Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for November 19, 2021

Tracy’s getting closer…

Good morning™, everyone!

More of the dramatic lighting on Briar Rose’s face. I liked the first one better, but this is good. Tracy finally hears the allegation that Sterling Eliot was a mole, something he didn’t realize before.

Sorry but way too much shadowing.

Very distracting.

All the promise from Sunday has successfully been purged.

Tracy looks really weird in panel 3.

There goes Sterling’s memorial statue at the reconstructed Smith Industries complex. :)

I think we’re going to see Sterling Eliot again, when he reappears at the big lottery drawing. Of course, he’ll really disrupt it, what with all his bleeding and screaming.

Where can you find the strip in B/W? The MC has invaded the Tribune Content Agency site.

How does Rose know that the 2 guards were family men? Were they the ones who had her in custody and they talked?

Good morning™, shady revealers !

Spit it out, girl, the tape machine is running.

I think I like Shelley’s “shade tree” operation.

Sounds like he did sterling service for them. I like Shelley’s rendition of Tracy, giving him a different expression than normal brings a more human element to the usual stoic hero.

“Who is the mole at Smith’s lab? Do you know where he is?”

“Dammit, Tracy, you broke my concentration while I was practicing my Eclipso impersonation.”

She didn’t name any names. And I STILL wonder if Eliot s really dead….

“Now, Ms Rose, after telling me what I should have considered possible since the day of the explosion and I missed entirely, can you tell me why you were there?”

“Sorry, Detective Tracy, but I haven’t a clue. We’re going to head directly to me describing the Apparatus to you and ignore that question.”

“Sterling? Ah, yeah, sure, him!”

yep, got to ‘hand’ it to you

A day above ground is a good day to sing, sing, sing. The shadow is washed away when Rose comes clean. Sterling Elliot goes from blast victim to suspect.

Love the shadows in the first 2 panels, a visual representation of Rose revealing her knowledge.

I guess Tracy just wants to hear her say it rather than guess in P3.

”What we have here, is a failure to color-ate!” (My apologies to Strother Martin.)

This is the new Exhibit A in my ongoing rant over the colorization of the daily strips. Shelley went bold here but the MC kneecapped her and made a mockery of her original intent. Unfortunately the original B&W artwork is no longer viewable anywhere online.

I downloaded the image and converted it to grayscale. Immediately improvement — this strip reads so much better when presented as a Film Noir. then, to better approximate Shelley’s original inked art, I used Photoshop to pull out all the various gray tones left over from the colorization to leave only the 100% black line work. AND IT SPARKLES!!

Without the VERY distracting “black light-ish” red lips, panel 1 more readily — and powerfully — conveys what I believe to be Shelly’s intent with the bold shadow. We can read from the dialog that Tracy has raised his voice, but his shadow shows us that he has also momentarily risen up from his chair in an attempt to physically intimate his suspect. But while the shadow rises as if to engulf her, it fails to do so completely. We see in her eyes that Briar is completely nonplussed and the shadow stopping halfway to leave the top of her head free reinforces that she’s totally kept her wits about her. Ms. Rose is one tough cookie.

The manipulation of shadows cast by off-camera elements to visually express emotional cues is a common film noir technique that Shelley used in graphic style today. But color also visually implies all kinds of emotional subtext. So when the MC is set free to thoughtlessly splash neon paint over Shelley’s careful and subtle work, the result is a muddled mess. Case in point: the thin white lip lines radiate coolness under pressure in the B&W; in color, red implies passion or danger. The opposing subtexts clash with each other into distraction.

So yeah, today’s art looks a mess. But that’s not Shelley’s fault.

1-DT: YIKES! YOU NEED A SHAVE! SUKIE: Oh. I’ll scoot back a little…

2-SUKIE: There is that better?

3-DT: Well, to be honest, I kind of liked the gender confusion thing. It appealed to my feminine side. Do it again.

SUKIE: Don’t you have questions regarding why I was at Smith Industries and why I wasted time interviewing you?

DT: Huh? Oh. They’ll keep. Do that beard thing again.

SUKIE: IT WAS JUST A SHADOW! OH ALL RIGHT.

DT: Nice. I think I’ll call you Herm. Herm Aphrodite.

SUKIE: I WANNA LAWYER!

Mr Smith told Tracy in the hospital remember how he had that his drone had saw something from the future

The drone can time travel both ways

….love (a rarity, from me…) how the “black veil” slowly creeps down BR’s lovely face as she tells her tale….like she’s controlling the veil’s movement with her mind as she speaks the words…..she’s got DT mesmerized by P3……..

Now it can be told that Sterling Eliot was the “inside man” for “Operation…Fortunate Hunting”.

However doesn’t the Apparatus have sources within the police department? Someone might still try a hit on Briar Rose. Hopefully she won’t turn down witness protection.

Mention of the Apparatus has not come up yet…chances are they will when Sunday’s strip is shown or the beginning of next week.

One of the two turkeys the White House pardoned for Thanksgiving is named PEANUT BUTTER!!

I dunno. Looks to me (and has all week) that she’s enjoying this a little bit too much. And also, that last panel: „Too bad…they were family men“ – a bit over the top for me.

I’m getting the feeling that the Apparatus did send her there, after all, to get rid of Elliot.

Oh, and tip of the hat to Ivan above. The way the Apparatus is always at least one step ahead of Tracy and friends, I’d say they should know what she’s doing, if not now, then very, very shortly.

Not sure if the „witless“ program will provide her much protection…

It didn’t take long to get to Sterling Elliot. Diet Smith will be interested in improving his background checks.

The change in shadow on Briar Rose between frame one and two is interesting. Without an obvious change in the lighting, it almost seems imposed by a movie camera and gives the sense of motion between the first two frames. I like Shelley’s use of negative space.

Ray Toler’s misfortune got me remembering something that’s bugged me for a long time.

When they brought back Pruneface from cryogenic sleep in the 1980’s,they spent a small fortune on medical tests trying to prove he was a fake.

Why didn’t they just X-ray HIS OLD BROKEN LEG and make comparisons?

No two people break their leg in EXACTLY the same way.

Doesn’t “family man” in criminal circles have a different meaning Ie Man who who works for the family (ie Mob which in Tracyland would be the Apparatus)?

MOVIE QUOTE—

“I’m having cocktails.Do you think I’d invite my country’s enemies for cocktails?”.

Soon-to-be-dead scientist—CHARLIE CHAN IN THE SECRET SERVICE—1944

He died in the explosion, as the reports have said. Um… you’re sure about that, are you?

Although, now that you mention it, Tracy’s square jaw should come to be more tapered there. Apologies, Avenger 09!

Aha! The Truth comes out at last (for Tracy), as Briar Rose schemes to save her own backside by revealing the mole’s identity. No saint, that shadowy wench, but clever enough to make the best of her present situation. She might even skate on whatever low-status charges may have been leveled against her.

But will the MCU now focus on the Apparatus and commence taking Ace of Spades and the organization down?…

I know DC has a Royal Flush Gang too. Perhaps it is connected to Tracy’s foes of the same name?

Another strip in which Mike tries to cram in a little too much exposition & dialogue, so we have panel three, in which the characters seem to be talking past each other.

Perhaps I am misremembering but isn’t “family man” a slang sometimes used for members of the Mob (Family)?