Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for July 08, 2018

Sourdough

Wouldn’t you know

Tracy makes good feeds.

Sweet surprise

See soft dough rise

After Tracy kneads.

Charity

Now look to see

Friends flock to Fine Eats.

Be wary

Side arm carry

Bad guys he defeats.

Sawtooth near?

Tracy not fear

Hit man on the loose.

Try to kill

Much blood will spill

Sawtooth wears the noose.

Well I’m ready for some down home meals.

Are Abner and Rikki repeating themselves?

Good morning™, mail readers!

We first heard about Tracy’s sourdough bread on February 6, 2017.

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2017/02/06

Am I the only one who thinks this is a trap?

Hmmmm……I wonder…….

Me thinks the invite was sent by Sawtooth!

Thanks for the Crimestoppers note. I had a call from a woman last week, wanting me to work with “her company” with my last published book. After some fact-checking, I learned this “company” was mostly a scam, with them wanting money from authors for marketing books and then never hearing from them again.

A couple of Christmases ago, a local farm gave me fresh butter and cheese as a present. A baker friend gave me some sourdough bread. Best…grilled cheese… ever.

Seeing Tracy’s excitement brings me to the conclusion that it must be a slow day

Maybe it’s Sawtooth, but how would Sawtooth know about Tracy’s sourdough bread, or familiarity with Ernie’s?

But the invitation is so bizarre it’s hard to believe it’s legit. Or that it doesn’t set off Tracy’s alarm bells.

I cannot think of any other time in the history of the strip (I am not familiar with all of the stuff subsequent to Gould, I admit) where Tracy said “Wahoo and Yippee” except once when it was clear he was being sarcastic – the time he was laid up with a broken leg at the Thorndyke mansion, and Debbie brought her society friends over to “party” with him. Baking gread is within his home life character, but shouting “Yipee” in the squad room definitely is not. But at least we get Tracy in his own strip on a Sunday, which hasn’t happened for 5 weeks, with the possible exception of one panel at Jr.s’ book signing.

@ KEN IN OHIO:

Sorry – “Baking bread”!

…Or maybe the reason Tracy is excited is because he realizes this is a trap set by Sawtooth and that next week he might get to appear in his own comic strip as the writers once against got back to the plot instead of giving us teenage angst and soap opera crushes. The strip might become Dick Tracy again instead of a cross between Apartment 3G and Mary Worth.(Not that I do not enjoy any time Honeymoon appears….)

This is a different angle for Tracy. It sounds like a Sawtooth trap to me.

While Tracy’s word choice is not typical, the light moment at the office is very Gouldian. Lizz’s wide eyes over the rim of her (trademarked) MCU mug is rich. The stationary from Ernie’s Fine Eats suggests the charity banquet is real, although it could all be a hoax perpetrated by Sawtooth. It is typical for Tracy to be off-panel for long stretches. Criminals and their victims often dominate the stories, while Tracy tends to react in the aftermath of bad deeds. Will Honeymoon begin sleuthing to discover the identity of Crystal’s father? Could it be Lafayette Austin or Sawtooth? Does Tracy keep a sourdough starter regularly refreshed and ready? I’m guessing Gravel Gertie was not invited to bring a pot of her “turnip surprise” to the banquet. Good to see that Sam has recovered from his run in with Sawtooth. Unlike Ygor, he seems none the worse for wear and tear.

Sigh to have Dicky say Yippee shows how ridiculously silly the strip has become.

“WAHOO”…. “YIPPEE”… have I stumbled across a "BEVERLY HILLBILLIES strip instead of Dick Tracy?

Good thing this isn’t TOO out of character!

Hopefully we are back to Dick Tracy again and leave the teenie-bobbers alone for awhile. “YIPPEE!”???

The real Ernie’s

www.erniescolumbia.com/home

Tracy beware. The last time he received a letter he ended up being trapped on Axel’s fantasy island (the Annie rescue arc).

“Wahoo!”? “Yippee!”? That great composition in the last panel matches my read on today’s strip: Tracy’s abnormal (for his character) unbridled exuberant joy as seen in his usually very firm jaw with Sam and Lizz’s surprised and perplexed eyes in the background.

Chief Wahoo?

With that “Wahoo,” Lizz should be doing a spit take with her coffee and Sam’s hat should be flying off his head in surprise. Then the next crossover could be Mutt and Jeff.

I will admit and agree with others here. The Yippe, and Wahoo /does seem/ a bit out of character for the great detective. It feels more like the 50s Batman honestly. (and please, no Bat-watoosie. I had to grow through that era.)

CD Tracy is more reserved professional than that. No…this has a distinct smell of a patch of stinkhorns in a well-trafficked cow-pasture. However to be honest as well. I don’t see Sawtooth having the brains to chew his cud and scratch his behind at the same time. Perhaps this is someone far more sinister, and clever? Cadaver perhaps?

I would like to thank all for their kind words in my time of grief. It was reassuring and humbling that you all would think so kindly of my family and I. Although it happened on the 6th of June, we now have time to actually see the reality instead of compartmentalizing it; she is gone after 79 years (and 52 for me.) But it was the good people of the net, and my best friend; my lab of 13 years who helped me through the first days.

Thank you, again.- Kan

Next crossover; Dick enters the Pillsbury Bake-off…land Sakes!

Good grief, Dick wasn’t this excited when they found him chained to a tree.

Welcome to TracyLand, where news & messages never ever arrives via email, like, in the entire rest of the world in the 21st century, but in snail mail.

The more I think about this, I really hope Tracy doesn’t trustingly walk into this obvious trap. An unexpected letter arriving in the mail, telling him he’s invited to a shindig he knew nothing about? In Gould’s day, that letter would be in the lab by now, under iodine fumes for fingerprints, document analysis would be underway to see if the inks are the same as the inks on a true restaurant letterhead, Sam would be on his way to talk to the owners of the restaurant about this supposed charity event, etc. etc.

Either we are just marking (wasting) time today, or this invitation supposedly from Ernie’s will somehow tie into a real plot line. Will Sawtooth use the occasion to ambush Tracy the baker? Or did he in fact send this invitation, which is in that case phony—but easily checked, so that seems dubious at best.

As for Tracy’s outbursts of surprisingly unreserved language, I guess even Old Square Jaw can have a giddy moment….