Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for June 06, 2024

Enjoy a brand new VengyTale – “The Unexpected Visitor!”

In your search bar type in Youtube Avenger09

Cherabim and Serafim…

Cherry and Sarah…

“Angels in appearance, devils in practice”

Sounds like all the women Firestrike has ever dated! LOL!

Good morning™, all!

So, their method is to continually bleed the victims dry without any end. It must be a horrible way for the victims to live.

All three of the blackmailers have names alluding to angels, but names can indeed be deceiving. They don’t have a “printer’s devil” (an apprentice in a printing establishment), but they are certainly devils anyway. Now it’s up to Lee and Lizz to find the connection to Gabriel and his minions. They almost have it.

Good morning™, Sad Tales of Woe !

This is one story where I Really want some bad violence to happen to these “angels”. I don’t like that my namesake had been made to suffer and squirm so much.

At least I got the “Good morning” header …….Before the Mad Flagger hits Neil again.

The plot thickens … How did Gabriel know about Pierce’s apparent criminal involvement in the RTC scandal, when not even the megabank he was currently working for had no clue, & presumably they did a thorough background check when he was hired. Pierce did have that incriminating record sheet he apparently held onto for his entire life, which seems kind of idiotic. I suspect the brother knew about the document & leaked it to Gabriel. He seems a little suspicious. Nice artistic touch, giving the flashback scenes of the brothers having the same documentary news reel look of the panels a week or so ago showing the collapse of Court Bank.

Someone suggested he was Gordie’s son, which I find a viable possibility.

Quoting Elvis? (fits the strip): “You look like an angel, Walk like an angel, Talk like an angel, But I got wise, You’re the devil in disguise!”

What is the easiest way to rob a bank? With a gun or with an MBA and a Brooks Brother’s Suit and sitting behind a desk? Clearly, the latter will get you little to no jail time and your life won’t be completely ruined, unlike the former.

Okay, why was dear old dad being vague on the identity of the blackmailers? First, it didn’t make a lot of sense to pay them in the first place. He should have gone to the police at first contact and the police would have arrested them (the police would have wired Pierce). But there are victims who don’t want their past revealed and pay, hoping that will be the end of it. Pierce was supposedly bright enough to be head of a huge bank. So he should have had a clue when the second payment was demanded.

The ‘keep paying the blackmailer ’til you’re broke’ then kill yourself’ is a well-established literary trope (maybe even a cliché). But why the enigmatic response to, “Dad, who’s doing this to you?” Finger them and wonder if son will go with literary trope of offing the blackmailers. (The Victorian detectives were always sympathetic in such cases, sometimes telling the Yard, ‘Darn, Lestrade, I can’t identify the killer.’)

The Angel in your arms this morning, is gonna be the Devil in someone else’s arms tonight….

Lizz seems taken aback by Young Pierce’s fist-pounding and finger-pointing, but she’s poised with her poison pen to settle his hash if necessary….

NUNS!

“But at first the papier mache wings threw me off…”"

Uh, a question. Are you going to learn how the Heavenly Choir heard of Pierce’s slightly shady past? Are we to believe they’ve broken through the security of the FDIC (in the strip – in real life it would be the financial institution that purchased the paper of the defunct Savings-and-Loan) and have been looking at millions of documents, and tracing where the people who signed them are today, and how well off financially? Did a former employee, X, at the S&L make an illegal copy of the transaction years ago – when it wasn’t even considered a shady transaction at the time, but totally legit? Why risk your own job by doing something you weren’t supposed to do? And if X recognized the blackmail potential 40 years later why didn’t X blackmail Pierce himself instead of going through 4T? Was X just hoping to peddle the info for a little for a small $, and did the Choir recognize the blackmail potential and go for the $$$$$$$$$$?

Prediction: We’re not going to hear a back ground for how it came into Gabriel’s possesion.

1-PETER PIERCER: Dad was worried that my chin looked small. LEE: GASP! PETER: I checked and it seemed ok to me. But…

2-…Dad always maintained that men are judged by the size of their chin and that I would never be respected if mine was considered to be small…

3-…It really enraged him! I’d already had Michael Jackon Chin Surgery but he wasn’t satisfied. He blamed Mother’s genes. LEE: I get it. That’s why Dick Tracy, aka Granite Butt Chin is our boss while Sam is the equivalent of one of those Bozo blow-up punching bags that always pop back up when you hit them.

LIZ: Sam would never pop back up after a punch! LEE: He would see it as an opportunity for a nap! PETER: HA HA HA! That’s so funny! Uh, who’s Sam?

Nicely rendered page today easily and seamlessly switching between the present and the flashback. Great execution. Well done, Charles.

It must be said again…great art work!!

Is this supposed to be a battle between criminals we hate and criminals we feel sorry for?

And what of junior and mom here? Did they know dad was a thief this whole time?

Sounds like most (not all) attorneys…

cue the dark ambient music with discordant overtones which, although broadly tonal, is inflected with chromatic and polytonal passages representing the archetypal example of a florid, melodramatic style without being interpreted as an overly heavy-handed metaphor within the context of the thematic material a bit on the frenetic and frantic side with interesting rhythmic devices which seem to counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor utilizing a novel imaging technique known as positron emission tomography and the spontaneous nondenominational conceptions by expansively recontextualizing liminal narratives of colonic hydrotherapy with a twinge of giddiness

Was him talking about the two secretaries?

“They’re angels in appearance and devils in practice”. Sounds like a slogan for the sides of panel trucks.

So this is about the redhead & the blonde back on the 26th? The way she said “I’m sorry about the way the Pierce affair ended.” Are they the two angels who are really devils.

Could only be the babes at TTTT.

Driving somebody to suicide IS a crime…..