Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for July 18, 2018

Good morning™, thock-ers!

Grimm seems to have lost an M today!

Tracy fighting back.

A rolling pin in his hand.

Grimm is down and out.

Now that Tracy already used the rolling pin, it will now be a fist fight with Sawtooth

A rolling pin used as a belaying pin to kayo one of the grim miscreants.“Its clobber’en time!”

That Thock! My, how, how, how Batman that was!

gee, that’s a half-baked idea though….knowingly invite two killers into your home and take them on with your wife, rather than call police…

Oh yeah! Now this is more like it. I wish the Mr. Bribery case ended something like this.

Maybe it’s my artsy-fartsy art history and cinema studies making much ado about nothing but I’m seeing some deadly foreshadowing in today’s 2nd panel. Maybe Grimm suddenly becoming “Grim” is on purpose… as in the Grim Reaper. And the arc showing Tracy’s swing added to the rolling pin makes them look like a scythe. Is Sam going to respond to Tracy’s alert and arrive just in time to fatally avenge his midnight beatdown? Tune in tomorrow, armchair detectives: same Tracy time, same Tracy channel!

Called it!

I was just wondering why Tracey has a rolling pin for making bread. ??

“THOCK” All caps. No exclamation mark needed. Classic underused comic vocabulary.

Tracy swinging for the fences, knocks one outta the park!

Looks like Tracy is just…loafing around!

BD EYEAAAAAAAAHHHH!

Classic comic strip thing: a rolling pin as a weapon. Usually it’s for a wife to beat her husband, though.

Can’t wait to see what Tess is going to do tomorrow. Hopefully not get herself taken hostage.

Se th me fightin har

Goo agains evi tw agains on

Tes i dow fo th coun

wh wil b standin aroun

THOCK? THOCK!!! Suddenly it comes to Grimm several months later in his cell – time to bet his accumulated jail monthly commissary stipends on THOCK in the fifth race at Belmont…

thats gonna leave a mark!

Go for Sawtooth’s mouth, Tracy – let’s see just how strong those teeth are.

Perhaps the first time in cartoon history a rolling pin has been wielded by a male—though what he was doing with it earlier isn’t clear. You don’t use a rolling pin to make the sort of bread he’s been working on.

Andy Capp’s wife taught Tracy how to effectively use a rolling pin as a weapon !!

That’s Andy Cap BTW. Go Dic, Go Tes, Go Sawtoot, you’re fired copyreade

I wish Mike would follow the style of Chester Gould in the matter of “sound effects”. Gould used them very, very sparingly, and his panels showing action were very effective because of it. There was something very Dick Tracy about a shot of action taking place in a silent panel.

More cool action! Sawtooth as a silhouette is most effective. (Has anyone used the “bitten off more than he can chew” line yet?)

Love Sawtooth’s eyes!!

It’s looking grim for Grim[m] (who lost his second M not once but twice!): THOCK goes the weasel. And now it’s just hairy brute Tracy and spectral vengeance-seeker Sawtooth, as loaves fly in all directions.

Will Tess recover in time to be of assistance? I begin to wonder. Will MCU reinforcements arrive in time to aid Tracy against the steel-toothed villain? I dunno. But I do like the action!