Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for July 14, 2021

In the old days, strips required a lead time of a minimum of several weeks to be prepped to appear in newspapers, a fact which TV shows seldom recognized when cartoonists were depicted as characters on-screen. ✨

Tsk, running with zero buffer is bad cartooning practice, but I guess it gets him rescued earlier.

Good Morning™, everyone!

So I guess Vera’s supervisor knows that something weird has happened. The eye colours don’t look right, but what else is new?

I guess in Tracyville the comics hit the newspaper the day after being created, not weeks later as it’s done in the rest of the universe!

It’s a relatively recent development, though. When Moon Maid was ghosting “Sawdust” they were working way ahead.

Good Morning™, suspicious discoveries !

Time to start workin’ some (gum)shoe leather, Sam.

The no weeks ahead time for our “venerable” ’toonist is simply a means for tightening up, after all this exposition.

Wow, what a work gig, read the comics and drink coffee all day!

This will get the MCU on the scent. According to what Diet said, only a few days have passed since Mysta and Vera were abducted. Very strange that the strip would go into reruns so quickly.

It’s time to call Honeymoon !!!!!!

There are always exceptions that test rules.

Almost no political cartoons are created weeks ahead of time because, you know, topicality.

Even daily story-arc strips are often amenable to last day adjustment to reference current events.

But, as others suggest, this element in today’s strip is almost certainly an exercise of artistic license to facilitate the telling of the story itself. Of course the creators of this strip know how these things operate in the real world.

I am also thinking of the annoyance evident when there’s a time skip. “He just stepped out the door in panel one! How can he be at the scene of the crime in panel two!?” Do we need to see him as he sits down behind the wheel, adjusts his seat belt, turns the ignition key….? Do we want all the details? I’m guessing not by the complaints that this or that arc is going too slowly and/or running too long.

Vera has been missing X (unknown number) days and no one but the newspaper syndicate noticed? (How about the receptionist at his lavish office?) No one, including the syndicate thought to call attention to the fact? No one looked at his appointment calendar for the last place he and Mysta went on the promotional tour? Lost: any sense of logical verisimilitude… If found please return to script writer.

FlatFace! Oh Noes!

A hunch that something is amiss???

Hmmm…Rikki Mortis has seemingly joined the MCU…. oh wait, is that supposed to be Lizz!?!?

News about the strip itself. . .

The Spokesman-Review out of Spokane, WA has started a new venture. The editors and publisher there have been waxing nostalgic for the old Spokane Chronicle, a defunct paper that was one of the last afternoon papers in the Northwest. They ran a series of articles where they interviewed the men who were afternoon paperboys when the Chronicle was being dropped on peoples’ porches each afternoon, and wrote about other fond memories of an afternoon paper.

Now they have started an-e-edition of the Chronicle ,for Review subscribers only, and they promised a full page of comic strips different from the ones already running in the Review. I was delighted to see that Dick Tracy is one of these new strips. The colors seem to be the ones we see here.

Now that’s a clue – go for that, Sam & Lizz – alert Dick Tracy, pronto!!

And a guest appearance in the daily strip of EEK & MEEK tends to suggest a replay. ;) God, I feel old.

Look how BIG comics in the papers are in Tracytown! Bigger than a hand! Makes sense I suppose. The only people reading an actual newspaper would need that size AND a magnifying glass to see the words.

Especially us Tracy fans…sigh…

“Flattop was my father. Yer dead meat, Trustworthy!”

Alldid shouldn’t use real names like that.

boy this plot is developing very slowly

Reprint of a comic strip from March…is it enough to justify an investigation? Will Sam contact the newspaper?

1-SAM: Gimme a magnifying glass would ya, Doll? This print is too small.

2-DOLL: I see what you mean. Move it closer to my face…I can just make it out…

3-…OH, it’s the punchline! HA HA! It says “boys will be boys but not if they don’t wanna be!”

SAM: Really? That’s an odd joke. And he put it in the margins? Oh well. Come on. It’s time to go testify against that guy we saw robbing the bank a couple of months ago.

DOLL: Oh yeah. Had a big beard and an eyepatch, I remember.

SAM: I saw him too and he was clean shaven and wearing glasses.

DOLL: Oh well. Whatever. The Defendant’s table is to the right of the witness stand. We’ll just point over there and say “THAT’S THE GUY!”

SAM: HA! Remember that time I got confused and identified the PROSECUTOR as the criminal! Good times…!

Okay, from Diet Smith to a cartoon rerun?

Eventually, two and two will be put together. Mysta not haven’t been seen by Diet Smith and repeat comic strips by Vera.

Repeat of old strip? Must be reading Go Comics, which has about a 15 year range. Neil is worried about colo(U)rs, not this inane story?. Hmm, priorities Neil, Priorities.

MEANWHILE: I’m simply transfixed by Liz’s captivating brown eyes…..when I read this strip with a still-kid-stoner-to-be type relish in the good ‘ol 20th century, she didn’t have actual “eyes” up there……..gee…..

Just imagine if they ran a repeat strip here. I would love to see the comments and the speed at which they would appear regardless if it was date stamped or not.

Does seem strange that the syndicate that carries Alldid knows now that he’s not been producing new stuff but doesn’t seem to have looked into it at all … Maybe Mike thought the story would be more fun this way with the cops going to the syndicate once they notice the repeat strips, but it really doesn’t make sense.

So, when the next long adventure is over, will today’s strip repeat? (It’d be a cute in-joke!)

Speaking of strip size, it begins just wider than her index finger in the first panel, and then wider than her whole hand in the next.

I love how this strip basically is a conversation ripped from the comment section here!

At least we know that the Tracyville Daily is still publishing a hardcopy edition, read by members of the PD, including the MCU. Sam and Lizz are on the verge of wondering if something is wrong enough to need investigating! YES! Get with it, gang! There is something fishy in Tracyville, and it involves Vera Alldid (a.k.a. Vile Alldone) and Mysta Chimera, his actress/model “Mars Maid”!

Please, let’s get some MCU action rolling! Enough coffee-and-comics breaktime! The game’s afoot!