Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for October 24, 2022

Stick to Kias and Hyundais. You can use a USB cable.

A Bad Egg? ✨

Good morning™, everyone!

In case you are wondering, Georgie, the news artist (and later cartoonist) got his first inspiration for the Pinfold and Fluffy comic while undercover, disguised as a Clarky’s shoeshine boy.

“Following his epiphany, Clarky had quit selling newspapers and become a shoeshine boy. There’d been several years of that. Then he rented a storefront with some money he’d saved. Bought shoe wax in quantity and slapped his own label on the tins. Clarky’s — The Paste That’s Remarkably Black. Then he went up to Inwood, where an insane asylum had recently burned down, and purchased three dozen white staffers’ uniforms. He recruited as many teenaged boys, the majority of them N*gr*es and swarthy Arabs, and suddenly Clarky’s Shoeblacks — You’d Have to Be Crazy Not to See the Difference in Our Shine — began showing up at train depots and ferry slips, in city parks and on the streets. And because he’d trained and drilled all his boys in the art of waxing and buffing — The Clarky Method, swift but finicky — their suits were always as spotlessly vanilla at the end of a shift of work as they’d been at the start.

There’s no way Robert is going to get away with this…He’s going get caught…just a feeling…although you know, Mike could have him get away with boosting a few cars before he gets caught to run parallel with his stage success.

Does he have a quota to fill since production is way down? Boosting a dozen a night or so? Still wondering when activity on the level described will be noticed by the police.

Will Robert be fired because he is late or in jail ?

Robert’s excuse is car trouble since he can’t get it started !!!

So … Sam is blowing off police work to hang out at rehearsals, & Robert is blowing off rehearsals to steal cars. There’s like a karmic symmetry there.

Good morning™, ham bone ad men !

How long before two-job-bob wears out from exhaustion not to speak of being spotted by beefed up patrols in places where wealthy cars “hang out” ?

Robert has made his choice… he COULD have stood up to Uncle Arce, but who knows how Steely would have reacted towards his nephew if he rebelled and refused?… with some form of retaliation?… Steely has Robert over a barrel, as he sees his nephew showing a devoted loyalty to him, DESPITE his criminal enterprise… Steely is an intimidating manipulator while Robert seems to be a person who wants to please his uncle while trying to do the right thing for himself… in this situation, it’s a clash and it won’t go good for either in the long run… perhaps if this impossible situation worsens as time goes on and Steely exerts continued pressure by applying a guilt trip on Robert , Robert will finally grow a pair and stand up to Steely before things get worse for himself and truly get out of hand… I hope so…

Robert: It’s good to be back in the sadle.

This is such a cool backstory!

How ‘Daddy’ Warbucks earned his first million!

There’s no business like no-show Show Business…

Back in the 1950s, General Motors cars had one of eight locks, so if you had a set of keys, you could steal a GM in the time it took to try all eight keys.

And Sam wonders why his car is missing.

I read that as “Clarky’s past is remarkably black.” And, that’s pretty black.

I wasn’t wondering.

Has Steelface placed an order for specific makes and models for the shop? If not, I’ve read recently that, supposedly, Hyundai’s, and, Kia’s, are easy targets for theft. So if Steelface is looking for volume…

Apparently Mike is delighting himself with all of these esoteric references to a piece of literature that very few readers of Dick Tracy know about. But if we didn’t have Neil and Company to explain them to us, the references would fall flat. I just wonder how all of this is being perceived by readers of the strip in newspapers. A whole panel devoted to a song about shoe polish, which obviously has nothing whatsoever to do with the crime Tracy will be called upon to investigate?

Gould did this kind of thing from time to time, too. But his references were, from what I’ve been able to learn, much more common knowledge. And, when I, in 1962, read some of the reprints of stories written in the late 40s, if there was a reference to something I didn’t know about, it never affected the story itself. Just my opinion, but I feel Mike goes too far with this kind of material.

cue the dark ambient music with discordant overtones which, although broadly tonal, is inflected with chromatic and polytonal passages

The fact that Uncle Steelface used influence of some sort to get Robert his part is becoming a critical plot point. It was what he held over Robert’s head yesterday to force him to go back to boosting cars. And yet, it has so far never been made clear what influence Steelface has at the Playhouse.

Robert has magical fingers…..

I love the anachronistic world of Dick Tracy. Here we have Robert Parrish hot-wiring a car like it was the 1970s and he’s using a modern cell phone to talk to Uncle Steelface two days ago. We don’t need a date for the strip to be set in. It’s kind of an alternate world – a blend of old and new.

1-Clarky’s Paste Sales Reps make their pitch…

2-SUGAR DADDY: What’d I tell you, Sam? That stuff saves me hours of burning cork anytime I do a production of Raisin In The Sun!

SAM: CLAP CLAP CLAP! With that stuff, the T.P.D. will meet our Integration Quotas in no time. Or at least “appear to”.

3-ROBERT: HONNNNNNNKKKKKKKKK! _Oops. Gotta keep my head off the horn. ZAPPPPPPPPP! OUCH THAT HURT! OWNER: WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING??? ROBERT: Uhhh…Repo Man?

“Not shinin’ with Clarky?

Then you’re fulla malarkey!"

In Panel 3, we’ve gone from Clarky’s

To starting an auto without car keys!

Love that sign in Panel 1.

“Almost done” says Robert Parrish and then depending on whose car he hot wired…Robert either got a “flesh wound” or his butt got padded with buckshot. In the league of see Jane run, see Dick run, see Spot run, see the owner run out of his or her house with the weapon. Hey! You by my car…stop thief!

I’m afraid he is at risk of becoming the late Robert Parrish. Doggone shame…the kid had promise and potential. Uncle was a bad influence. Oh boy…how is Steelface going to explain to his sibling what happed to nephew?

On the other hand Robert accomplished his mission. Vitamin: “You’re late Robert”. Robert: " Sorry about that Mr. Flintheart, an urgent “family matter” came up. I did not get a chance to use my phone to call you with an explanation".

Robert’s lament based on a rap tune currently being played on the radio. “I could have been among the superstars…my uncle got me out here jacking cars….soon it won’t be safe for me…when I get pinched by Dick T-r-a-c-y”.

MOVIE QUOTE—-

“I’ve smelled that aftershave before,and both times I’ve smelled a rat”

Sean Connery—-DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER—-1971

Go way back to 1933—-some character named Slicer ran a hot car ring that kept detailed ledgers on who parked where during the day all over town;with instructions to nab specific cars.Enter Boss Jim Herrod.

To reiterate; Neil needs a job.

Even standing outside of this story, Tracy is more interesting than Sam.

Great visuals and shading by Shelley Pleger today.

Tomorrow,we see the “full-fledged steel mill” underneath the Playhouse.

Wait’ll Light Bob finds out that his uncle called in, just to find out it was open auditions.

Steelface must deal in pretty old cars or car parts. Cars since the 90s are pretty hard to hot wire.

https://www.motorbiscuit.com/possible-hot-wire-modern-car/

It would be more realistic if Robert was sawing off a catalytic converter.

I’m glad to see Robert has a skilled trade repairing cars, so he’s not wasting all his time at the theater.

Watching a show come together in rehearsals can be exhilarating! I know I used to watch rehearsals as often as I could when back in college, where major productions were (in those glory days) three per semester, including an annual spring musical.

Unfortunately, Nephew Robert “Bob the Booster” Parrish is too busy stealing cars for Uncle “Steelface” Arceneaux to show up for rehearsal! Could he be canned from the Funny Papers by the show’s producers/director/stage manager or other administrator? A big-time musical can’t function without its star unless an understudy is filling in and maybe even taking over the part….