Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for March 05, 2020

‘Bout time. ✨

Good evening™, all!

Tess and her husband are finally relaxing at home and have time to talk. It looks like the pressure has been getting to her.

I think this conversation will cause Tracy to really put the heat on Shaky!

Good evening™, harried better halfs !

Aaaaaannd here it comes… Dick’s about to lose that cheery face.

Oh, good. I was worried that this would be a case of people in dramas not talking about important information, only because the plot depended on it.

Four words that put fear in most guys brains" We have to talk"

Does anyone in Tracyville drink tea?

Fluff filler heading towards the normal rushed ending.

You need to talk? You’re already talking.

“We need to talk” are the very words that makes Tracy shaky!

I know the first two panels are meant to show the two difference facial expressions expressing how they are feeling, but for some reason I don’t like the drawing of Tess but don’t know why.

Oh, no! Not “we need to talk!”

Great image of Tracy in panel 1! Unusual angle, and – he’s smiling!

TA-TA-TA-TAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!

Finally, she’s going to tell him.

Panel 2 has coffee maker making fresh pot while she is drinking a hot cup. Must be one you can stop and our while making. Panel 3 has her pouring a fresh hot cup for Dick. Wow, lot of coffee for the evening time.

So what was that phone call the very first time Shaky had been in her office, asking Dick to stop at her office? Did she just fluff it off? “Hi Tess. What’s up?” “Oh, nothing, dear. I just thought it would be nice if you came here to see me.”

Maybe Dick knows something Tess (and us readers) doesn’t know?

Yes, this is still ‘Riffin Without A Script’…

*1-HONEY, I’M HOME! Lone audience member claps thinking he’s watching Father Knows Best or The Danny Thomas Show

2-BLONDIE: Great. What’s it been? Two years since I saw you last?

3-AND DICK TRACY AS HIMSELF: Three but who’s counting?

BLONDIE: The Crows? Counting Crows – get it? Laugh track goes wild

DTAH: No but thanks for keeping the coffee warm.

BLONDIE: Yeah, and just how you like it. Too weak to put up a fight.

DTAH: Don’t be like that honey. Let’s not forget who brings home the bacon around here.

BLONDIE: Yeah but when I put the heat to it, it ALWAYS COMES OUT LIMP! Laugh track explodes DTAH (struggling to come up with the next line): Oh yeah? Well maybe I found out that I like sausage bet…no. Wait. I got it. I prefer cooks with big ol’ biscuits better. Yeah. That works. BLONDIE: Huh?

Didn’t they “Talk” on the telephone a week or so ago. Exciting

Loved “Panel 2”.I mentioned that the true purpose of this was to lay a guilt trip on Tess that an innocent man might be in jail on her hook;and it looks like that idea is stuck in the back of her head.But right now I think it’s “counter-attack” time.

Oh oh, I can see monkeys, fans and something I won’t mention hitting.

TRUE STORY—-Recited to me by a tourist guide while I was t aking a river cruise in Pittsburgh,Pa.We passed a maximum security prison on the water front,the guide said that to save money on laundry expenses,inmates were allowed to wear civilian clothes in their cells several days a week.You’re probably way ahead of me.Several inmates waited for civilian clothes day to tunnel out of the prison into a disused electrical storehouse outside the prison walls.Then they just strolled off into the crowds.Luckily,no great disaster resulted,The whole group stuck together and were captured in the South several weeks later without a fight.

The biggest fear of any extortionist is exposure. Because for the most part, what they are threatening is either a lie or less harmful than the penalties they would face if they are caught. Their best weapon is the fear they engender in their victim. Decades ago, an ex-girlfriend tried to extort me by telling me that she would tell my employer I was selling drugs at work. I refused to pay and she carried out her threat. The investigators laughed her out of the building as she had no evidence and my record was spotless. My only regret is they didn’t charge her with false reporting of a felony.

In the same way that nobody ever gets good news in an envelope with a window cut into it, ‘’We need to talk’’ isn’t a harbinger of good things to come.

Oh gosh. It looks like it might be urgent!

cue the ominous music

Well, it’s about time!

But first, a cuppa, to increase acuity….

It’s never good when a woman says, “we need to talk”.