Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for July 06, 2023

Good morning™, all!

Yeah, I think he’s the murderer alright. His boss doesn’t seem to suspect.

Then the boss double-crosses him. Ha ha.

Good morning™, cocky hitmen !

Looks like he could do the boss too, the way the gun is ever so handy for a quick draw. The boss may have a plan for him since krazy hair knows too much.

so Madsen is the contract killer, offs Anders and lies about the whole thing to his employer… nice guy to have as your problem solver…

hopefully the employer will find out about Madsen’s subterfuge and pull the old switcheroo on HIS-ass…

This is where the bald guy calls in his secretary with the mechanical gun for an arm. (See! i do read other comics.)

Looks like Cornhair is about to kill again !!!

Not quite sure how CarrotTop knows that Anders gave the cops a fake address … unless he was right outside the door when Anders made the call … but the strips in question seem to indicate a little time elapsed between the time Anders made the call & he got shot. Maybe CarrotTop was the person Anders called but that really doesn’t make sense, either, CarrotTop doesn’t come across as the upper management type. Presumably Audie (I’m going with Audie as the bald guy for sanity’s sake) was the one Anders was calling … so presumably Audie already knows what CarrotTop is telling him (however he found out about it) which may tip him off that CarrotTop is double-crossing everyone. Presumably. I’m giving the strip some slack on these narrative/continuity issues, given the fact they had to change writers mid-stream, but providing one day’s strip orienting us to this new plot twist regarding the stolen Argos shipment & clarifying who was behind it, either Audie or someone else, might have been helpful in avoiding some confusion. Just saying.

I see Baldy was evidently added st the head honcho. added material.

You have to admire Madsen’s dedication to his motto, “There is no honor among thieves.” Still, I hope he doesn’t have a secondary motto of: “Leave no witnesses behind,” since we don’t know how many people at the call center might have seen him walk through. And if he has quirk of leaving small, identifiable pieces of recent buildings where he’s been behind I’m going to call it an interesting case of OCD rather than words to live by.

Y’know…if he had a stuffed tiger behind his back I’d think he’s a grown up version of Calvin, lol

Is Masden going to “burn” this guy, too?

Hey ! Did I miss something ? Isn’t Cueball that crazy talks to himself guy ? If so then why is he so straight now ?

cue the dark ambient music with discordant overtones which, although broadly tonal, is inflected with chromatic and polytonal passages representing the archetypal example of a florid, melodramatic style without being interpreted as an overly heavy-handed metaphor within the context of the thematic material

In P2, Madsen looks like he is smoking a joint.

Looks like his boss will be riding into the sunset…….

1-BOSS: So how did Anders respond to getting paid? Happy?

2-ROD MADSEN: Yeah. I thought his head was going to explode! Heh heh

3-…You might even say he was in heaven after I “paid him off” Heh heh

BOSS: Are you implying that you killed him? MADSEN: Wait. You caught that? I thought I was being real clever! You got me. I killed him. But I, uh, left the bag of money. Yeah – it was the right thing to do. That said – you share the blame. You could’ve Fed-Ex’d the dough over. Anyway – where’s my fifty bucks?

Anders got paid off, alright!

For a man who was wild-eyed just yesterday, Yellow Hair seems pretty smug. I hope he doesn’t go for his gun tho….he could get hurt. I got a feeling Boss Man’s got a few surprizes of his own.

Madsen will be “paid” all right – and be given a nice red shirt as well!

Critics say Joyce’s Ulysses was undecipherable. They haven’t seen this epic yet

Uh oh…Diet Smith’s time machine is still shifting around things from the future! I just read a Dick Tracy Wiki entry on Madsen; there was a section that said “Known Aliases: Corn Top, Yellow Hair, CarrotTop, SpikeTop, Checkered Shirt” and then “(click on link for complete list)”. Before I could click on that link, the entry had disappeared into the time stream!

Carrot Top is going to learn that you don’t mess with Carlton Fisk.

Big Boss Baldy BadAss seems satisfied that CornTassle-haired Mad Madsen has paid off the unfortunate Mr. Anders and may not know that Tousled Tassles has made Anders’ departure permanent. Now, the hitter “errand boy” wants his cut and promises to “ride into the sunset” once paid. But that pistol in his right-back pocket is conveniently poised for a quick draw by his twitchy-trigger-fingered right hand hovering close by. Maybe he intends to terminate Baldy, too, leaving no witnesses to his dastardly deeds. But I think Boss Baldy is probably not so naive as to trust CornTassles.

I can envisage a scenario wherein they both draw down on the other, and two dead baddies will be lying around waiting to be found by the detectives….

Another brain dead guy trying to shake his boss down for a “big bonus”.

Anders will have company soon.