Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for December 10, 2022

sounds like Sue is having her doubts about Art…

Good morning™, everyone!

Okay, here is where the plot starts to thicken. The cel sales are just a front for some other plan. Sue Reel is as much in the dark about the ultimate goal as we are.

Good morning™, manchicks !

P.3. Her: Oh, is that what it is ?!

That moustache is annoying.

I am so bored with this story.

I wish I still had Neil’s innocent sense of wonder over everything Tracy!

Alas, my heart is too jaded.

I keep looking at Art’s hair-helmet and I’m visualizing him lifting it up and off his head and hanging it on his bedpost as he’s about to call it a day and head off to bed… LMAO…

Yeah, you’re so right, Dekko. There’s absolutely nothing obvious about you & Sue Reel selling animation cels at a fur fair where your only customers are Mumbles & the cops. Yeah. nothing obvious or suspicious at all….

I agree with her but paraphrasing it; What is the point of today’s strip?

Obviously!

As a front? This is a pretty good one. Animation cels would fit in at a furry con reasonably, draw interest but not necessarily lots of sales. As someone who helps run a furry convention Dealers Room, I’d approve a booth selling such.(The big sellers at furry con Dealer rooms, by the way: Custom artwork and prints from furry artists, furry T-shirts, Fursuits and fursuit parts/materials, and decorative plush and figurines.)

Dekko looks like he was punched by a Monkey.

His real plan is to sell bootleg copies of Martin Scorcese’s lost masterpiece, Goncharov (1973).

Dekko is a rat—just look at him staring at Sue’s Cheesy mustache

A woman with a mustache???

Of course the cels aren’t moving, Sue— they only do that if you flip ’em real fast!

honey, one word-bleach

Art must have lost all his high society connections and peers… I would imagine that they didn’t take too kindly for a known and eventually incarcerated criminal being in their midst, which more than likely, probably led to him being looked down upon, blackballed and blacklisted from their lofty circles…

Ms. Reels thin handlebar mustache, needs a goatee to complete the look.

“The REAL cash is in the naughty doodles in the back. I’m selling forger copes of my own scribblings. GREAT idea! If I’m caught, I’ll never press charges against myself! Actually, it’s a pitch for a proposed comic! NAUGHTY DOODLES, staring Tracy, written by my unsuspected partner ’Mr. NotSam!”

1-SUE EEEE: About time you got back! I had to deal with a spit CUSTOMER!

2-ART: huff Hang on – gotta check my breath…sniff. All good. SUE: How’re ya gonna pay me when nobody wants Popeye cels that only feature SweePee ?

3-ART: I’ll tell ya. We create a false demand like they did for Beanie Babies and Crypto Currency.

SUE: Hmmm. A lot of people fell for that. How do we do it.

ART: Hello? That’s your job. I’m just the idea man. I did see that they gave away Crypto coins to “minors” who could answer some math questions. Start there.

SUE: So, our original owners will all be foreign kids who can do math? I don’t get it but whatevs…

Editor’s Note: We purposely used “foreign” instead of “Asian” to avoid offending anyone who find’s it insulting to point out Asian kids reputed superior math skills. You’re welcome.

What is Art going to do with those cels if no merchandise moves at all? Sell them out of the trunk of his car? Who can blame Sue? She wants to get paid. After all time is money.

If his presence at the convention is just a front, Mumbles must have been browsing. Not clear whether he was doing that for himself or the Apparatus.

Probably not Art…making your plans too obvious…because you would have been " a person of interest" to Tracy and Sam.

I wonder if kissing her tickles?

I like how things are coming along so far! We’ve got various ingredients introduced, prepared and now they’re being put into the oven and onto the stove… this should be a nice, complete banquet of a story by the end!

Hmm… So the convention is just a cover. What purpose would he have to attend a convention where all the participants wear full body suits hiding their true identity? You’d think he would be trying to get into the Apparatus, where all the top members where full body “card” suits to hide their true identity. Oh! It all becomes clear now! He is looking for talent for his new line of high end Apparatus apparel the new Art Dekko Royal Flush line of mascot suits. He also needs models to wear his product and walk down the runway at his grand opening presentation. Each suit is equipped with it’s own special weapon. After the walk showing off each of his creations he has all the models open fire on the attending Apparatus members and then takes over as the new head. Pure genius!

I smell a rat.

It’s just a front.

Holy scheming, detectives! This tale is getting rather convoluted. We have several villains or potential villains in circulation—Blaze Rise, Mumbles, Art Dekko, Sue Reel, and possibly others from the Apparatus, not to mention any suspicious furries (are there any other kinds?). So far, the criminal activity seems to be the selling of phony cels, but now Dekko hints at something more. Layers upon layers….

Money laundering?