Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for August 05, 2020

Vista Bill has joined Coney’s vagabond group of misfit criminals?

Why do I stay up so late when I know I’m gonna be disappointed in the strip?

There’s gotta be a medical term for this illness, Tracy20 perhaps?

From the direction of the word balloon arrow in panel two the wrong hand is drawn holding the cell phone.

At least that’s how it appears to me.

Good morning, dejected hopelessness !

That poor girl looks like she’s going into a major sob fest. This is a much darker moment for her than all that shooting at the beginning of the story.

Good morning™, readers!

The angle of the phone in frame 2 is odd and the angle of the left boot in the last frame is also quite strange (far forward and pointing to his left), but the strip gets the message across. Dethany is very upset that her fiancé is in danger. The next move will be hers to make, once the nameless stranger leaves to let her convince Ms. Trellis to give up the warehouse that she refuses to sell.

An evil Howdy Doody! Ya just gotta love this strip!

Looks like Howdy is living up to his surname, “Doody”

Woody has got very dark these day……..

Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest couldn’t find Stooge’s treasure in years till the warehouse is sold and they resort to kidnapping and blackmail. DT wil have their head and melt Coney’s ice cream brain.

Call Tracy, quickly!

Who you gonna call next……GhostBusters!!!

Don’t forget the 48 freckles. (One for each state in the Union at his creation.)

Is her fiance that far up the career ladder at Fastrack? I thought he was head of their security department. Howdy and company must be real confident to think Dethany has the influence to change corporate minds. That being said, she’s been hit in her Achilles’ heel.

I hate this guy and the ones behind him. Poor Dethany.

1-HOWDY DOOGIE: Here’s your prize for winning the Hotel Peephole game. DETH WARMEDOVER: A celly! Nice!

2-HOWDY: No, you’ve won a date with Guy. GUY PRONOUNCED GEE: WAIT! Do I have no say in thees? She looks like ze ghost!

3-HOWDY: Fine ya big baby! Alternatively, you can have my boots.

DETH: Hmmm. Let me compare. Beautiful brown color…nice little accents…sure to get attention on the street.

HOWDY: You’re talking about Guy, aren’t you.

DETH: Yeah. Your boots smell like you walk behind a horse that has digestive problems. HOWDY: RUDE! But good call.

This story is getting “stupider and stupider” with each passing day

Howdy sure isn’t the sharpest crayon in the box. She knows who he is and she knows Tracy.

It’s like one of those teen-age horror movies. You shout, “Don’t open the door!” then she opens the door.

I really hope she doesn’t try to handle this internally, as Howdy instructs her. The usual trope in this kind of situation is for the person being extorted to try to figure it out on their own, which only makes it worse, It would be very refreshing if she “agreed” to Howdy’s demands, but then went to Tracy at the first opportunity. Because now this is a real, first class felony. Tracy and the team can go all out on it.

Of course, there is the possibility that they will be watching her for just such a move. But I doubt they have the capability to monitor all her possible ways to contact Tracy. (One time in the 50s, Vitamin Flintheart was extorted by T.V. Wiggles, who threatened to harm Sparkle Plenty if demands weren’t met. But Vitamin disguised himself as a cleaning lady, and walked right into Police HQ.) Today, she has access to cell phone technology. Call Dick Tracy!

Time to call Tracy back

Can JP still link the stories ?

https://www.hugedomains.com/domain_profile.cfm?d=ilovecomix&e=com

Obviously he didn’t pay attention to the “Deth” part of her Name or her fondness for Coffins.

Dethany will remember Howdy’s cowboy boots if nothing else. This will be a fatal identifier when we get to the Showdown in Tracyville….

Don’t anybody worry about Dethany. She’s as tough as a Tennessee pine knot.

Yeah, don’t look at the face of the man who kidnapped your boyfriend, keep your gaze at foot-level .. yeah, that’ll make it easy to i.d. him …