Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for April 07, 2024

There’s a pub in Tracyville. Variety of drinkers

Brooding. Violent. Malcontent. Not many deep thinkers.

Broadside, he’s fresh out of jail. Worked up quite a thirst

Would not want to cross the man for fear he does his worst.

Trouble enters stealthily, unannounced yet real

Suddenly there at your side, offering a deal.

“Easy money,” goes the pitch. Conversations stop

Turn to see ill destiny. Calls herself Croptop.

a new arc and a new relation to Flattop…

let’s see how soon before THIS arc degrades in complete degradation, but I remain hopeful…

Good morning™, everyone!

I’m kind of rolling my eyes at “Croptop” as a character. It makes me wonder just how many family members Flattop had. Anyway, no more Annie today and this at least looks to be more in the tradition of Chester Gould. Plus, there are two other brand new characters today: Broadside and Dave.

Croptop looks like one of those beefy biker-like bimbo barflys that you see in films that chew and snap gum and call you “Honey”

LOL…

Sort of a leather BDSM attire Croptop is wearing

“And now for something completely different.”

With Annie’s new story all wrapped up yesterday and a switch today to new scenes and characters (including what looks like a new addition to the “Top” family), it appears we’ve started a new story. When I decide a new story’s started I update the page in the Dick Tracy Wiki I created, “List of Dick Tracy stories in GoComics”, adding the latest completed to story to the list:

The Story of Annie’s Parents (February 26-April 6)

I also made note that the opening strip of the above story was the start of Charles Ettinger’s run as the strip’s new regular main artist.

So, meet Crop Top, the latest villain who will get away at the end of the story.

Goodbye to the Annie story. The only good thing about it was it gave us a break from the Sunday borerty! LOL!

For some reason, I keep hearing the “Terminator” Theme…………..

Holy Cow are we finally back to a Dick Tracy Story? Oh no it will involve stealing a time machine and we will have a Prince Valiant story with Tracy standing around.

So they left us hanging with the Fata arc, focused on Annie, and now a new story arc? I’d rather see the Fata Morgana arc wrapped up.

Hee! I came up with the idea of “Croptop” while visiting the Curtises with E.O. Costello over the holidays. So, all my fault, guys… ;-)

Looks like a good Crime story coming up!

I would hate to have Croptop as a blind date!

“Croptop” is a phrase which refers to an article of clothing rather than a haircut. Therefore it is possible, and I think even preferable, that it doesn’t mean she is a member of the extended Flattop family. And she is wearing one.

It is possible she is a fifth cousin, twice removed, who looks upon attempting to kill Tracy as family legacy… But I hope not.

Hairstyle looks a bit more like a mullet to me. For some odd reason I got a slightly Crewy Lou vibe when I saw it.

This one is already starting off on the wrong foot, but thankfully that annie fiasco is over

This is promising! Great art by Charles! Mike often has a good start to his strips giving us all hope, then it gets bad as the story progresses. But I’m hopeful. He used to write some good stories and maybe can again. I’ll roll with Croptop here and we’ll see what happens. We get a name and a look at her horrid style. Tracy can at least get her on crimes against fashion.

Oh happy day ! The darkness has lifted and Dick Tracy has returned . Totally digging the art today too .

Love it Croptop

I have a Jones for a Top Rate story….

Shady lookin characters in shady lookin joint. Can we hopes for some real adventure that is make sense this time?

Flattop had a huge family.

A woman walks into a bar…

Oh great, another member of the Top family. You’d think they would all be gone by now.

\\//_

Good artwork today, Charles. Good progression of the story: We see Croptop’s shadow headed to the bar in the disposable panel. Next a closeup of Broadside being served his beer. As the men drink and talk, we see Croptop in the penultimate panel from the downward angle. Finally, the reveal of who this person is. Mike seems to always do this type of reveal for his villains but your variety of views keeps this exposition strip moving. Well done.

Rocking that she-mullet. ALWAYS a sure sign of barely repressed eeeeeevil.

The next appearance of Sam Catchem is imminent .

Here is the wrap-up panel for the Annie story:

HTTPS: / / tinyurl .Com /4pf29fer

Shouldn’t it be mullet top?

Two things: We now know Annie has a birthday, but we don’t know when, and I was kind of hoping that the arc was going to lead us into a coldcase file of finding out what did actually happen to Annie’s parents.

“They call me Croptop” and I can breathe thru a bag over my head…

I expect Annie and company to be back around the 100th anniversary of LOA on August 5 – perhaps just a one-day interlude on Sunday, August 4.

…and can we call ya “crop”, and can we call ya “top”? These are just lead-in questions before we decide we’re the “few good men” yer lookin’ for……..

You go to this bar if you want to hire some thugs? I guess E.J.‘s is like the union hall for miscreants, sort of a rent-a-thug. There are usually several of them sitting around waiting for some villain to hire them for their gang. Why doesn’t Tracy just go to that bar and arrest the whole bunch?

This is kind of silly but I guess criminals have to get their gangs from somewhere.

Interesting…the Dick Tracy Fandom page on Mrs. Flattop also lists DoubleUp as part of the group who met with her. With her!

Much as I’m glad the Annie trope (tripe?) is over, nevertheless, it is now implied that the arc was totally useless, not even advancing its own plot. I mean, we already knew Annie had a birthday (even if she didn’t know what it was), she was (almost) always Warbucks’ ward anyway, and we never found out what happened to her parents – even though the arc went to great pains to introduce us to them.

And now, a „new“, non-flat member of the „top“ family, and what sadly promises to be yet another „kew duh twacy“ storyline (with apologies to Chuck Jones and Bugs Bunny’s night at the opera)…

I would expect a better clientele at Elton John’s

They’re going to pull heists all along the path of totality while it’s dark and no one is paying attention. OH NO!!!

Remember frosty mugs of A&W rootbeer? Those are not them.

Sam went in there once and had some kind of flashback upon seeing the beer pulls pictured in the last panel and blasted them all believing he was at the pistol range. He’s no longer welcome at Elton John’s …

I like that the bartender is trying to class up the dump with a bowtie and jacket. Speaking of – it looks like the kind of place with a sign at the door that reads: NO MOTORCYCLE COLORS ALLOWED. I avoid those places because motorcycles come in all kinds of colors. How can I know I’m not wearing one!

self administered slap OWW!

And ugly.

Oh-oh – there’s a stray member of the notorious Flattop family!!

And some day we’ll see Moptop, Droptop, Looptop, and Tanktop…

I like her already

cue the dark ambient music with discordant overtones which, although broadly tonal, is inflected with chromatic and polytonal passages representing the archetypal example of a florid, melodramatic style without being interpreted as an overly heavy-handed metaphor within the context of the thematic material a bit on the frenetic and frantic side with interesting rhythmic devices which seem to counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor utilizing a novel imaging technique known as positron emission tomography and the spontaneous nondenominational conceptions by expansively recontextualizing liminal narratives of colonic hydrotherapy

And another outcropping of Flattop’s DNA rises to the surface. (Amazing – the more members are killed, the more of them show up.)

That woman has the words trouble written all over her face!

She looks like one of those biker chicks. Her theme song is probably “Born to Be Wild”.

I like her already.

I do wonder if everybody knows your name in this place. (I mean, they would be easy to remember – half of them have a first name ending in “Top” and a last name of “Jones”.)

“I’m looking for a few good men… for an off-off-off Broadway production of A Few Good Men.”

It’s Mullet Mama!

I know it’s just another version of Flaptop, but this time I think I’m in love.

NOT Miss Mullette!

Bet they call you “hot” too.

Okay,we haven’t seen this place since 2012—-Blackjack meets the old timers. They weren’t impressed(You LIKE Dick Tracy?)

“The Marines are looking for a few good men. Unfortunately, you ^&$&$#^$*&% aren’t it !”

Clint Eastwood—-HEARTBREAK RIDGE

The family name of Flattop is Jones. Is everybody there a “top”?