Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for August 01, 2016

So we get to find out what turned Rikki Mortis into a ruthless murderess….should be interesting considering the story teller.

.Good morning guys!.Where exactly is the university, Dethany? Transylvania?

So Dethany’s office is set up for video conferencing, I guess …?

I never would have suspected until now that Dethany knew Rikki from way back. When she said something about knowing Rikki at the detective’s convention I thought she meant more recently. I love the depiction of the younger versions of the two women!

Cute “Sailor Senshi” fuku, Goth-style, in panel #2.

And two panels again.

I still maintain that Mike & Joe have decided that scenes “breathe” more comfortably this way.

… which means – in theory – we’re moving at about half-speed relative to the four-panel days.

So you can talk to the person in the monitor

Dethany should have kept her hair long….

An example of a ‘fuku,’ a traditional Japanese school uniform, modeled by my Sailor Senshi of choice, Rei Hino, A.K.A. Sailor Mars (… and, occasionally, “Mars Reiko,” for those who followed the Tokusatsu version.)

One of the few regrets of my 2010 trip to Japan was that, while wandering around one day in Ikebukuro, I saw a group of high school girls in fukus, but opted not to take their picture.

Taking people’s pictures in Japan can be a bit uncomfortable even under ideal conditions, and there was just no way I could rationalize it.

They were adorable though.

As for it being "more than a fashion statement for Dethany, I think it has become more than a fashion statement for Rikki, too. I was going to say that she hasn’t changed her name to something with “death” in it, but you can’t get much more dead than a “rigor mortis” reference.

The Unofficial GoComics Staton/Curtis Death ListAs compiled by boboscar, Tarry Plaguer, and AnyFaceNOTE: Names with a + were found dead or killed prior to the story start.+ Wormy & Thistledew (Reported dead in armory fire) 3/21/11Flyface 4/22/11The Fifth & Eddie Garcia (Caught in ’Thor’s Hammer’ beam weapon overload explosion) 4/25/11Earl (Flaky and Hot Rize’s innocent co-worker) 5/12/11Hot Rize (Asphyxiated in flour silo) 5/28/11Emma Parks (A.K.A. Ponytail Mk I) 6/14/11The 2 terrorists who tried to hire and double cross Morning Gloria 8/13/11Big Frost 10/20/11Apparatus Member (Killed by Doubleup) 10/25/11 & fed to Tonsils 10/27/11Flakey Biscuits 10/29/11, confirmed 5/29/16 (of a heart attack brought on by Blaze’s murder attempt)+ Sizzler Sitzes (Hired by Kadaver to kill Charles Adams A.K.A. Baron Clovis in a hit and run. Was then shot and killed by Kadaver to keep him quiet) 10/31/11 identified 11/9/11Cueball 1/31/12Mr. Levitz (Doubleup’s main henchman in his first story; later killed by Kadaver to get Doubleup off) 3/13/12+ Vincent Vinyl 5/5/12 confirmed 5/11/12The 3 supporting members of the Mumbles Quartet (Car bomb explosion arranged by Abner Kadaver under Panda’s orders) 5/20/12Lt. Teevo (Fed to Muerte Vine by The Mushroom Lady) 7/8/12 confirmed 7/18/12Davey Mylar (A.K.A. Mr. Crime Mk II) 7/14/12 tombstone 9/30/12Panda (Tripped and fell into Tonsils’ tank under smoke cover released by Abner Kadaver, then eaten) 7/15/12 confirmed 7/23/12+ Arthur Curry (Aquarium director) 8/22/12Bookie (Measles’ partner) 10/14/12Measles (Overdose) 11/10/12+ Stephen Baux’s fiancée 2/8/13 identified 2/27/13Simon Baux A.K.A. Sweat Box (Struck by train during car chase) 2/24/13Diet Smith Industries Guard (Supposedly killed by Bardoll) 6/25/13 (Uncertain; shown lying on the ground and called a “casualty” on 6/29/13, but unconfirmed)Bardoll 7/7/13 confirmed 7/16/13Hy Pressure 9/28/13 confirmed 10/8/13Bill “Shortcake” Mitchell (Apparatus member) (never confirmed, but implied) 10/31/13Miles Mycroft (Garroted by Silver Nitrate, then fed to Lena the Hyena) 1/26/14Mr. Kolossal 4/30/14Ed Rosato (Never confirmed, but implied) 5/14/14Tabby Angus 5/28/14The Butcher of the Balkans A.K.A. Henrik Wilemse (Punjab placed his magic blanket over him, sending the Butcher on to “fly with the Maji” where none have ever returned) 7/27/14Axel’s “crack combat troops” (Implied to have all gone the same way as The Butcher of the Balkans a la Punjab) 9/30/14Axel (Blown up by Dr. Kenyon’s unstable experimental explosive) 10/5/14Otis (Killed by Gruesome) 12/5/14Mrs. Flattop (Flattened by 70-pound Film Canister thrown by Sprocket Nitrate in self-defense) 3/1/15 confirmed 3/6/15Cork 4/29/15 confirmed 5/1/15Fontane 5/6/15 confirmed 5/12/15Jimmy Choo Shooz (Sucked into undertow at Lake Prachett) 6/4/15Méliès (Accidentally shot with 50 caliber bullet – Possibly in right eye – By Apollo) 8/23/15 confirmed 8/31/15Rocket Munroe & Apollo (They would’ve been fatally shot by 9/12/15, on 9/13/15 it’s implied Venus is the only one on that floor still alive, on 9/21/15, Rocket & Apollo are among those on that floor who are identified.)Venus 9/22/15+ Vic Smith /John Cassaday 11/7/15+ Byron Orlock 11/16/15Freddy Capp 11/23/15The Hangman/The Brow’s Son/Alfred Brau, Jr. (caught and hanged in Tracy’s safety cable while trying to hang Tracy) 12/10/15Cheater Gunsmoke and his driver (crushed to death by Rikki Mortis’ vampire car) 7/19/16Multiple “crime bosses” Rikki’s vampire car takes a bite out of 7/31/16

What ‘more than a fashion statement’ for Dethany could it be? These cats are creeping me out!

One of the more inadvertently hilarious events of that trip was when I went into a department store and requested – in my beyond-broken Japanese – that one of the gofers help me find a CD by the girl group SCANDAL, whose song, “SHOUJO S,” was used in one of the openings for the anime, BLEACH.

First attempt: He came back with a CD by the band “Chicago.”

Trying to make myself understood, I shook my head and said – more or less …

“iie. Ahn-ee-may.. Boo-reech-oo. Soo-cahn-dah-roo.”

The second time, he came back with a CD titled, “BLEACH: THE BEST,” which – sure enough – included “Shoujo S” as one of its tracks.

Good enough.

Here’s the kicker, though …

A few years later, I got to see SCANDAL perform stateside, live, at an anime convention …

… but they didn’t play SHOUJO S~!!

[ Also, they sold out of concert t-shirts in my size before I could score one. ]

Oh, well.

At least we’ll always have the music video.

Quite correct. It’s in Lexington KY. A romanian friend was surprised and delighted when he found out :).

not for nothing, but these pop up crossovers are getting more than just a little ridiculous

HEYWAITAMINNIT!!!!!! Rikki in todays strip could ALMOST be the “little sister” of CLAUDINE (who helped Tess deliver baby Joe) I see the safety pins in her ears in panel 2 ;)

Maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me, but Rikki looks an awful lot Liz(z). Maybe she is her long lost baby sister of Liz(z) that Abner stole from the hospital Maternity Ward, raised her, and keeps as a “slave”.

The gocomics colorist is continuing to vary on the color of Dethany’s face. Here we see it correctly on the college flashback (as we also did on both the Dethany game shown by Honey on 1/15/15 and in yesterday’s strip) but on the monitor it has more of a “pinkish” complexity (as it also did on the 1/15-16/16 strips when meeting with Tracy).

I wonder if Dethany’s college hairstyle was previously established in On the Fast Track. In any case – I agree that it looks good; I hope Bill Holbrook uses it if the need ever arises.

I don’t think there’s anything ‘mysterious’ about SKYPE. When Dethany says ‘Rikki and I attended university…’ that tells me she’s probably from England. Folks in the U.S. call it ‘college’

Joe’s doing a really nice job adapting Bill Holbrook’s more cartoonish style to work with his own.

Good work today by Joe Staton.

Just checked out Transylvania Univ. webpage.Seriously?, Transylvania Pioneers? Bumer.Go Vampires!

I believe she is from "on the fastrack

My American Cousin was a 1985 Canadian film that won 7 Genie awards (like Oscars, but only for Canadian films), including best picture.

Strangers wander inHelping out the MCUBackground comes their wayTo know the crime know villianInside her head is scary place

Well, Dethany was an (American) Air Force brat so it’s hard to see why she said “university”; however, she could have picked up the term some other way; for instance, she could frequently chat online with a friend from the UK, or her parents may have been stationed overseas for an extended time.

Dethany knows all about Rikki, and tells a good deal. Such a Gothic gossip!(Hope we see more of her than just a two-day trip….)

Well, “University” is generally used in the US for any institution that awards Master or Doctor degrees.

Dethany also regularly appears in “Safe Havens”, although she dresses somewhat differently there, because “On the Fastrack” takes place in forever-now time, like most comics, whereas “Safe Havens” is in real time, like “Gasoline Alley”, which makes SH Dethany several years older than OTF Dethany.

Dethany is also the protagonist of “Dethany in VirtuNoir”, an adventure for iPad—maybe other systems, too.

Such critics should be advised that we have such schools as Harvard University, the University of Notre Dame, and of course. in my neck of the country, the University of New Hampshire (go, Wildcats!).

Yes, I know there are many schools in the U.S. called “University of …” That’s not the point of the critic that I read. People will often say that they are “going to college at Harvard,” although Harvard is a university. It’s almost unheard of for an American to say they are “going to university at Harvard.”

I attended the University of Toronto for 6 years part-time. Although the U of T actually consists of several “colleges” I have never heard anyone say that they are “going to college” there. It would always be “going to university.” If they used the word “college” a listener in the province of Ontario (I can’t guarantee what people say in other provinces) would assume they were talking about a “community college” (similar to the ones in the U.S. which award diplomas and not degrees).