Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for January 15, 2021

Good morning™, barflies!

EJ’s has shown up at least twice before as a popular hangout for criminal types. A number of villains were meeting and plotting there when Mrs. Flattop arrived and vowed to get rid of Tracy, once and for all (April 17 to 25, 2013). More recently, Lafayette Austin got a tip that Sawtooth’s partner, Grimm, got drunk at EJ’s and spilled all the info about where Sawtooth and he were heading (July 29, 2018).

I expect that one of the two phones that Pouch is uneasily “juggling” is a hard-to-trace burner, but I must say that his client is extremely unhappy about the delay getting the information that he urgently needs, judging by the “dialogue” coming out of the phone in panel 3.

Okay, maybe the goon is just a random goon.

Hey! Watch your language, pal! This is a family strip!

Good morning™, disgruntled irate customers !

Pouch is looking aggravated himself. Pouch’s reputation is on the line so Tiger had better come through. Who would Pouch call on to “take care” of an enforcer gone lame ?

What’s with the guy in the foreground in panel two, with the corks around his hat? Are we going to have an Aussie cameo, just to further drag out this slow arc?

This storyline is very good, until now.

Love the change in color tones. We’ve went from the dark blue of a cold winter night to the dirty grey and brown of the city’s underworld.

Meanwhile, Back at the ranch…! Or should I say precicnt!

What happened to the old comic standby of &*%$#!?

Is Pouch talking to Mumbles? Or Alice the Goon? Who speaks in squiggly lines?

The images are just fabulous today as usual . And in panel two ? I’m not sure what the dark images in the background are . And the cork hat is really cool .

That is one shady looking dive. I hope Carmen San Diego is being careful.

Like that hat on the guy in P2: umm, what are those things dangling from the brim called. again?

Next panel: “Hang on… bigger name on the other line.”

1-MEL T. FACE: I’m workin’ EJ’s tonight…

2-…Nah. No takers. Maybe fifteen cents is too rich for this clientele…

3-…MOTHER! I can’t talk to you when you get like this. Anyway, Dad is calling on the Dad Phone. Of course I still talk to him…No, he’s not a no good, low down SOB…MOTHER! I won’t tell him to do that to himself. GOOD BYE!

Hello Dad. Mom sends her best.

I guess it’s to set up the next story. Orrr… the Powers at the Trib decided the drug story had to end. Well, Pouch IS more interesting than Aquarius.

Throw it against the wall, maybe something will stick. BTW, Tess also called, she’s wondering where her husband went

I hope he’s talking to Mumbles. He was last seen as part that major crime organization right? (Their name escapes me)

Pouch is about business…has two cell phones at his disposal. (no pun intended)

Contrary to some negative comments above, I think this story is moving along just fine and is one of the most interesting in recent times. If it stays on track to a satisfactory conclusion, it will go down in my book as a solid winner.

Pouch the Information Broker is doing two phones at once (maybe both burn phones, considering his business) in the shady, sleazy EJ’s—they even serve Aussie corkers (something new to me I learned here)!

The censors strike again in P3.