Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for January 28, 2021

Good morning™, historians!

Well, we finally get a glance at Auntie Bellum — at least, who she was in the past. I wonder if she inherited the house itself. I think she probably did, in the days before she became a patron of the arts. (She has a first name now, too. Who would have guessed?)

Good morning™, society’s cream !

It started with the best of intentions, just like new low budget city housing with fashionable styling that will in twenty years time degrade to a slum area, the way “Bellum Acres” has become a haven of depravity and crime.

It’s like Dorothy walking into Oz.

Comparing faces, I definitely see the resemblance in her nephew Aquarius.

Unpopular opinion: Yay! The color’s back in the Dailies! How I missed it!

Nowadays, it’s just full of dirty hippies!

I already miss the b&w. Sigh… it was good while it lasted.

YAY! Colour by Technicolor!

Interesting that the heiress who hosted Timothy Leary at the real-world Daheim Mansion from 1963-1968 was Peggy Mellon Hitchcock and now we’re introduced to Peggy Bellum. As others posted at the beginning of the story, Hitchcock was “an heiress to her father’s Gulf Oil fortune and was an international jet-setter, renowned as the colorful patroness of the livelier arts and confidante of jazz musicians, race car drivers, writers, movie stars. Stylish, with a wry sense of humor, Peggy was considered the most innovative and artistic of the Andrew Mellon family.” I’m curious as to what other parallels there might be between the doppelgänger Pegs.

Colors!

Multi-hued!

Of course the more famous the commune is in the history of the town, the odder Sam’s comment about being surprised to find there was one in town. Or maybe Sam wasn’t born until the 1980s and missed the 60s and 70s completely (hard to pin dates down in a shifting time frame).

Whoa, two big developments today: the controversial color returns, and we finally get a look (however retro) at Auntie Bellum.

Hmmmm: Cass Elliot & ‘ol, uhmmm, what’s-his-name, e.g………..

With artsyguy s comment above, apparently, we are totally immersing ourselves – and the story – in the Milbrook (Daheim) mansion’s Timothy Leary past.

Again, I ask, was the owner asked permission to drag his or her famous house back to its infamous days?

On a lighter note, I do like the shout out to Cass Elliot.

She was my fave.

I wonder where the non-creative artists hung out?

Now that the color has returned, it is interesting that the colorist gave Tracy’s traditional black suit yellow “highlights”. One of my all time favorite Tracy stories, “The Case of the Interrupted Honeymoon” (that’s what Harvey Comics called it) featured Tracy and Tess on their honeymoon, and Tracy wore a light colored, double breasted suit for the occasion. It was all yellow in the comic books; one of the only times Tracy expanded his wardrobe.

Peggie’s intellectual sister Sara.

The redhead in the one picture resembles Cass Elliot.

The last thing I remember was………..?

1-SAM: Forget the Chief’s tax return, Dick. I’ve been doing a little research and I think that drugs found their way into Tracyville as far back as the 60’s! Here we see that $450K was raised in one night – no doubt from Narco money.

2-…And here’s a photo of notorious Mama, Mama Cass. She was famous for giving away her prescription diet pills to people who eventually got hooked on them. And this one is a recent picture of Tommy Chong with that woman who never ages. Note the stoned eyes.

DT: Chong? Don’t his eyes always look like that? Also, is Mama Cass eating a tambourine?

SAM: Try to stay focused, Dick.

The sister of Sarah Bellum no doubt

At long last…I am finally getting to see what Auntie Bellum looked like after what seems forever. Always amazed me how being “rich” puts one in the “eccentric” society. Some movies and television shows had that tendency.

Unless Auntie Bellum uses “Miss Clairol”(only her hair dresser knows for sure) she won’t look like those photos. No wonder since she first got mentioned it has been “day after day I stayed locked up in my room, I know to you it might sound strange but I wish it would rain” . Oh how I wish that it would rain…

For all of her philanthropy, I am surprised there is not an art museum in Tracyland named after her.

Color returns, story continues to wander.

is that Mama Cass?

Strictly speaking, we do not know that Peggy Bellum is Auntie Bellum. Auntie could theoretically be a relative or descendant of Peggy; but Occam’s Razor is applied, and probably Peggy is Auntie, though the arts-patron in the old news story and current-day Auntie probably don’t look exactly the same; Auntie will have aged and possibly have suffered health issues resulting in changed appearance. Aquarius, if in fact her nephew, seems generally not to have Peggy’s interest in art and artists. But I do hope that before he goes down for his criminal activity we get to see what Auntie looks like now….

We just crossed into Oz. Technicolor starts here!

Budding?

Did they call her Auntie Bellum?

I wonder if Ms. Bellum is pals with Mayor Armstrong…

“Fundraider”?

Tracy says, “I smell hippies…”