Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for March 18, 2025

FIRST?

that’s a serious pile of INBOX…

Good morning™, all!

This guy (do we know who he is?) thinks that Horace is just on a business trip. I don’t think Horace is ever coming back.

Flimsier than a “balsa alibi”.

Good morning™, Determined Detectives !

Sam IS on the job today and wont take no for an answer. Bossy looks cooperative but doesn’t so far, have an inkling or even a suspicion that he has a snake in his garden. Horey’s got an overdue pile of work piling up. Wish I had a build like Carlos keeps putting on these guys.

And don’t call me Shirley!

Panel 1. Other than Sam and The Joker, does anyone own and wear a green suit and hat?

The plot thickens!

“Oh yeah, and last week he told his wife to tell his nephews to come in and strip everything he ever touched out of his office. And he wife said she had no idea where he was or when he’d be back… I thought at the time it was a little curious that she didn’t ask where he was or when she’d see him in the phone call.”

“And you don’t find either of those two facts strange?”

“Well, he and his wife don’t get along, so if he’s playing around he wouldn’t want her to know. And I figure he’s planning to re-decorate his office when he gets back so he wanted everything out.”

(Tomorrow: Look for Sam to find the one business card, for a dentist, dropped by idiot nephews. Will it be a deliberate plant to point Tracy to a crooked dentist? Will it be another reminder this gang is totally inept? Will it remind Sam he needs to make an appointment with his dentist?)

And when did Claire supposedly get the call from Horace telling her to send in the nephews to strip the office? The boss made the call to Claire after the body had been found. If she was supposed to have spoken with him recently it proves the body isn’t his. And if she’d gotten the call the day after he “left” on his vacation why wait weeks to send in the nephews? And it reeks of suspicious behavior to send them in to strip the office.

Better Horace had spent a couple days before he left wiping every surface he could think of clean… Which, of course would also be suspicious when they went to compare his prints with those of the corpse. Horace isn’t any brighter, apparently, than the nephews.

Would still love some brilliant plot twist where all of this makes perfect sense, but I’m not holding my breath while waiting.

So is our dead double the product of surgeries far more extensive than dental, or just an improbably convenient Horace lookalike? Or even his down-and-out veteran twin brother?

Sam will get to the bottom of this .

MOVIE QUOTE—

“I wonder why they have such long necks?”

“It is because their heads are so far away from their bodies”

Joan Sims and Bernard Bresslaw discuss giraffes

CARRY ON UP THE JUNGLE—1970

SAM" Okay. Thanks. Tracy’s obviously chasing pixies again. Some days it’s all I can do to keep him focused. Me being the rel hero of the strip and all!"

Piltdown is responsible for several meltdowns

Insurance companies don’t pay off on suicides, so I hope they remembered to make the death look “natural”

I just got an e-mail from GoComics . Premium membership is going up to $ 35 bucks and they will have an “ improved “ commenting platform . Does that mean more censorship ?

1- BIG BOSSMAN: I don’t know an “Erin Aaron” and besides – I never knew the police investigated claims of “job-site sexual harassment”.

2- SAM: What are you talking about??? I haven’t said a word yet! Anyway, would you date this dreamboat if …wait. I meant, do you know this dreamboat…errr, man?

3- BIG BOSSMAN: Yes to both. That’s Hor Ace Piltdown. Why’s he sleeping in this photo. SAM: He’s dead. BIG BOSSMAN: Oh. Then I wouldn’t date him. picks up phone

Hello Erin – stop paying Hor Ace Piltdown! He’s dead. ….Yes – I know I have several “ghost employees” whose paychecks are deposited to my account….No – I don’t want Piltdown to be another one! glances at Sam THAT would be wrong! …What? Errr no. I left my office unlocked. Someone must’ve came in while I was in the terlit and called you from my phone… Really? I’m glad you liked the flowers… oh. Gotta go. Talk soon…

So Piltdown’s a missing link. The question is, between what and what?

Horace is a nice looking chap… or was…

Will somebody PLEASE remember Groovy Grove?

AWT (Absolutely Worthless Trivia): I once came up with and drew BIJOU .a comic strip involving a hapless theater that always ended up not getting the big hits, instead booking weird titles == and the peculiar interaction between the employees.

It was actually inspired by a local megaplex I worked with at the time, which was complicated daily by a clown in concessions (no, he didn’t wear the outfit at work), a military stickler ho wanted things run by the numbers, a pair of inept lovers, a manager who once got irked with the clown and gave him a mug of chocolate Ex-Lax as ‘cocoa’ (true event), and two innocents who had no idea where to hide from the rest.

Co-created with the late Ron Armstrong, a friend. Ron used to come over to my apartment after work and we’d drink beer and trade jokes until one or two in the morning. Turned out three weeks of strips in about five days but never did anything with it.