Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for April 18, 2021

Too much time in solitude. Her jailhouse life a bore

Emerging from a cloud of smoke the one she does adore.

Bolt-cutter in hand. So tall he stands. Ghastly fiend, Kadaver

Loquacious his speech. Decency breached. Known for his palaver.

Steamy shower for an hour, Rikki can’t get clean

Ghoul that lies beside her diabolical, obscene.

Still, he has his principles. A code of conduct rare

Always honors his contracts with frightful, deadly care.

“Feels good to that prison stank off me. Now I can get Abner stank all over.”

Is this Dick Tracy or the Munsters?

Abner just cant let it go can he?

Good morning™, cleaning crew!

Well, that’s probably about the best view of Abner’s real face that you’re going to get. That’s a cute shower curtain he has there, inspired by the movie Psycho I guess.

I’m a little confused about the contract they are discussing. Mr. Crime was the head of the Apparatus? That was in the few years I wasn’t following the strip regularly and I may still have only read bit and pieces of that. After that, I think that the 21 Gang took control of the Apparatus.

The reflection in the mirror isn’t right, but they almost never are in this strip. That has to be her right elbow in the mirror with the top of the bathrobe below her arm, but the image in the mirror is not “mirror imaged” as it should be.

Constable Graham (Hall of Fame) immigrated to Canada from Ireland in 1989. Here’s an article with a little more about that incident on IrishCentral:

https://www.irishcentral.com/news/irish-police-officer-canada-saves-life

First two panels felt more like the start of a Pinky and the Brain toon.

They really are ablutions!

Love the shower curtain! Mother liked it, too.

Good morning™, washed up felons !

No one can call them a bunch of dirty crooks.

Love the psycho shower scene, I can hear the music now…..

WOW ! Are these images fantastic or what ? The top right is out of this world and the bottom center is as great or better . But all of them today are just great . And the lady is a ! FOX ! for sure . And which ever one of you who called me a OLD DOG yesterday . You are correct , and thanks .

Purple towels. Even their towels are color-coordinated.

After all, Abner has a reputation to defend. Interesting shadow on the curtain.

Wow, the loyal Rikki is having second thoughts now. Interesting development.

There are two (or more) parties in a contract. And if one party reneges on the contract the other party is no longer under contractual obligation.

Mr. Crime (#2) has been missing for years in our time… You never know how time is moving in Tracyville.

Did Mr. Crime promise to pay Abner after Tracy was killed? If he is no longer available to fulfill his part of the contract Abner’s contractual obligation is over.

Did Mr. Crime pay all, or part, of Abner’s fee? In this case Abner would have some contractual obligation. Of course, if he knew where Mr. Crime was buried (we know he’s dead – but Abner doesn’t) and Abner knew where he was buried Abner could write out a check for the full amount of the retainer, plus 9% interest, dig a six inch hole at the grave and bury the check and be free from the contractual obligation.

That second to last panel is incredible.

Can’t wait to see Rikki in her new costu— ahem! —clothes.

They apparently didn’t shower together which is a good thing because who showers with a knife?

1-RIKKI TIKKI TAVI: Whooof. I’m still a little dizzy from that dart. My eyes won’t focus.

ABBY: YOU USED ALL OF THE CONDITIONER! This special shower curtain projects all of my thoughts and I’M PIST!

2-…Hmmm. Now it’s reflecting my self-loathing I guess. I think I may need psychiatric help.

3-RIKKI: Tell me something I don’t know.

4-ABBY: Ouch! THAT was hurtful!

5-ABBY: Perhaps you should take that back.

RIKKI: I’m not afraid of your psychic images.

ABBY: THIS ONE IS AN ACTUAL SHADOW.

RIKKI: You’re the most well adjusted…thing…I’ve ever met! And the best looking!

ABBY: Much better…

Pinky: What are we going to do today?

Brain: Same thing as always, take over the world!

Rikki: What are we going to do today?

Abner: Same thing as always, kill Dick Tracy!

(Repeat until zero)

Pinky: Gee, Brain, what do you want to do tonight?.Brain: The same thing we do every night, Pinky – try to take over the world!

Mr. Crime hasn’t been seen because if memory serves, Mr. Crime was killed in the 60s. Man that “contract” is longer than Tatises’. The real big news is that no one died this week in the “Hall of Fame.”

From the beginning of this strip up to now…trail must be littered with those who have tried to kill Tracy.

The shadow of the knife.

I engaged with this strip as I always do, seeing each picture, reading the accompanying text, sensing the time slip from one frame to the next.

But this was, after all, a riff on that scene.

So, on my second read-through, I let my point of view leap from one panel to the next. Not a time slip but a series of staccato jump cuts, like the seventy-plus jump cuts in the Hitchcock scene. Something about the panel layout, the reversing perspectives on the shadow of “Ma” Bates, the alternating light and dark blotches throughout, somehow elicited and encouraged that approach.

In the movie scene, in that cinematic moment, several dislocations of technique placed a sharp semicolon in film history. Not a full stop, not a gap, but a grammatical pause, a pivot point between cinema before and cinema after.

Experiencing this strip today actually switched on the Bernard Herman soundtrack in my brain. Strings, nothing but strings, all subdued by muting devices attached to the instruments, from the beginning of the movie until the moment that the shower curtain is brutally swept aside. Then, all the instrumental mutes come off, and the strings are allowed to SHRIEK for just short of a minute, accompanied by the shrieks of Marion Crane. Then, back to the muted strings.

Reading the strip just now, I could hear the soothing shower… then the shrieks… then the return to muted strings.

A comic strip, well-done, can strike like an aesthetic lightning bolt.

Looks like another “Abner vs Tracy” tale is beginning again.

Abner’s schtick has gotten old however…..this time it’s time Abner really DOES become a cadaver. I’m thinking being tossed in a vat of liquid zinc will do the trick.

I’m not familiar with the movies but isn’t this a bit like Vincent Price’s Dr. Phibes?

I seem to remember reading or hearing somewhere once that when Hitchcock filmed that shower scene, he actually used body doubles instead of Tony Perkins & Janet Leigh.

I assume the parts today were played by the real Rigor Mortis & Abner Kadaver.

Panel one mirror; looks like a silhouette of a big bird head, with a fuzzy top.

Had her arm been down, toward her waist, the elbow would be pointing in the right direction. The excuse of being an ‘easter egg’ doesn’t “wash”.

Rikki has showered and is toweling off, having stepped out of the shower, into which Abner has entered; he is vigorously washing whilst conversing with Rikki. And presiding over all is the wonderful shower curtain image that calls to mind Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and its iconic “shower scene” murder of Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) by Norman Bates-as-Mother (Tony Perkins).

Talk about setting a mood! All is dark, including Kadaver’s obsessive need to “fulfill his contract” and kill Dick Tracy!

That boy ain’t right, to quote a TV ’toon. We cannot judge Abner Kadaver rationally, because he is not rational. He has sprung his Enabler-Paramour from prison to help him actuate his obsession, whether she realizes it or not. Abner is as batty as Bates, in his own theatrical way. (Abner is to Vitamin as Rikki is to Kandikane….)

I know it’s a towel that she’s using to dry her hair, but it looks like she’s wearing a hat. Was there a stuff up? I think her hands are suppose to be on the towel.