Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for January 07, 2023

Is this the first time we’ve seen Paul’s eyes?

tsull2121 inquired about 4 hours ago

@Gweedo it’s legal here Murray

You like it, yeh?

I found it enjoyable and could pretty much see events unfolding. (I think you forgot the line that tells us who was hit. LOL !)

I LOVE it… Paul is turning the tables on Art and double-dealing HIM…

Good morning™, standoffs !

Should I dread what comes next ?  :-o   Love Paul’s dead eye look in P.3.

Like all great unions, things will eventually turn sour. Of course, there’s always the hope that they’ll be able to;

Build a Bridge Over Troubled Water!

Purple eyes, very natural!

Good morning™, all!

Hate to tell you, Art Dekko, but you did get where you are by not being fair. Threats and intimidation from Paul are not likely to lead to a successful collaboration. Something’s gotta give, because Paul will bring down the whole scheme if given a chance.

“The lion’s share” would already set this dude up for life, bad time to get greedy. I always think of Fargo where Steve Buscemi finds a million dollars then gets killed by his cohort over the price of a used car.

If Art and Paul get to a fist fight, Paul will mop the floor with Art.

Oh, oh, is Art going to get a hit man to take out Paul? If it comes to that, hopefully he will wait until the painting is finished.

While she has not appeared yet, Sue Rise will want a bigger piece of the action. What will Art do then? Nice job sport. You have gone and ticked off two of your comrades.

So who do you think Shelley based Paul on in P3?

Paul – My next medium will be with blood.

I believe reproductions of all da Vinci’s sketchbooks are readily available for sale, if you can’t find them in something called a library. (Ask someone older than the internet if you are unsure what a library is.)

But Paul is being an amazingly stupid, greedy jerk. One phone call and he doesn’t get a cent for all his work. (BTW: in Aesop’s fable the lion’s share was ALL, but in popular usage it has come to mean the larger portion. Paul may have been reading Aesop.) Oh, but obviously Paul would tell the police, “I didn’t know Dekko was going to try and pass it off. He just told me he wanted something that looked like a da Vinci for himself.”

In the old Perry Mason episodes there would be some nasty SO* introduced in the opening five minutes, and you knew they’d be the corpse. Why did Paul make me think of that.

A smoking joke! (And the smell still lingers.)

Paul is about to be another great artist discovered after death, isn’t he?

NO, Paul! You have to be alive to make a phone call! Art needs an incentive to keep from killing you rather than forking over the money.

Looks like an ‘accident’ is about to happen.

Is Paul’s face based on a real person? It seems a lot more “real” than most characters in the strip.

It appears that Paul is not one to be trifeled with

Paul wants it all.

Sad Paul is a great copiest, his career just ended.

Why do the cigarettes in Tracyville have such long filters? Joe Staton used to draw long filters on them, and now Shelley does too.

Yikes! I think Paul just signed his own death warrant.

Never threaten the lead villain in a Dick Tracy story. A gruesome death awaits.

uh huh… and being greedy would get you both, how far exactly? :\

the threat is what i predicted when we learned decko was gonig to cut him out. unless decko’s plan included a hit, it wasn’t going to work anyway.

Yes, Dekko’s money disappears with that “one phone call,” Paul. But you admit to forgery. And, what will that get you?

A threat??

And with the simple lighting of a cigarette, Paul confirms that HE IS A CRIMINAL and not just a down on his luck artist trying to make rent.

Paul’s here to play hardball!

1-PAUL: Guess which finger I’m holding up, Chimp Chump.

2-ART: OH YEAH? Well what has a thumb and won’t be bullied by the likes of a delicate ar-tiste? THIS GUY!

3-PAUL: Do delicate artists smoke cigarettes? NO! Only Tracyville arch villains do! I’m a tough guy, see!

ART: Yeah right. Tough guys smoke Camel Studs – not those 80% filter jobs! I bet you drink white wine spritzers too. BE A MAN AND RISK YOUR HEALTH ALREADY! Sissy.

PAUL: Oww. That hurt. Sniff. ART: Oh. Sorry. I went too far. PAUL: Let’s hug it out…

That’s some cigarette in the third panel, with the filter taking up about 2/3 of the cancerous thing.

cue the dark ambient music with discordant overtones which, although broadly tonal, is inflected with chromatic and polytonal passages to utter sound in tremulous tones.

Paul is gettin’ massively ripped off here, I’m thinking!

Well, I guess it depends.

The filter to tobacco ratio on that cigarette he’s smoking is very disproportionate to brands marketed I’ve seen others smoking.

But maybe he only pays 1/4 or so for the brand he just lit up compared to the cost of any of the others.

Possible inspiration for Art Deko? https://www.amazon.com/American-Heritage-Special-Issue-20s/dp/B000OFLQN6

Looks like the artist wants to get the monkey off his back and yank his chain !!!

Sounds like Paul’s getting ready to disappear. Like smoke.

At last! Some perilous scandal! It’s about time!

Mike’s writing and story have both steadily improved since their inception. Good job for Curtis!

Pleger’s drawings are always terrific!

And he will make sure you hang with him.

Paul the Forger seems pretty confidant in himself. He casually lights up in panel 1 and in panel 3 threatens Art with a Fatal Phone Call that would make Art’s scheme vanish like the cloud of smoke wafting from his cancer stick (BTW, I hope that what we see is a short ciggie in a longer holder—kinda artsy, ya know—rather than a very oddly constructed cigarette).

Dekko expounds a titanic rage (panel 2), but Paul (panel 3) is cold and unmoved, like an iceberg.

One of these guys is likely to end up iced by the other….

One of Purdy Fallar’s accomplices once wanted a bigger cut.

Purdy vaporized him with a giant laser gun