Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for December 13, 2020

Cheesecake loves her candy for it makes her feel alive

Better drop that habit if she wishes to survive.

Auntie Bellum orders lunch. A sandwich for a start

Loves an egg-dipped savory that’s no good for her heart.

Elsewhere, Pouch is none too pleased. A liberty’s been taken

Dollar Bill was duly warned. Now time to fry his bacon.

Patton calls upon the best to tackle sales of coke

Powder blown into Sam’s face, which causes him to choke.

Working up the food chain from street dealers to suppliers

Try to find a chatty rat among the thugs and liars.

Stool pigeons sing. Avoid clipped wings. Dish dirt on the boss

Escape a cell. Lay low a spell. Mitigate the loss.

I like their electronic “rogues gallery” of drug dealers, similar to the original one at the NYPD, but updated:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Rogues_gallery.jpg

Sam is made from tougher stuff than some of you figured yesterday. I presume that Aquarius is one of the suppliers they are referring to.

The drug business seems to now have become the #1 priority of the major crimes unit…

Gather around, class is in session

Time to teach a valuable lesson

When the job you think is done

You quickly learn you’ve only just begun

The tiny mice that scurry around

Are not the ones we need to ground

We need to find the source of the cheese

The feed the vermin to do as they please

Hey, Dick- I’ve got an idea…go see your informant Pouch.

Oh, I just had a revelation! I think it was Neil that mentioned that ’Auntie Bellum" was a play on words for Antebellum. But…it could also be a play on words for anti-bellum or anti-war which would be a good fit for the peace-sign wearing Aquarius.

Back in the 1950’s they used to hang wanted posters in the post office. Every time we went to mail letters, the thought of meeting one of those criminals made my blood run cold.

During disciplinary situations, mother used to take out my photo and say she was going to give it to the postman to make a wanted poster and hang it up in the PO! That usually straightened me out … for a few days.

I figured that’s what robo-callers look like

Love the Robocaller image!

We’ve been shown one blatantly illegal arrest of a user, and are now informed the police have been busy arresting pushers. It would have been nicer if yesterday showed a montage of different officers arresting some of the pushers than Sam breaking the law.

I like the crimestoppers. It sure irritates me these robocalls are illegal yet nobody is ever prosecuted.

We don’t know how many pushers were arrested this week – apparently a bunch. So… Have the police known they were pushers for a long time, but didn’t bother to go after them until drug sales were up? Or, is it ridiculously easy to discover the identify of a bunch of pushers and the police were too lazy to make the effort until drug sales were up?

I’m not sure that in a RL situation an elite group like the MCU would bother with low-level street-corner dealers. They would go more directly for higher-level pushers, turf chiefs, and cartel-level suppliers, hoping further on to take down the regional bosses, and maybe eventually the cartel heads (though that is a complicated international feat, especially if the cartel boss “owns” the country he is based in). But our MCU has rounded up a goodly number (at least eight that are shown) of low-level dealers, and depending on what pressures can be brought to bear Tracy and team might be able to break one of them and get him to rat out someone higher up….

A better idea is to just not answer the phone if you don’t know who it is. When you answer, they know it’s a live number.

i’m betting one of the two in last panel

It’s been a week now, are they pretty much closed the file on the whole Yeti case?

Good morning™ dealers collection society !

The big kick this week is drug dealers. Next week, we go after jay walkers and elderly impoverished women who dare think they have carte blanche to five-finger discount those tins of stewing steak.

It’s a State’s Attorney favorite. Whoever gives up the higher ups get his/her charges downgraded. Those who don’t just might find their charges upgraded. Jack McCoy used it quite often on Law & Order. (I miss Lennie Briscoe!)

Love the last panel silhouette!

To Everyone who continues to ask about Yeti: HE’S GONE! THERE AIN’T NO MO! HE’S LOST THE ELECTION FER PETE’S… got a little off subject there. Sorry.

Let the dealers out on bail & track them to the supplier with the drone tech

1- DT: Ok, here’s photos of last Halloween’s costumes. We never could decide which of us had the best get-up so…

2- …we’re going to revisit it and decide today.

3- SAM: Well, I don’t think anybody can beat my personal interpretation of a “lesbian with hat” costume.

4- LIZ aka Doll: Get over yourself. My Adolph Hitler was an easy win. Hell, even the way I look today beats your “lesbian with hat” costume!

5- DT: Well, I’ve decided and to no one’s surprise I pick my effort as “black woman in cool shades.” That means I’ve won TWO donuts from today’s box.

LIZ aka DOLL: So rigged! You ALWAYS win!

DT: munch, munch Oh, you want a recount? Done! I still win… munch, munch

robo callers are scum. I eithert curse at them or mess with their heads. speaking french or drawing them out.

2 days ago the phone rang and the screen said it was a car dealership we’d happened to have left a vmx with. When i answer the man’s voice said hello, he was calling from PA power and how did I feel?"

UI said “decieved since the phone said you’re call from fiat and cl;early you’re not. so clearly you’re a crook who can’t tell the truth to save your life”

it was said conversationally but strangely he hung up.

Here’s the Yeti windup, Big Y is in the hospital getting anti-spider venom. Prognosis is good. Daisy was found swimming in the Atlantic Ocean, and is now considered a favorite for the Japan Olympics. There, case closed, move on to more inanities.

This whole story seems out of sync: last Sunday could have started out with Pouch and Tiger Lily watching Dollar Bill make a sale, with the dialogue explain that Dollar Bill was moving into some else’s turf. Then on Monday we could have jumped right past the “bust a user” and get into turf war, while working in scenes of Aquarius and his air-headed girlfriend. That would have set up the mystery of Auntie Bellum (HATE that name).

Hanging up on robocalls tells them there’s somebody at the random number they dialed. Let the stupid thing ring without encouraging them.

Ending the Some Drug War totally would take out their black-market suppliers eventually. Just as it did with alcohol.

“Sure but my face was was numb for a few hours.”….followed by a long nasal inhalation and wiping of the nose.

We’re on to you, Sam.

Better yet, on Robo-calls, don’t answer calls from numbers you don’t recognize. Let them leave a voice mail and/or screen them by checking the numbers on the internet. If the internet doesn’t give them the A+, don’t bother with them.

Very successful week for the MCU on this effort; what’s the effort again? Contrast with real life where endless arrests and long prison terms haven’t done much to the supply or the cost of the gunk-d’jour. – Consider a set of topics that Dick Tracy likely won’t touch: 1) A cop, say Derek Chauvin, kneels on a black man’s neck for 8:45 minutes and the man dies. What does Dick Tracy do? 2) Black Lives Matter organizes massive protests and there is a lot of looting and arson of stores. What does Dick Tracy do?

If there’s not a name that we recognize on our Caller ID, we won’t answer the phone.