Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for June 18, 2021

Odd.

Nice toupee!

What in the hell?

Good morning™, everyone!

We have here a pretty hardcore comic collector. So far as I know “Frabjous Feline” is not the name of a real comic strip. “Frabjous” is a word combining “fabulous” and “joyous” that Lewis Carroll invented for his poem “Jabberwocky” that appeared in Through the Looking Glass.

“Terry and the Pirates” was, of course, a real strip by Milton Caniff.

Uh oh, a collector. Will he try to “collect” Mars Maid?

Wait a minute – Mike Screwed up BIG TIME!

The “Terry & The Pirates” Characters have been shown to exist as REAL PEOPLE in the “Tracyverse”! We’ve seen “Hot Shot” Charlie and a couple of other characters over the years! (With it implied something happened to Terry and he’s no longer with us.)

Thanks to the colorist, it’s difficult to see that the cat in panel 2 is about to be hit by a falling anvil. You have to zoom in to see it.

I’m going out on a limb. Collector we’re seeing is the (up-coming) victim and the person to whom he is talking is the (still unseen) villain.

Uh… who’s he talking to?

Is Walter going to eliminate somebody for their collection of comics? Or he will be the one who gets wasted? Somehow Vera is going to wind up in the middle.

My! My! My! Is this story line in Tracy going to turn into “Let’s Make a Deal”?

Whenever I praise my friend’s original Gordo Sunday strip, he repeats his offer to trade it for my Nancy page.

I’m with Ivan, above. We don’t know if this guy is the designated bad guy for this arc. It’s plausible that he will be the victim. I’ve known comic collectors and they can be picky – like this guy above. Thus far, nothing particularly suspicious about him.

Other than, we’re overdue for a designated bad guy to appear.

THIS IS AWFUL! WTH is going on ??? DON’T ANSWER. I DON’T CARE.

At least there’s a hint of a Wolfman on his hand in panel 3. PLEASE BE A WOLFMAN!

1-STAN LEE: I’m a ventriloquist. Look. I’ll prove it by talking while drinking…

2-…Did you know I was the genius who came up with Garfield? My version was funny but it wasn’t right for Marvel so I sold it to that guy who could only do lasagna jokes. Pretty much ruined my creation…

3-…I also originated Terry And The Pirates – again not right for Marvel. It was my only failure. It’s clear to me now that I should not have had Terry and his gang become members of the Hitler Jugend in 1939. Unfortunately, I doubled down on that error in ’41 by having them join the TotenKopf Einsatzgruppe. Oh well. Everyone is entitled to one failure I guess…

There is a serial of Terry and the Pirates available on a Roku channel. I remember reading Terry and the Pirates and Smiling Jack when I was a child.

Looks to me like there’s a typo in panel 1— shouldn’t it be a “Derby Dugan” daily, instead of “Derby Dugan Daily”?

Is this a Dick Tracy cartoon? Has it been replaced!

The cat must have taught the “Umbrella as protection from an Anvil” gag to Wile E. Coyote who perfected it and made it his own.

https://yadadarcyyada.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/fear25.jpg

That Terry and the Pirates serial was recently on TCM too. Probably the most unintentionally funny film (Serial) I’ve ever seen. Once again, the discussions and reader’s wonderment are better than this destruction of a once great trip.

Derby Dugan: Hey, lookadat Fuzzy — we’re regular collector’s items!

Fuzzy: Nah… I don’t buy nuttin’ I can’t pay fer upfront so there ain’t no collections out on this pup.

Derby: Simmer down, Fuzz. Not bill collectors, art collectors. Like how some hi-falutin’ society types throw money ‘round at them Frenchies to put nekkid-lady paintings in their museums.

Fuzzy: Well, dagnabbit! I’m always walking ‘round without no pants and you sure ennuf like your fancy fried ‘taters — so how come we ain’t rakin‘ in the dough?

I feel somewhat at a loss for something to say. Weird- colored outfit for Collector Guy (yeah, not Rival Cartoonist Guy, as I first thought). Commented on already, repeatedly. Bad greying of anvil and speed-lines in panel 2, so we can barely figure out what the joke is. Also commented on endlessly. Glass of water (?) or phone in panel 1? Clearly, if one looks closely, it’s a glass of something to drink. Noted by commenters above. So what’s the Big Trade likely to be? Panel 3 is a little confusing, as it seems that Collector Guy already has a full boxed set of “Terry and the Pirates” strips; but maybe he is lacking the particular Sunday comic that he mentions and is checking his set to confirm that?

Still no crime in evidence, but plenty of potential motive between rival collectors, though how Alldid and Mysta might become involved is not yet clear….

I’d settle for a cross-over story with Flash Gordon at this point.

That is a bad second panel in every way. The biggest one is the text box killing the joke.