Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for December 11, 2020

Good morning™, park people!

This customer doesn’t care about Pouch. He just wants his junk! I see that Pouch has a new associate. At least, I don’t ever remember seeing him before. Do any of you knew him from any past story?

The old saying is true. No honor among thieves.

Even the Amish have coke heads!

Kinda like Pouch’s new henchman. Kinda looks Gouldian, too.

A new henchman enters. Say hi to Pizza-Face!

Good morning™, turf invaders !

Boy !  Have these guys got some nerve. Pouch owns this little piece o’ heaven … until he is asked to produce a document by park or regular police. Will “Squinty” be pressed to challenge Dollar Bill ?

Tiger Lilly! Sound effect developer, golf course owner, and murderous career criminal packed in a villain from 1940s. His decreased brother John was engaged to Frizzletop during a war. She was one started the Tiger Lilly arc.

Back in the day before wisdom prevailed, it seemed best to pick different locations for meeting one’s greens keeper.

I see a turf war coming!!!

Looks like Dollar Bill is about to meet the competition.

Raise your hand if you’re finding the introduction to the new arc confusing.

Mine is up .

When the strip descends to two-panel days and the vistas shown don’t require larger panels, I tend to think of previous patterns of the strip where there is not enough story and two panel days are just to stretch things out to fill the time. Now we have a revival of an old character nobody knows or cares about…how nostalgic.

1- SUMMER O. LOVE: Glassine or plastic? CATCHER RYE: Glassine of course. I care about the environment.

2- MEL T. FACE: I like how his business model has changed to take advantage of the environmentally conscious. Maybe I should get some earth-friendly balloons.

FRENCHY: No. As your marketing manager, I suggest that any available marketing funds go to making sure that everyone knows that you NOW fill your balloons with Nitrous Oxide instead of Helium. By making that small change, you’ll pick up customers who dig that dentist gas AND the horsepower freaks who run it through their car motors.

MEL: GREAT IDEA! BUT, I’ll have to raise prices which would mean a new Hat-based Price sign. The cost and time involved in that operation might be prohibitive.

FRENCHY: I quit.

Well, I’ve learned a lot from some of the comments today, including the identity of Tiger Lilly (his real name, not a nickname), resurrected from the early ’40s (1942, to be precise), even before I began leaning to read by looking for the comics every day that were, in that era, scattered here and there throughout the news pages of the old Chicago Tribune (back in the days of Colonel McCormick). I probably began reading it, or trying to, around 1944 or 1945, when I was a very young kid (I know I remember reading news of WW II).

All that aside, it appears that Pouch, sliding back into his bad old ways, has recruited Tiger Lilly (not a native of Tracyville) to serve as his muscle in the looming turf war with Dollar Bill. Will it escalate to involve Aquarius and his entourage (Cheescake, eye candy who is a user of “candy,” and the still mysterious Auntie Bellum, who has yet to appear onstage)? Probably….

Wow, Neil doesn’t know something. Yeah, this guy sure looks like Tiger Lilly, a rehash from 60 years ago. On the upside, Lilly’s story was good, hope this one resembles it. (SUUUUURE)

I was just about to ask you that.

Hey Pouch, if you want to hide behind a tree you might want to lose the balloons.

It’s the Hat Club For Men.

Black-markets have no quality control. No EPA, watch out.

Is this the only park where Dollar Bill can carry out his “business transactions”? He’ll be pushing up daisies (no pun intended) Pouch done declared the park is his territory.