Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for May 31, 2023

Chick Tracy II to the rescue? Oddly, the free gift was a superhero cape the right size for a chicken.

Good morning™, everybody!

Sabrina might have been successful scamming Gertie (assuming Gertie eventually figured her SSN), but Chick Tracy II is on the case. She doesn’t seem to approve.

Greetings and salutations, Cheesy Chickens!

Well, we’re back to this bit-chy bird again. How many here want to toss a fox into her hen house (Sorry, Avenger09. I know you’re fond of the old gal)? Some chicken wings are sounding pretty good about now. I still wanna see Lil’ Walter pluck this prickly pullet’s tail feathers just to remind her who’s the boss birdy around here.

Good morning™, (faux) prize winners !

The Chick knows a rat when it hears one. It could be real since Sabs is only looking for the last 4 and not the whole thing. Wait ‘til she gets your card number, that’s where the money is.

Nice rendering of an old timey phone. Chick is eminently pist !

Jeez Louise, Mike is definitely trying to indoctrination us into the cult of Chick!

Can Walter be far behind?

To give Mike credit (shocking, I know) he’s taken all the blows (figure of speech, chill out!) and stayed firm on his vision for the strip.

At least he’s not pulling a BooBooCar, crying “Oh woe is me, everyone is so mean!”

LOL!

Like when, in his last appearance, he thought he was chasing a loose football, seems less Chick Tracy and sounds literally even more like a Tank Buk(aw)namara!

Looks like the newest addition to the strip has her own catchphrase.

Like Poltergiest, Chick Tracy..she’s b-a-c-k!

How was Gertie Plenty chosen for this “gift”? They pick names out of thin air at that call center. Dang, that chicken got plenty (no pun intended) sense to fly up and squawk into the phone. She senses it’s a spam call.

Mike has a lot of action going on, this storyline has potential.

I must hand it to B.O and Gertie Plenty, in this 21st Century age of various cell phones they still get by with the old faithful rotary dial model. It still has a hand crank.

Chicken detected fowl play.

Love today’s strip!

Sorry, I can only tell you four digits from my number.

Poultry in motion…

How do we get out of this Chicken Outfit?

Chick Tracy is no dumb cluck.. Never buy anything from a telemarketer.

This makes THREE different threads now tangled together..no wait, FOUR! Silver, Sprocket, Audie (murphy?) and now The Plenty’s…seriously? And some people wonder WHY we question the quality of the strip?

That telemarketer got a real earful… Bu..kaw !The chicken is as good as an airhorn in dealing with them… X-D

Sabrina looks like she hasn’t been sleeping well—guilt over the job?

Are those 1930’s~ style phones still in service ANYWHERE in 2023??

It’s bd when even the chicken knows a scam when it hears one.

A key to good supporting characters is to not overuse them

Where is Sprocket ?

What ? No cell phone ?

So the call center is a scam operation. Sounds like a job for the Fraud division, more than Major Crimes-right now.

oh no, not the dam-ned chicken again… thought we’d seen the last of the foul fowl for awhile, at least…

OT: Speaking of chickens, this afternoon they’re going to use a crane to drop a prefab chicken restaurant in on the e block (where we used yo have a prefab diner). Chicken Slime or some similarly weird name.

Oh, wrong. ‘Sticky Bird’.

Gee, doesn’t THAT make me want to eat there. (shudder)

With all of these super-smart animals, can a crossover with Lassie be far behind?

This looks like another throw-away day.

So let’s talk about the art. Something I’m fascinated with in Shelley’s work with the strip is the blend of her more realistic renderings with characters that have decidedly cartoony qualities. For example, you can’t draw Gravel Gertie without the characteristic large eyes going all the way up to her bangs, cartoonishly Bob-Hope-esque nose, and pointy but thin jaw. The new character at the call center in P1 could easily morph into a photograph without much change in shape or proportion.

So the hen is the brains of the family?

From today’s Comics Curmudgeon:

One of the underappreciated tragedies of the past few years is that spammers and scammers are increasingly turning ordinary phone calls into a widely avoided and increasingly useless form of communication. The federal government refuses to take action, so local authorities in Neo-Chicago are trying to help by issuing every old person a scam-detecting chicken.

Mike needs an editor or ANYBODY who might tell him that this kind of stuff has an audience of TWO *. And here I thought this story was being set up nicely only to see that it was set up for a chicken joke.

The chicken is smarter than her…

Back before caller ID and answering machines, I got a call and they said “Congratulations! You’ve won a FREE diamond ring!” I said “At some point in this call, are you going to ask me for a credit card?” They hesitated, and I said “So no free ring for me.” and they hung up.

1-LILA: sigh Comcrap Customer Service. How may I …whatever…

2-GERTIE: HOW CAN I STOP MY HUSBAND FROM USING YOUR INTERNET TO LOOK UP BARNYARD THEMED PERNO?!? IT’S RUINING OUR MARRIAGE!

3-CHICK TRACY: BU-KAW! Translation: Sorry. Wrong number. Never mind. We’re good!

Plenty of real people who put their dogs on the phone when a nuisance caller spoils your day.Gertie has no dog for the moment,but an intelligent chicken will do.

I’d like to think even a hillbilly like Gertie can detect a spam call.

MOVIE QUOTE—-

“So what did the big lug die of,a broken heart?”

Lyle Latell looking at Boris Karloff—-DICK TRACY MEETS GRUESOME—1947

I’m at a loss here as to what the heck is going on…..

Funny thing about those old telephone sets, as my old landlords had one… You can receive a call ok, but you can’t MAKE a call on them or they short out the lines! Funny how old technology can mess newer tech up.

The old days when if you got a phone call at college,it ws a pay phone in the hall.

You can still see them in old NOIR movies

You tell ’em, girl!

Thank goodness for Chick Tracy II! —Whatever you may think of the chicken herself, today she has saved Gravel Gertie Plenty from the phone scam that Sabrina is working under supervision by Audie the Auditory Schizophreniac. BU-KAW!