Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for November 01, 2020

Fragrances so elegant obtained at lavish price

Notorious or Joy Perfume. Hermes also quite nice.

Special poisons have a niche. The customers shall pay

For a deadly venom causing mourners to all say

We knew him well. He was a mensch. So sad to say farewell

To our dearly departed. Such an aromatic smell.

The Yeti is a cruel boss. Won’t stand for a mistake

Poor Rabbit has a dying breath the boss is sure to take.

Too late the underling can see his utter obsolescence

A life cut short, sad to report, no chance for convalescence.

Yeti is as Yeti does. A murderer discreet

Bungle just one order and your heart shall cease to beat.

Good morning™ and welcome to a new story featuring Yeti!

I assume that Yeti is an entirely new character, from the pen of Mark Barnard, who wrote the most recent Minit Mystery with the disappearing statue. Today, we meet “Rabbit,” but it looks like we have to say goodbye to him, too, as Yeti reaches for his dart gun (poison darts, I assume, with the same poisons he sells to “the right people”). At least Yeti is not wearing a costume, although we see him wearing a gas mask while working with his venoms.

OOOOH!!! a new writer, this could prove to be interesting.

“And now for something completely different.”

With the Stokes case all wrapped up, and with today’s strip debuting two crooks we’ve never seen before (and one we’ll probably never see again), it appears we’ve reached the start of a new story. When I’ve decided a new story’s started, I do a list of every Tracy story on GoComics. Unfortunately, soon after I started doing this GC imposed a stupid, asinine character limit of only 2000 characters which includes every letter, space, punctuation, & html, which means I have to do this over several posts. I’ll do my initial introduction in this post and start the list in the next one, because otherwise, I can’t even get past the second year.

My notes are fairly simple. Just my name for the story (usually the name of the main villain or villains, unless they just aren’t the emphasis) followed by the dates the story began and ended. If someone was the main villain for more than one story, I add a “II” and so on to emphasize this. If more than one villain from a past story are in the same story committing major crimes, I include them altogether. Finally, for the 3 cases of more than one villain with the same name (Chameleon, Mr. Crime, Shaky) I add, “The Second” in front of their names.

Minit Mysteries Note: at the request of people who wanted to see these listed here, I’ve decided to make a separate post for them to keep the listing of Mike Curtis stories in as few posts as possible.

At the start of the GoComics archive, the writer was the late Mike Kilian. Personally, I like his work on Tracy and think he’s very underrated. At the very least, he knew how to tell a story in the daily strip format where every day, something happens that moves the story along, a quality his successor sorely lacked. I recommend anyone here who hasn’t read these stories to check them out.

TBC cuz GC decided to suck now

Good morning™, soon to be deceased !

I’ll pick up my last paycheck on the way out. I wont say anything about this place to anyone I promise. I am not flop sweating behind this calm, earnest demeanor.

@ Geraldine. I regret nuttin, y’ hear me !

This already has the look of a Minute Mystery – either that, or yet another really bad cosplay.

This is driving me Bats!

Oh let’s get on with it!!! The rabbit is about to get wasted by injection!!!

Perhaps noted already… but I love that Rabbit asks “What’s up?”

Very Interesting so far, fell sorry for the “overbite” guy!

Yeti might find he should have asked more questions about why Rabbit was rushed—there might be an incompetent employee in middle management.

Out with Dracula, in with Darth Vader.

Who is going to get the missent scent?

Saying “rabbit, rabbit, rabbit” when you wake up on the first day of the month (like today) is supposed to bring you good luck for the month!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_rabbit_rabbit

https://www.gocomics.com/foxtrot/2020/11/01

(With a nod to jimmjonzz—)

What’s up, Yeti?

Your lifetime warranty has expired.

But that’s supposed to be good as long as I’m alive!

You are correct, Rabbit! Here, have a shot (cough cough) of my latest formula! It’ll knock your socks off!

Gee, thanks, Boss! …Uhh, I don’t feel so goo….

No mistakes on my staff, Rabbit!

Yeti is an interesting villain, fully in the tradition of freaky-looking Gouldian creations. But if he’s just the poison manufacturer/supplier, should we expect another evil performer in this story? Maybe a sexy-but-deadly villainess? I await the next installment while the corpse is being removed from the premises. I suppose Rabbit’s truck will have an unfortunate plunge into the river….

So, the brief Abner tease we got last storyline was for later down the road? Hopefully, we dont have to wait almost a year for his return, and hopefully, Rikki’s as well.

1-LUKE: Line boss told me to come in. I ain’t never been on the carpet before. Wow!

2-BARTHOLOMEW RAIDER: LUKE. LUKE. I AM YOUR FATHER LUKE.

3-…and I’m moving you to management. That’s how you get ahead in this world, son.

4-LUKE: Whoa! I guess I take my looks from Mom.

5-BARTH RAIDER: Yes. She was a looker all right. Now, as management, I would like your opinion on this new perfume applicator I developed.

LUKE: It’s GENIUS!

BARTH: Excellent! Now let me show it to you.

Now that’s quite a contrast. Reminds me of Gould’s works now.

It seems odd to introduce a character as distinctive as Rabbit just to kill him right away. I wonder if he will persuade Yeti to relent and let him live.

Yeti’s making a mistake himself – a body, killed by poison, is sure to attract attention.

I like the start of this one. Yeti isn’t some goof like Mr. Roboto (remember him?), or an amateur like Stokes. He’s a professional poisoner, with clients.

Is that Emplate? Oh, wrong universe.

@Joe Stanton – Why are you guys wandering so far out? Holy Star Wars!

Awwww….I like rabbit, he’s adorable

Waitaminnit… YETI RABBIT?!?!?! Does he love a rainy night?

At last! A villain who ISN’T lame! I doubt we’ll see Yeti running a fraudulent cat charity or pretending to be an auto insurance salesman.

Kill the wabbit! Kill the Wabbit! KILL the WAB-bit!

Guest writer???!!! Hmm!! Maybe someone got the message. Fingers crossed. Plus, more deep analysis from Capt. Obvious, one N. Wick

RIP Deputy Jeff Hopkins. God bless you and your family.

I’d LOVE to see Rabbit dive for the floor, dig a tunnel at Bugs Bunny’s cartoon speed, and pop up in Albuquerque munching on a carrot.

“I cannot afford such mistakes.” So after Rabbit is, um, terminated, the missing poison will miraculously reappear? LOL j/k

So I wonder if this is kind of a Minit Mystery in that we might be left guessing on who of the DT cast ends up with the poison.

Shanda the Panda is in today’s On the Fastrack. Mike Curtis requested it, in place of Dick Tracy.

https://www.comicskingdom.com/on-the-fastrack

Ooh, Ooh, first to spot. Bubble blooper, bottom left. “Your” should be “You’re”.

Paging Louie the Lilac.

Run, Rabbit, Run!

Yeti?…..is Sasquatch his father?……Bigfoot his mother?…..bet they all smell like rotten eggs too.

“I can, however, afford to keep killing my workers and hiring new ones. I even compensated for it for it in the budget!”