lately. But he needs to get into the gym and work out a bit. I think he used to be more muscular with broad shoulders.

I wonder if Lex Luthor was based on Daddy WB?

I keep forgetting about the eyes – for a moment, I thought they were closed and tears were coming out of them…

BTW – I’m telling you, some folks in Team Tracy are trying to warm up the idea of a re-start of the Annie strip for her 100th birthday…

Mike Curtis has FUBARRED this strip so off the rails he doesn’t care what readers think. I can hardly wait for the crossover with Andy Capp. Sad.

What’s up with these recurring appearances by Daddy Warbucks and Diet Smith? Are they going to form a detective agency to solve this Da Vinci painting case? I have yet to see it now some mysterious package appears. Where is my score card when I need it?

I didn’t know that Oliver Warbucks puffed cigars.

Wait….hold the phone! What’s this foolishness? Where is Art Dekko and Sue Reel? Why can’t the writers finish one story before they start the next?

Oliver Warbucks is his name.

Forget about art fraud, Art Dekko, Sue Reel, any of those characters!

The strip du jour is “Little Orphan Annie,” using its traditional title rather than the simplified, sanitized “Annie” used in more recent times.

It seems that Punjab and industrialist Oliver Warbucks have both aged some. Meanwhile, the mysterious package re-directed by Diet Smith to Warbucks that had been lost in the (Smith) mailroom has Daddy worried and looking worn (last panel). He needs a Tracy!

The “lost da Vinci” apparently is lost again, at the very least until tomorrow. Tomorrow….

Why bring back Annie if it makes such sissies out of Punjab and The Asp?They used to be such WONDERFULmass killers