Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for April 29, 2022

Good morning™, all!

That’s the kind of a “chat” where you wish you were not being chatted at! She looks calmer listening to his explanation and receiving her scarf back from him. (That scarf was pink when she dropped it. Since then, it’s been red.)

Anyway, it’s been a long night and airtime for their morning show is coming up fast. When they meet with the producers, will she be arguing that he should stay or will she argue that he should go or will she just leave it up to them?

(Four frames from those who care about that. It’s usually only possible when there are a couple of frames with no dialogue.)

CoffyHead’s smug look! “Glad I don’t have dame trouble like that! Guido! Backrub time!!”

With dialogue, often less is more. ✨

A really trooper, putting the show ahead of her feelings! LOL!

Good morning™, scarfers !

“I’ll go out and hail us a cab as only I can. Maybe Tracy can give a us a ride to the studio. Dibs on the siren.”

Dot’s doing it wrong! She should be using six hands, not two! So, will Coffy be invited to be part of the studio audience for the show?

Can’t they charge Coffy with kidnapping?

What’s Coffyhead doing in the background?

Enter Three Dog Night and the circus music.

Very good today, you can really tell what is going on, I like the expressions!

There’s really no other logical explanation as to why Coffyhead is free other than sloppy storytelling. Does anyone really believe that an intelligent woman like Dot wouldn’t press charges?

Uh, I was wondering about that. Dot does a morning show on the local station. They didn’t notice when she didn’t show up yesterday? They didn’t call the police? It didn’t make local news? Even if her show is only weekdays and she was kidnapped on Saturday night no one in town notices her? Her producer or writer doesn’t call and confirm the Monday program?

And the producers will probably say, Hey kids – keep the fight going! It’ll drive up ratings! (Look what one slap did for the Oscars…)

What is he handing her in panel 2? It looks like a red handkerchief.

I have to say I like it when Shelley draws Matt’s left eye softer, it’s more “natural” not as off putting.

first panel looks like they’re married already

“And besides, I’ve lined up a passable Senor Wences imitator who puts a wig and googly eyes on a baked ham. We’ll get by without you.”

OFF TOPIC: Okay, I’m going to tell you another story from my speckled past.

I moved here to do graduate work, but ended up taking job at the local CBS station. Now, we had a female named Joyce Livingston who had a pretty strange homemaking show that aired around the noon news. One of the perks to being on the floor crew was that, following cooking segment, you could eat the product of her vaguely alchemical experiments. TRUST me. I learned recipes that should ever have even been whispered in the most hushed tones.

Hands up anyone who can see where this is going!

Wellll, one Friday, she made creamy dessert (big and gloppy —Steve McQueen would have run, screaming like a little girl from it) but, due to a departmental meeting, nobody got to the food right away. It went into the fridge.

What nobody took into account was that, over the weekend, there was a power outage that must have lasted the better part of a day. Of course generators kept us on-air, but evidently the studio wasn’t included on that circuit.

I was off on Monday, but from what I heard, the crew dug into it first thing. It reportedly took three ambulances to cart them off. A shell-shocked survivor subsequently told me that, when management went back to slay the rancid beast, a faint green cloud rolled out when the fridge door was opened.

That last bit was probably a little embroidery on his part, but I liked it.

We’ll gloss over the other station tales, like when we built a 6’ concrete block wall around the weatherman when the cameras briefly cut to a weather chart. Or the time he had been drinking,and backed me (and my extremely bulky camera) clear across the studio, then leered into the lens and chortled ’Got you, Barney."

‘A chat’? Cease and desist and restraining orders are made from such chats! Unless you’re a celeb. Then it’s tabloid gold.

I double checked. “18 U.S.C. § 1201 provides the legal definition of the federal crime of kidnapping: Anyone who unlawfully seizes, confines, decoys, kidnaps, abducts, or carries away and holds for ransom or reward or otherwise any person, except in the case of a minor by the parent thereof.”

It also clarifies that “federal kidnapping law assumes that the victim has been taken across state lines if he or she is not released with 24 hours.” So even if you remain in the same state the Feds can knocking.

1-DOT: SO YOU HAD A HOOK-UP FOR COKE AND NEVER GAVE ME ANY?!?!

2-ASTRO: Sorry. But wait…

3-…I got your scarf back.

4-DOT: Well, ok. We cool then. ASTRO: Good. DOT: Great. ASTRO: Ok, then.

5- ME: SNORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRE!

MOVIE QUOTE—-

“It’s the biggest dope ring in years.And Jardinet is the head dope!”

Groucho Marx—-AT THE CIRCUS—1939

I suppose the producers will have the final say as to whether Matt keeps appearing on the show. In the second panel of today’s strip, he apparently had a Coffeyhead flashback.

There was an episode of THE FLINTSTONES where an Ed Sullivan lookalike says “The shew must go on!”

Somebody asks him why and he replies—-“Because if it doesn’t,we’ll have to give everybody theirrrrrrr….money back!”

Publicity isn’t on t he minds of either of our star crossed lovers.They just want to get out of this with their relationship and sanityin one piece.

@Maximara: Great research, but Dicko ain’t a Fed

Yeah. That guy should be up on kidnapping charges, no matter what. Gaping plot hole there.

Spoke with Mike last night. The storyline has some distance to go, so I imagine it’ll heat up shortly.

BE WITH US ON SUNDAY WHEN WE ANSWER SEVERALIMPORTANT QUESTIONS—-

1.)Does Coffyhead call his girlfriend “Sugar”?

2.)Will Blowtop enjoy his new job as a school bus driver?

3.)Why does Lizz use the name Worthington when she’s Groovy’s widow?

Well, I see all Dot is worried about is her show. I was hoping she would be really mad and put Matt out of his misery. I guess Coffeyhead will have to get rid of both of them. I think Dot and Matt will be checking in to the River bottom Hotel by sun down.

“The show must go on,” for sure, but at the producers’ meeting after, Matt’s TV guesting “career” may come to an end (or so I hope). A Happy Ending to the Dot View/Matt MCullar story is not something I favor, Quite Simply, no matter how dopey she is, Matt does not deserve the time of day from Dottie….

Great. Tornadoes hitting around here.Looks as if Andover, some 20 miles from here, got nailed again. Just heavy rain here.