Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for March 11, 2023

Good morning™, everyone!

So, the observation continues, but now it seems that they do actually have black orchids and they are going to tease Wolfe by taking him the orchids. He apparently came expecting to get black orchids but he is expected to be surprised when they bring him some. Curiouser and curiouser!

Good morning™, V.I.P. treatments !

And here we thought he was being tortured, interrogated or a bunch of other bad stuff and here he gets everything he is fond of. Is there a bottom that’s going to fall out ?

I have to admit that I have NO idea as to what’s going on with Wolfey and his ‘hosts’…

Sigh, this current ridiculously slow and boring story has succeeded in something none other has ever done;

It’s silenced me, which I’m sure many of you think is a good thing!

LOL!

Did some ink drip onto the Boss’s forehead in panel one?

I wonder if the location Goodwin and Tracy start from will have a trail of orchids. Nah, that would be too easy. But who can say as Tracy is telling this story to Sam that some “embellishing or slight exaggerations” won’t spice up the narrative. Did Lee and Liz walk in the office yet?

Is Nero a Polanski fan?

Cookbooks ? Obviously !

They were definitely not diet books !!!

Nero’s book is the Roman something!

The ancient Romans were obsessed with orchids. Lots of stony images of them in Roman empire architecture. The twilight of Roman orchidmania began, coincidentally or not, at the same time as the spread of Christianity in the empire. The historic association of orchids with sexuality is a possible cause….

this one is action-packed

Black orchids, eh? Can we hope Mike and Shelley are working up a “Brenda Starr” revival?

I’m betting the the book Wolfe is enjoying is “The Roman Hat Mystery”, the first of the Ellery Queen novels. Wolfe likes to keep up on the competition.

He’ll want tools to examine those orchids, and, then Wolfe will want to question how they bred them. And, of course, he at least want some seedlings, so he, and, Theodore Horstman can reproduce them in his rooftop hothouse, back at the Brownstone.

Wolfe left supper, took a cab, and got on a train to sit and read while his “captors” think to give him some black orchids? The expression, “hurry up and wait,” comes to mind. I wonder what the missing information is.

What is the name of this arc?

“The Seduction of Nero Wolfe”?

“Let us give hm the collected works of LIL’ OOP,and we shall have the giggles of watching his intellect crumble.”

Yep, my brief exposure damaged me horribly

“We’ll give him that copy of SEE SPOT RUN in which Spot never DOS run! Maddening!”

We needed Peter Lorre as the henchman. Just saying…

His weakness

Oh for the – - Carpe Diem

There is a Nero Wolfe book called “Black Orchids” which incorporates two novellas as a “double mystery”, the first of which bears the same title. It was the first anthology book in the series, though Rex Stout started to regularly produce books consisting of (usually) three short stories in between his full length novels. Some readers feel these shorter stories were actually his best works.

In the Black Orchids novella, the name of the first victim was (coincidentally?) Harry Gould!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Orchids_(novella)

1-DUNCAN’S BOSS: That dam Johnson got me again – painted my forehead while I napped. DUNCAN HINES: Yeah, he got me too, boss. Say…

2-…Should we get Wolfe a Kindle? I’m tired of running out to buy books he might like. With a Kindle, he could pick his own and I wouldn’t have to guess.

3-DUNCAN’S BOSS: That’s the whole idea of this test, dummy. If Wolfe likes the Kindle, Diet Smith will finish developing it and Daddy Warbucks will proceed to develop his super duper delivery store that will wirelessly load books to the Kindle! I think Warbucks is going to name it Nile or Mississippi Oh. Also we have to wait for Al Gore to invent the internet.

DUNCAN: Sounds like Mr. Wolfe will be with us for a long time. DUNCAN’S BOSS: Yeah. We probably started this test phase of the operation too soon. Go ahead and give him some flowers, Jerry. That’ll keep him happy.

Hasn’t the Big Man learned by now that black orchids are nothing but trouble?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Orchids_(novella)

One of the slowest FLASHbacks I’ve ever encountered.

Man, Picard must be doing badly if Patrick Stewart is guesting in Dick Tracy.

We have an expanded group of interrogators: Boss (a.k.a. Sir, who does resemble Patrick Steward to some degree; in some particular one of his rôles?); Duncan, the Duty Observer; and now Jerry, the orchid-florist. Meanwhile, Nero Wolfe is reading The Roman [something], which may be a mystery novel, as some have suggested above (and that would be the sort of inside joke that Mike seems to like), or may perhaps be something historical, e.g., The Roman Revolution, or The Roman Republic, or The Roman Economy, etc. With Boss’s order to Jerry to bring black orchids to Wolfe, he hopes to move the gourmand detective from his state of inertia. So do we, as far as advancing the tale goes….

Wait’ll Wolfe finds out they’re white orchids coated with “Shinola”. Of course, the klutzes got it all over their faces.

Whaddya wanna bet that the book Wolfe is reading is “The Roman Hat Mystery”, the first Ellery Queen novel, by Ellery Queen?

If this guy has a spider tattoo on his forehead,no way it wouldn’t show in profile.