Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for December 18, 2020

“They just don’t make necks like they usta!”

Good morning™, emaciated malnourished dead bodies !

Years of bad nutrition, sedentary living and drug use had left Dollar Bill in a less than robust state and so a gentle twist was all it took to send him to his eternal reward.

Just slide it under a snowbank, Tiger. You’ll be long gone by Spring thaw.

Serves Bill right, if nothing more than for wearing sandals in snowy winter……

If there could be a Dick Tracy character themed off the musical group the Tiger Lillies, that would just jibe so well…

The famous “it’s not my fault” defense. He just turned his head real fast. It just snapped all on it’s own.

“Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten us into, Lilly.”

Good morning™, cleaner-uppers!

I like how “his neck just snapped” seemingly all but itself, as if Tiger Lilly had nothing to do with it. That’s a standard way of avoiding blame.

Next Panel: “Hand me them balloons, Pouch. I’ll tie ’em around his neck and float him off to Gotham City.”

What’s up Tiger Lilly?

As Woody Allen say, what’s up Tiger Lilly!

I know I’m going to catch a lot of heat for this but so far, it seems the drug dealers and users are the victims in this story. First, an illegal arrest by Sam and now the murder of Dollar Bill. If the story highlighted the real-world consequences of the illegal drug trade, like, say a child overdosing or a drive-by shooting, I would feel different. But so far, all we’ve seen is drug use by consenting adults and zero violence, except violence perpetrated against the dealers and users by so-called ‘law-abiding’ citizens.

Don’t you just hate it when that happpens!

How often do you address a person by his/her full name? While any reader who doesn’t come to the comments here would need to know that, there are ways of doing discovery (to use the literary term of passing information to the reader) that wouldn’t sound artificial. And Pouch has been marginally legal for years, appears he’s deeply enough into this that he need a stretch in prison himself.

I’m just totally out of this one . Great images but I’m lost and I’m never going to get it . Why do I get the feeling that Yeti and Daisy are going to pop up in one of these scripts .

You call for Tiger Lilly, I’ll call for Peter Pan….

Whatever park this is, I’d never take my grandchildren there.

If Tiger Lilly were even half the Meanie Pouch makes him out to be, Tiger might just turn on Pouch and see how much twisting that big balloony neck of his could take before it too went SNAP! It would mean two corpses to dispose of, but it would take the heat off, at least for now, and give TL time to think (something that does not seem to be one of his greatest features)….

“It wasn’t me! His neck just snapped!” He sounds just like me when I was a toddler.

A small problem

His neck just snapped. The glass just fell off the table. My sister just fell down. I’ve heard them all now! His neck just snapped. Top of the list!

“It’s not my fault he had a weak neck!”

Might as well get that dollar bill. Dollar Bill doesn’t need it anymore.

Pouch’s eyes have gotten bigger over the years; when he first appeared they were spooky, beady little things with an almost reptilian cast.

1-MEL T. FACE: What happened here? FRENCHY: Ummm, he’s napping. I think.

2-MEL: DAMN! I hate lazy pushers! Always sleeping like a bum on a park bench! And this one’s too lazy to find a park bench and some newspaper blankets! GRRRR…

3-…well, if you need a balloon, I’ll be at the other end of the park. This end is dead.

FRENCHY: You can say that again.

MEL: What? FRENCHY: I said ‘GOOD LUCK’.

So just move the body someplace else

“Clean up my mess? Well, I guess. His neck was like a twig

Pouch thinks that he owns the park. I’ll set him straight. You dig?”

Tiger Lilly was a Gould villain from, I think, the early 1940s. i don’t recall much else about him. Can anyone fill me in on his continuity in the strip?

Either Dollar Bill had extreme osteoporosis or Tiger Lily is a super villain an doesn’t know yet how to control his super power.

Pouch should be careful in dealing with Tiger Lilly or he will become another victim…

Anyone who wants to know about Tiger Lilly et. al. should start buying the IDW Dick Tracy History, which has now concluded. It would be very eye-opening how much better the story telling was in those days, no recycling of previous characters, and no ridiculous crossovers. As I mentioned, I don’t think Tiger was a murderer, but I guess he’s so old (over 90) he just slipped.

Did it have to be “Tigerlily”? I’ve seen it used only for 2 different female characters. It must be a codename.

Yes. Totally his neck fault.

Clean it up?…..sure Pouch….Oops, darn , not again!….Shame about those balloons!

Hey, it’s a city park! Someone will be along to clean up the mess.

In all the violence, how come the victim didn’t say, “Gasp!!” or “Choke!!” These were standards in the old EC Comics action of the like!!

They make forehead barbells to prevent such tragedies, but the problem is finding a spotter small enough.