Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for January 31, 2023

Not to mention the charge of having ordered the murder of Paul…

“My shoes are out on the fire escape. I’ll just be a minute.”

I wouldn’t give that rat a second!

Good morning™, everybody!

Dekko is even more surprised by Tracy than Sue was!

I wonder if Tracy has received the verdict from the critic panel. If only Art Dekko had had another 500 years, but then it would still be 500 years too young.

The panels are still bleeding into the gutters.

is Art planning to make a run for it?… Sue must have spilled the whole plan to Dick earlier… and Art has four toes…

Good morning™, spank the monkeys !

I know. He has to use the restroom and will slip out the window Happy Days style.

Are the panels flexing like they do at Nine Chickweed ?

The paint was still wet…

I hope Tracy did not underestimate Dekko. What is going to happen in that minute that Dekko requested?

Hard to understand how Tracy has evidence to bust Dekko for the art forgery, seeing as how there’s no direct evidence directly connecting him to it. After all, the painting was “discovered” in Europe by one of his associates or partners, not by Dekko. They may suspect Paul did the actual artwork, but there’s no evidence connecting Paul to Dekko either, except for the phone message Blaze discovered in Dekko’s office a while back, but that’s pretty flimsy evidence for a murder charge, even in TracyVille. 99 removed the incriminating evidence from Paul’s apartment, & it’s hard to see why she would dime Dekko out, she herself said she needed him to complete the sale. Maybe Sue Reel spilled the beans after Tracy (off screen) told her about Paul’s murder, but if she knew Dekko was a killer would she really stick around? Maybe Mike will explain this, or maybe once again a story is being phoned in.

That should be “pretty flimsy evidence for. forgery charge”.

“Art Dekko didn’t get where he is by avoiding Foot-Mouth Disease.”

Sue Reel is happy to be rid of Art Dekko. Now, she and her mustache, will both have peace.

Okay, I give up who has the painting? If Rip Van Dekko got it, the item is coming into court as evidence.

Whoa! What is happening with Dick Tracy? This whole story resembles a sitcom with the exception of Paul getting snuffed.

Mr. Curtis has not written a rock solid Dick Tracy story since the Aquarius saga ended, almost two years ago.

But this story is a good effort which moves in the right direction. It promises better results from Curtis’s future outings.

Let me guess, tomorrow there will be an escape attempt? Is there a light switch near him tomorrow?

Tracy better hope that Dekko doesn’t use his gargantuan ears to generate hurricane-force winds, inside that attic!

Don’t forget to deploy your parachute, detective!

You’re gonna need it!

What a joke

The team did choke

The story will fail

A comicstrip jail

Can Mike post bail

Is he going to “Dekko-rate” a jail cell?

Leaving the paint aside, which would have been what made the fact it was a fake pretty fast (even if you find materials the suitable age to pass C-14 examination the effects of five centuries of age can’t be faked very well) Dekko can’t have provided much of a provenance if Tracy can arrest Dekko so quickly.

On the other hand, whoever Dekko hired to provide the provenance would have likely sung like a canary, blaming everything on Dekko when the gendarme snapped the cuffs on him/her.

Well Art Dekko gets a rest and an Arrest. And I think the plot development is arrested too…

Wonder if Dekko is going to go for a gun?

Me is kinda new around here in tracyville. So this character guy or gal? Me guess he a guy for he not has moustache.

….cue in Petula Clark’s “Downtown”………

“D-do they have bananas in the big house?”

“SURE they do. Lots and lots of bananas. Peanut, too, so come along…”

“PEANUTS? So they finally nailed Linus on that Great Pumpkin scam?! Dangittawhizbo, Tracy!”

Now, how did Tracy determine the age? Does he have custody of the painting? How and where did he get it? Probably got it off-panel while we were reading about Warbucks.

Giving him a minute may be a mistake………………..

I see a bullet flying real soon…

Like Tracy going wise-ass there.

How did they link him to it? He isn’t involved in the discovery…

1-ART: YAWN! You delivering pizza now? DT: NO. I convinced a judge to give me an arrest warrant for fraud.

2-ART: WHAT? HOW COULD YOU CONNECT ME TO THAT FAKE DA VINCI?

3-DT: You mean De Haven, right? This is a warrant for those fake Derby Dugan cells you been selling. Heh heh – selling cells

ART: Whew! For a minute I thought you had miraculously connected me to the new Da Vinci! What a relief.

DT: We’ll get to that when this Da Vinci fella comes in and make a complaint. NOW GET DRESSED! For modesty’s sake, I’ll turn around but DON’T TRY ANY MONKEY BUSINESS!

Editor’s Note: How’s THAT for a call back? I bet you all had forgotten about what started this story all those long, long, loooonnnngggg months ago!

careful Tracy, you’ll make a monkey out of him.

MOVIE QUOTE

MOE:“How do you like that?Wanted for vagrancy!”

SHEMP:“What’s vagrancy?”

LARRY: “You take a flower and it smells real nice.That’s vagrancy”.

SHEMP: “HA!!WE can beat that rap!”

MOE: “You chowderhead. Vagrancy is when you’re a hobo or a tramp!”

SHEMP: “Oh,oh. We can’t beat that one!!”

MERRY MAVERICKS—1951

Last time Tracy tried to take him in, Dekko produced a classic Thompson sub-machine gun.

Trapped in a dead end room without a machine gun to his name.

And Tracy won’t need a night sight this time.

Tracy wouldn’t be there unless the art committee had ALREADY rendered its verdict and passed it on.

I think the issue of who’ll deliver Dekko’s takeout meals has just been solved……

I wonder why Tracy didn’t use the phrase, “You are under arrest” which is a bit different than “we are taking you into custody?” Other than arrests, police take people into custody to protect them. Charlie 21 was a witness who needed to be kept in custody in order to testify. Unless Tracy has definite proof that Dekko hired Paul (I don’t know how to prove that with Paul dead), he can only hold Dekko for a short amount of time on suspicion. Otherwise, he will have to let Dekko back out.

Ray,please keep trying to get the guy off when we all want to see him hang.

And when somebody’s arrested,do they ever go UPTOWN?

What fans want from this strip is to be told and to be shown who Dick Tracy is. We want a great detective for the 21st century. We don’t just want culturally fresh and hard-edged storylines, we want a criminal investigator who is not just dogged in his pursuit of justice…we want a hero cop who moves and thrives in 4 dimensions, one who questions who he is and one who evolves while solving this mystery. We want a detective who is just as brilliant and bold as his diverse enemies are…a detective who not only knows crime doesn’t not pay, but a self-sacrificing cop who wants the bad guys to pay for their crimes, without becoming a public service message in the process.

“Gimme a minute!”? Given your past history trying to arrest Art Dekko, Detective Tracy, I’d be very alert and ready to react if the little lying conman tries anything!

As it is, it looks as though the MCU has Dekko on the fraud charge, but is still in the dark regarding the murder of Paul Chandler by professional mechanic Kryptonite. That murder most foul may out once Dekko is given the Third Degree (hey, this is old-time policing) and Sue Reel even if unwittingly gives up a clue or two….

I can’t believe dj Whizzle missed this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYW0YVQ_b_4