Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for March 31, 2023

Good morning™, everyone!

Zeck is lucky to have gotten a front-row seat on the action. The robbers are getting away, but if Zeck expects to do whatever it is to Wolfe (we still don’t know what), he’s likely to be disappointed, since Wolfe seemed about to work some magic with his concealed jackknife the last time we saw him. When Zeck gets back, there’s a good chance that Wolfe won’t be there anymore.

EEK! Mr. Clean looks very annoyed!

“Egad. The ruffians one must associate with on occasion.”

Meanwhile, Sam suddenly feels the urge to punch Tracy in the mouth!

“Will he EVER finish this freaking story, I gotta pee!”

Looks like Flattop is going to miss out on both his gigs.

Good morning™, “Earl Grey tea, hot” sippers !

He is pis-sed alright. If that scene were happening today waitress lady would need a week off work and some counseling. Why is Tracy aiming away from the escaping car ?  Even Ed, who I hoped was a “redshirt”, gets away clean.

I guess the bank robbers had a get-away driver after all, although why he’s wearing a mask when he never actually went into the bank is something only Mike & Shelley know. But to be fair, this is the best traditional Tracy action sequence the strip has had in some time. I just hope we can get some actual answers to what Zeck is up to soon.

If Zack means feed Wolfe then he better back up his own truck to fill it with food !

P.3. Betty growed up and left Riverdale for the Big town.

Bullet holes in panel one! Close call Tracy!

Blow Top is quite excited, more than usual!

He’s got the vernacular all wrong. It should be “me have take care of Wolfe myself”.

Okay, I’m confused. Zeck has Wolfe as a captive. In fact, he’s had Wolfe as a captive for days. But he hired a hitman to come over and kill Wolfe? Am I missing something? Is Zeck too much of a lazy (euphemism of your choice) to do the job himself? None of his other henchmen are willing to do the job? Does he think hiring someone else to do it will provide a defense in court if he’s arrested. “Gentlemen of the jury, my client did not kill Nero Wolfe, he merely paid someone else to do it!” And, of course, if you’re afraid of guns (you shouldn’t be in the crime business anyway) but poison in those large quantities of food could have done it quietly.

What a team! Flattop and Nothingontop.

I was right about this being about a bank robbery, or does the “Big Bad” also want to get rid of Tracy and Wolfe because he has a bad history with them. (Of course, I’m just making a SWAG – systematic wild a$$ guess)

Real cool images by Shelley today " big " time : )

Such poor aim? Pistols at that range is scary!

Is that supposed to Flattop shooting at Tracy in panel 1? That would be dangerously close to a first encounter with him!

Where did the cap come from?

Woo, gosh??? Who says that…

Hope Flattop gets away love since I was a little kid many moons ago

“Woo gosh.” Had a Freakazoid moment, there and misread “Poo gas”.

Bullets flying all around!! WOO GOSH!!!? (oh snap, that stuff must be catchin’)……..

Are there two different cafes across the street or two different signs on the front windows of the cafe? Zeck doesn’t seem concerned that he might become collateral damage so maybe he’s not at the one directly across the street.

So Jean Luke Picard is the one out to get Wolfe?

A new crook to replace the other bunglers?

Eek? Seriously?

What? No one has mentioned the grammatical error in the last panel?

“I’ll have [to] take care of Wolfe myself.”

“The Case of the Purloined Preposition.” A Perry Mason episode?

1.)Sunday April 2nd is “National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day”Notify Homer(PEANUTBUTTER)Barley immediately.

2.)Yesterday was Warren Beatty’s birthday.If you do not wish to celebrate,I will understand.

An 86-year-old Dick Tracy??Either give it up,Warry,or switch to Vitamin Flintheart.

1-DT: BLAM! TAKE THAT! FLATBEER: NO – YOU TAKE THIS! BLAM!

2-FLATFEET: Once around the park, Jeeves! BLAM! Don’t worry about that. It’s not gunfire. It’s just…uh…that $1,000 tune up we just had done wasn’t performed very well…?

3-BETTY: EEK! A MOUSE! Oh. And a bank robbery too, I think.

ZECKERBURG: I’m glad I had bulletproof glass installed in this dump last week. I figured those bungling burglars would “F” this all up. TOP THIS OFF, BETTY! I’VE GOT A KILLING TO DO…MAKE. I MEANT “MAKE”. Like a killing in the market. Not literally a killing Never mind. I, uh, gotta go…

Blowtop gets madder when the getaway driver answers him in Sicilian.That’s what you get when you recruit on Chicago’s South Side.

MOVIE QUOTE—

“Unless you’d like to step out there and sell whiskey to the prairie dogs”

Cavalryman Broderick Crawford to somebody who won’tlisten to orders

LAST OF THE COMANCHES—1952

Woo-gosh !!

Tomorrow we’ll see if they zoomed off so fast they left Flattop standing there on the sidewalk.

And a JackKnife, Has McHeath dear, and he keeps it, outta sight.

Is it yet another coincidence, or is Arnold Zeck sipping coffee (what else in this coffee-obsessed strip?) in the cafe across from the bank deliberately? Or had he prior knowledge of the Jones Boys Gang’s plan to hit Federal?

At least we have an abundance of Sound Effects (SFX) and vocal tics: *BLAM BLAM BLAM! Woo gosh! EEK! Bank robbers! —And the day’s winner, in thought balloon, “Flattop! You fool.” So, Zeck concludes that he will have to take matters into his own hands; viz., “taking care” of Wolfe (which we may safely infer means “killing Wolfe”).

An aside: note that our hero demonstrates ambidexterity with firearms as he fires at Ed holding his revolver (so it appears to me, and that would be time-appropriate) in his left hand….