Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for September 13, 2021

Good morning™, all!

The revised origin story is repeated. Tracy says, that gangs gave way to individuals, but lately, we seem to have shifted back towards gangs again. I think that individual work better in this strip.

A bit of reverse aging of Tracy for the retcon, I see!

Amazing! Hot coffee turns red lettering into black lettering on some the MCU cups.

Now that’s newsworthy!!!!!

Good morning™, wistful memories !

And there go the Chameleo™ cups again. This lady “reporter” looks more genuine all the time. Is she for real or just a really good actor ?  Young Tracy was quite the dapper gent. I wouldn’t call his current look hardened but certainly wiser and well traveled.

Well, Briar’s got red hair and lips again. Frankly, I like her better this way. She still doesn’t seem to be taking notes or using a recorder. And Tracy could say, “I became a detective before you were born,” and it would be true no matter when it “really” happened.

Rouges Gallery!

Y’all know about the notch at the top of Tracy’s nose? My nose has that too. But it’s because I’ve worn glasses since I was 9. With my glasses on for 16 hours a day, my nose was unable to grow properly. Now it functions like a shelf to support my glasses.

♪♪Memories…..♪♪

Guys, it’s “Shaky,” not “Shakey.”

Perhaps Diet Smith’s time dabbling has compressed the time continuum so that events that were “90 years ago” are much less distant in Tracey-Universe.

“During the war I wanted to enlist, but FDR asked me to stay at home and look for spies and saboteurs.”

“War? FDR? How old are you, Detective Tracy?”

“Forty-eight.”

“when that didn’t work I started roaming the rooftops at night dressed in a rubber suit with a big cape

Great strip.

“Hang on, you said the violence was due to gang bosses who got powerful due to Prohibition. You also said your fiancée’s father was shot as part of that violence, and that’s why you became a detective. But Prohibition ended nearly 90 years ago. How old are you, Tracy?”

It’s time for my annual “get caught up on all my daily strips” event. I really need to stop getting busy with real life and focus on what is going on with Tracy and Friends.

Do we think Tracy is actually still wearing the exact same necktie, shirt & coat as 90 years ago or does the department just keep issuing him the same wardrobe?

A nice look at a young Dick Tracy!

“Let me get my notepad. When and where exactly did you capture them? Theoretically, might any of them have caches or massive treasure hordes the police never recovered? Just, you know, idle curiosity.”

“Lady, ‘theoretically’, we could see if you were planning something before you came here. Just like the thirty or forty other ‘idly curious’ people I’ve had to deal with today alone.”

1-SUKI: Now that you know all about me, tell me about yourself.

DT: Are we on a date? Nice of the Chief to set me up. Speaking of the Chief…

2-…I met him mumble unintelligible years ago when I joined the force. I had shorter hair then because the devil-may-care style I sport now wasn’t in fashion. Even though I made it clear that I would kill the man who killed my father-in-law, the Chief made me a detective so I could find him.

SUKI: Did you?

3-DT: Yeah but I was responsible for the death of 3 criminals who were innocent of his death first. A rookie detective is gonna make a couple of mistakes along the way. For instance, I was certain that the murderer wore a bow tie. Oopsie. Then I got it in my head that the killer had hair the exact…same…color…as……yours? OH… ermmm, was Blowtop maybe related to you?

SUKI: HE WAS MY FATHER!!!

DT: DATE OVER!

Forgive me if i’m pointing out the obvious, but you know the one hundredth anniversary of Dick Tracy is next month, right?

No Mr. Hardy, but I do know it’s the 90th. You see the strip started in 1931 and that means 2021 + 10….oh never mind, just check your abacus

Didn’t know Tracy had a fiancée. What happened to Tess?

“I was a patrolman at the time. I transferred to the detective squad to catch his killer”. In those days a “vested interest” and “emotional involvement” were seen as “assets” and not “liabilities”. From most crime dramas I have watched on television, those with emotional involvements are steered away to other cases.

With a name like Shakey, it makes me wonder if he had a nervous condition. Blow Top sounds like someone who is always having temper tantrums.

Maybe it is just me but today the reporter and Blow Top have the same hair color. Probably a coincidence.

BREAKING NEWS: The identity of the Queen of Spades has been finally revealed. It’s Kim Kardashian:

https://ca.style.yahoo.com/kim-kardashian-black-leather-mask-161612218.html

Well,a VERY young Dick Tracy!

CLASSIC DIALOGUE:

“Didja use the rod on the young guy?”

“No,but I wish I had.He may follow us”.

You know,that fellow might have a clue there…..

This historical overview is interesting, I guess, & it does give Joe a chance to draw a younger Tracy & classic Tracy villains. But unless the reporter is from the Apparatus, & the interview is part of a scheme to distract Dick Tracy, it has nothing to do with the Diet Smith time drone storyline, which was beginning to gather some good narrative steam, which is pretty much all dissipated now. You’d think Mike would have held off on starting the time drone story until after getting through this apparent 80th anniversary tribute. Then again, as talented as Mike is as a storyteller, he does have a habit of starting storylines, then leaping into other plots, or special stories, like those Minute Mysteries, & then circling back to the original story.

Young Dick Tracy didn’t get promoted based on his looks.

They were the heads of gangs not just individuals.

Ms. Rose seems slow on the uptake and not very committed to getting the facts of her interview on record (by whatever means). Her newspaper career will not develop into featured investigative reporter, but rather will veer into covering suburban garden club meetings. And all for a cuppa joe!

Tracy’s reminiscences seem to be moving along at a good pace, while still giving Joe (Staton) a chance to demonstrate different Tracy Styles at different phases of the strip’s history….

I haven’t read the first year of Dick Tracy in a few years, but I seem to recall that Tracy was a civilian, not a patrolman, when Tess’ father was murdered.

Why is he referring to his WIFE as his FIANCEE? Better to say “while we were engaged, my wife’s father was killed”

Revisionist history here, I think. Earlier accounts say Tracy joined the force around the time of the Trueheart killing, not transferred from uniformed cop duty.