Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for September 19, 2020

Good morning™ on the straight and narrow!

Brenda Starr is a proud teacher so far.

Score for days in the story so far: Dick Tracy 4, Brenda Starr 3, Annie and Honeymoon 5, Stokes 11.

Aha! Brenda Starr IS a vamp! She didn’t have to seduce the girls’, they did that to themselves with their own journalistic idealism. But through them she did DID manipulate “Pop Pop” Dick Tracy into investigating someone that her instincts say is a person of interest. She’s a wily scamp, that one…

She’s got Venus Flytrap Eyes!

First panel, and first panel only, I thought Richard was about to “call her out” for having “those meddling kids” go straight for the lion’s den.

Oh, well. I can hope, can’t I?

Granted, it’s at least 30 years since I last saw a Brenda Starr comic strip. But I don’t recall her being drawn with spiders in her hair.

Something for Brenda to investigate while the girls are interviewing Professor Nosferatu: Does Dick ever take off that yellow rain slicker? Even if it’s sunny and 101 degrees?

Good morning™, gorgeous green eyes !

I thought Dick was going to give her a dressing down and if he did she would not budge. I like her moxie and that of the girls.

Wonder what Starr does for a living since she’s not a newspaper reporter? Run a private journalism school?

Nice work on drawing Tracy in today’s strip.

Where’s Hank O’Hair?

Man, that’s some head of hair in panel 1!

“A” in initiative? and having sent them right at the vampire killer-or at least a potential target if the vampire wants to silence a source on info- let’s hope they don’t get a ‘d’ for dead/.

And Brenda gets a giant F for her reporter’s and feminine intuition.

Brenda gives go advice to reporters to show initiative. The vary thing CNN,MSNBC, CNBC,ABC, NBC and CBS have all butforgotten or care about.

1-DT: We got a lead on the two kids who helped kill that vampire, Red…

2-Under my expert interrogation, they said your boyfriend Stokes’ stink is all over this murder. “STOKES’ STINK” You can use that as your headline if you want. It rolls off the tongue I think. RED: The only thing that rolls off that hunk a man’s tongue is… DT: I gotta tell you that anything you say may be used against…

3-RED: What if I told you that me and Stokes were together the entire night of the murder. He helped me wash my hair. As you can imagine, it takes hours.

DT: Oh yeah? What if I told you I’ll be charging you as an Accessory After The Fact.

RED: Stokes you say? Never heard of him…

DT: Another “X” in the “Solved” column for Tracy!

I’m not following the dialogue. Brenda suggested the girls contact Stokes because… she knew that course of action would involve Tracy? Why does she want Tracy involved? Wouldn’t he be already considering it’s a murder case in his jurisdiction? And if Brenda suspects Stokes is involved, why risk the tweens? Why not go directly to Tracy w/ her suspicions?

I realize the point Mike’s trying to make w/ Brenda’s nature (hint: she’s a crafty one!) but I don’t understand the means he’s using to present it.

Just to let y’all know… i’m in the process right now of penning the ending (yes.. the ending!) of “DIAMONDS ARE A GIRL’S BEST FRIEND” and i’ll let ya know when it’s up (and post the link again)

Here’s a (fake) letter to Marvel Comics from Summer 1965: “The Fantastic Four have too many crossovers in their own comic! Let’s see, Hulk, Ant-Man (and the Wasp), Nick Fury, the Avengers, the X-Men, Daredevil, and in the latest Annual, characters from practically the entire Marvel line, including Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, even Patsy and Hedy! This ‘Marvel Universe’ idea needs to be discarded – these crossovers will never catch on!” LOL

Is she flirting with Tracy?

What’s with all the complaints about seeing Stokes. Didn’t any of you do homework? am I the only one who did research for writing a paper? That’s all they’re doing – interviewing an expert on the subject. A college professor should be a lot more reliable source than Wikipedia.

Brenda Starr, ex-reporter, is practiced in the art of deflection (sic). Like many (I should say most) politicians she knows how to “answer” a question by speaking many, many words that never address what was actually asked. In her response (panels 2 & 3) she has not given Tracy even the slightest hint of why she recommended that the girls interview Stokes—only some platitudes about inquisitive reporters and initiative….

Wait a minute. Hold the phone. Wasn’t Tracy ALREADY involved with this case? Why get the darlings involved at this point?

There seems to be an emerging viewpoint here lately that Tracy & Brenda are the true villains of this story, with all their alleged endangerment of minors and plotting secret agendas. Is it too late to sic Buffy or Kolchak on Stokes instead?

What’s with the drawing of her eyes? even I know how to draw eye creases. And if they’re suppose to represent sparkles, shouldn’t they be white or yellow to represent silver or gold?