Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for February 09, 2020

Shaky is dead as a door-nail. This must be understood

They found his bones beneath the pier. His life came to no good.

A birthday cake and candle, yet who might celebrate

A doppelganger Shaky. The first one not so great.

Shake and fake. What will it take to figure out just who

Receives a cake a gal did bake. A face that most would rue.

Calling Dick Tracy! I smell a rat. Danger in the air

This birthday boy clearly brings no joy. He is foul, not fair.

Good morning™, long-time fans!

Long-time readers will remember that Shaky died long ago, so who could this be? For that matter, who is the woman? I suppose it might be his girlfriend for wife.

Alright, another classic Chester Gould era villain is back!

Bring Flattop back to life to battle Tracy!

Good morning™, newly found sons of the long dead !

Nice rendering of this “Shaky” character. Is he leaving his role as Pizza chain founder-entrepreneur to follow in his namesake’s life of the underworld crime figure ?

Golly gee

Another chance to see

If Joe, Mike and crew

Can finally see one through

Or will this story end

More a foe than like a friend

If it’s anything like the last

All hope will fade away fast

My head will surely shake

And my heart is bound to ache

When this current train derails

And becomes another fail

That chick sure looks like the female half of team Lena!

Shaky Jr.? Another evil clone? Or is this going to be a flashback arc?

Is that the same chick who killed Mrs. Flattop a couple years ago?

I’m betting they use the old “misidentified corpse trick” to explain this…..or maybe there’s a Shaky, Junior no one knew about.

“Shake -y and Bake”!

Whole Lotta Shakin’ going on here!!!

No more Mysta? Too bad.

So much for my theory of Roboto removing his mask.

uh, do they make cars with those buggy whip antenna anymore?

I have to admit I was certain there’d be some character development for Mr Roboto today. Why he liked a so-so band if nothing else. Some insight into his choice of careers would’ve been nice. Instead it all just turned out to be an opportunity for Mike to quote some of his favorite band’s lyrics. Not much of a foundation upon which to build a new Tracy villain.

Well, I suppose this could be a descendant of Shaky who inherited his looks and his nerve disease. Old timers like me can say we’ve seen plenty of Shaky’s family members: Step-daughters Breathless and Heartless Mahoney, Granddaughter Restless Mahoney, and his niece Quiver Trembly and nephew Tom Trembly. I guess there could be another fall out if you keep shaking the tree.

“Now we’re off to Shakey’s Pizza for some thin crust! And shakes, if they have ’em!”

1-What turns a man from the path of righteousness?

2-Some say the lack of a mother’s love can be the foundation upon which evil builds

3-Others say that some people are simply born with an evil spirit

4-Who can really know the answer to this age-old question?

5-One thing’s certain though – if you’re hideous and or weird and live in Tracyville, you’re gonna be a criminal. You might as well be issued a gun and a copy of Little Caesar at birth. Your first words will probably be “STICK ‘EM UP”. And under no circumstances should you be given a normal name. Rather, one that ridicules your unfortunate affliction should follow you for life. No soul searching for you. No “what should I do with my life?” No sir. It’s all figured out for you. You lousy scum.

Dick Tracy is probably my favorite comic. I like the art and the story, both are always well done (even if I do pick at certain things) and I gotta say the camaraderie among the posters is usually congenial and pleasant. I always enjoy y’alls Tracy Talk. Thanks.

I’m surprised that the last story ended on a Friday without a wrap-up for the “Sunday’s only” readers. I’d like to have seen a page with Mysta taking an extra curtain call at her next performance, with Vitamin’s commentary about knowing how to keep the audience always wanting more. The story was the first one since I’ve been reading to pass the 7 week cut-off they seem to be working under, so onto the next story!

According to the online Dick Tracy Museum, Shaky last appeared in 1945. That was 75 years ago. Not coincidentally IMHO, U.S. Copyright Law states that intellectual property created as works made “for hire” lose their protection after 75 years from last appearance or 100 years from creation, whichever is soonest. So Shaky’s “birthday present” is actually a self-purchased gift by Tribune Media to extend their ownership of the Shaky character for another 25 years…

If you are in the Textbook’s position, in case a creep knocks on the window, DO NOT have your phone visible, or you’ll completely blow the gag.. Just sayin’

who the heck are those two?

Those who remember that Shaky died years ago, remember no one stays dead in comic strips/books. We all thought Jean Grey, Flash (Barry Allen) Supergirl, and Bucky Barnes were dead, only to see them alive due to doppelgangers and retcons of their universes. I wonder how Joe & Mike will explain Shaky’s revival?

Well now that the Roboto epic was left up in the air, it’s time to recycle a long dead villain created by a real storyteller, one Chester Gould. I’ll assume the zombie like reappearance will be explained like B.B. Eyes’, using a device not yet invented to escape drowning. If this newbie is indeed old Shakes, that cake should have about 105 candles on it. Whatever tomorrow brings.

Didn’t Shaky freeze to death in 1945? Must be his grand son….hmmmmmm?

So who was Roboto?

A cake? He didn’t want pizza? ;)

Maybe a Necromancer roams the concrete canyons of Tracy’s city? Resurrecting the long dead to serve them in the present. Possibly some kind of cloning scheme to return the dead to seeming life? A life like robotic double to confound the police especially Det. Dick Tracy.

Some poor person turned into a facsimile of Shaky to cause trouble mayhap? Take note of the one candle on the cake….

This is what I call a Shaky start.

A gal who looks an awful lot like Sprocket Nitrate, baking a birthday cake for a guy who looks like and is called Shaky—who is long dead.

So, what’s up, Doc? Is it meant to be significant that the cake has only one candle? Are we getting all shook up over a clone?

We shall see….

OK. So another dumb story is over and I’m glad we’re through with it. But Holy…. Where’s the closure on Roboto? Who was he? Did Mysta get to the theatre on time for the show? I mean, Come On, Man! Finish a story no matter how bad it is. The art work may be good, but the story lines suck!!

To quote a certain Western character actor—-“What in the wide,wide world of sports is a-going on here???”.No way in rhymes-with-well is THIS guy coming back.But another correspondent points out that there are sides of Shaky’s family tree that have gone unexplored.Not to mention Quiver Trembly is still in the mix,and she’d fanatically worship her late relative.

Greetings, future readers of past strips and comments! (Whomever you might be)

If you’ve been reading the DT strips and comments of the past 4 years, you’d know that this would normally be the time when I post my updated list of all the DT stories available on GoComics, and that I normally do this near the top. If you’ve read the past few months of strips and comments, you’d know that twice in the previous few months, I posted my list near the top, but it has since been erased. I was unhappy about this and contacted the Moderating team, requesting that these lists be restored. They wrote back that once a message is removed, it can’t be restored due to the limitations of their system.

However, they didn’t give any reason for why this erasure happened, so I’m assuming that there is no reason for it, that this is just some innocent, unintentional blunder on their part that just keeps happening. And if GC is unable to fix their own blunder, I’m more than able and willing to fix it for them. So I’ll be recreating this list in the replies below.

Sadly, what I can’t do, since I didn’t know that this blunder was going to happen or keep on happening, is recreate the record of the number of likes these comments got at the time, the lists of the people who liked them, or any of the replies from other people these comments got at the time. However, I will be keeping track of these things, just in case this happens again. There’s been a total of 3 erased lists. Hopefully, there won’t be a fourth, but if there is, I will be able to recreate the original likes and replies along with my comments.