In today's Dick Tracy, we see how the blackmailers at Tip Top Town Topix are getting raw material from a disgruntled employee at the Knights baseball team -- one that used a hidden camera to capture that raw material. A hidden camera that used a bobblehead of Phil Demain, the villain in one of my previous Dick Tracy stories...

Art by, as usual, the excellent Charles Ettinger.

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/06/16

Today's Dick Tracy shows that Mr. Gabriel, the proprietor of the scandal rag that has salacious information on the owner of the Knights baseball team, intends to press his advantage, especially since Sarah Phym, Gabriel's assistant, is on the verge of getting more information.

Art by Charles Ettinger, who does a nice job with the white-and-gold "angelic" look.

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/06/13

In today's Dick Tracy, Lizz Worthington-Grove summarizes where the MCU stands on its investigation into the suicide of the banker: it's clear there's been blackmail (the son's statement), and there's now sharper information on the cryptocurrency transactions that have probably been used to pay the blackmail (the Ma Zooma tokens). What the MCU now needs are leads on where the payments might have gone...

Art by Charles Ettinger.

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/06/12

In today's Dick Tracy, the crypto angle that the MCU is aware of grows, since the dead banker had some "Ma Zooma" tokens in his possession at the time of his death -- and a fair amount of it, too. What's in the encrypted spreadsheet, though...?

("Ma Zooma" is of course a play on the Yiddish/Yinglish word "mazuma.")

Art by Charles Ettinger.

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/06/11

Today's Dick Tracy has something of importance, in that Sam Catchem has turned up some potential evidence that the dead banker had. The evidence can be tied to him with fingerprints, so as Tracy indicates, it remains to be seen what the computer forensics team might turn up.

Art by Charles Ettinger.

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/06/10

Today's Dick Tracy features some art from Charles Ettinger that I greatly enjoyed. At the offices of the Knights baseball team in Tracy's city, a Bad Girl (capital B, capital G) saunters into the office of Mr. Borden, the owner of the team, rubbing it in the face of the receptionist...who may be plotting some sort of payback (and we get a hint that this isn't the first time she's dropped nickle).

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/06/09

In today's Dick Tracy, we get a hint of what was going on in the matter described by one of Gabriel's minions -- a femme fatale seems to be dressed for hanky-panky with someone important in the Knights baseball club organization...

That person's full name is Joseph Borden, named for the man that allegedly threw the first no-hitter in National League history, back in 1876.

I did get a bang from the great design of Ms. van Duivel, the femme fatale, by Charles Ettinger.

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/06/08

In today's Dick Tracy, the interview with the banker's son concludes. The saddened man isn't able to provide any more information, though he wishes he could...

Art by Charles Ettinger: Artist at large!

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/06/07

In Dick Tracy over the last three days (6/4-6/6), Lee Ebony and Lizz Worthington-Grove have been interviewing the son of the banker that killed himself. The son tells the detectives that, in turn, his father told him that he was being blackmailed, and the father also made a cryptic remark as to who was doing the blackmailing.

Art by Charles Ettinger.

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/06/04

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/06/05

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/06/06

In today's Dick Tracy, Lizz Worthington-Grove advances the investigation by trying to find where the RTC document used in the blackmail came from. Her colleague Lee Ebony suggests a team-up for interviewing the son of the dead banker.

Art by Charles Ettinger: Artist at large!

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/06/03

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/05/31

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/06/01

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/06/02

These three days of Dick Tracy are meant to put across the notion that Mr. Gabriel, the proprietor of Tip Top Town Topix, likes to do things the old-fashioned way with his Linotype machines, and we actually see them in action. (The stills are based on "Farewell to Etoian Shrdlu," a documentary on the last day the New York Times used Liontype machines.). I do like the way that Charles Ettinger got across Gabriel's demonic glee in the last panel of Sunday's strip.

In yesterday's Dick Tracy (5/29/2024) Lee and Lizz are talking about what was on the laptop of the banker that killed himself (you'll notice the Guardian logo on the laptop). Apparently, the banker did a great deal of research on crypto...and on a certain scandal rag.

Art by Charles Ettinger.

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/05/29

In today's Dick Tracy, Sam Catchem overhears Lee and Lizz talk about "Tip Top Town Topix," which the ladies haven't heard of, but Sam (having a good nosh) has.

Art by Charles Ettinger.

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/05/30

In today's Dick Tracy, it looks like the presses are going to roll at "Tip Top Town Topix." Apparently, the proprietor prefers to use old-fashioned Linotype machines, much to the bafflement of his minions...

Art by Charles Ettinger

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/05/28

Addendum: "Joshreads" has a somewhat less snarky take on my work (and Charles') than usual:

https://joshreads.com/2024/05/this-.....ll-white-suit/

In today's Dick Tracy, the head of the MCU gathers his team together and divides some responsibilities for the investigation that has been requested by Homicide.

The detective that had been talking to Tracy last week is thus shown to have been a Homicide detective -- as was also hinted by the "Show to MCU" post-it on one page.

Art by Charles Ettinger: Artist at large!

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/05/27

In today's Dick Tracy, we see more of the chief villain in this story arc, the publisher of "Tip Top Town Topix." He's meeting with his minions Cherry Bimm and Sarah Phym. The latter, apparently, has some dirt on the owner of the Knights baseball club, dirt that intrigues the publisher...

The publisher is alluding to a previous Dick Tracy story of mine, the Minit Mystery "The Curse of Nuremoh," Simpson being the pitcher that was murdered in that story.

The publisher's luxurious beard and mustache are based in part on Kenneth Branagh's facial shrubbery in "Murder on the Orient Express." His character is based on another figure with a luxurious set of whiskers, William D'Alton Mann, who was himself a blackmailing publisher in New York City in the late 19th and early 20th century, and published...Town Topics.

"-30-" is the long-standing telegraphic code for "end of story."

Art by Charles Ettinger.

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/05/26

In today's Dick Tracy, we get a hint of who might have been behind the blackmail that ultimately resulted in the banker Gordon Pierce committing suicide. A rather large gentleman who likes a gold-coloured scheme, and two minions. A Cherry Bimm and a Sarah Phym...

Art by Charles Ettinger.

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/05/25

In today's Dick Tracy, the homicide detective reveals to Tracy another very important set of facts: the banker that was being blackmailed, and had killed himself, had paid out $9 million, most of his net worth, in cryptocurrency. And it's not known where it's gone...

The token shown in panel 2 is for a made-up cryptocurrency (it will be later shown to be named Ma Zooma, hence the MZ). The logo (and the art) are by Charles Ettinger.

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/05/24

A conversation elsewhere with  perfesser-bear (a brother Yankee) had me musing on one of the insane things my family experienced during my lifetime. Insane not so much as bad, as the sort of lunatic thing that can happen in business.

My family moved to Old Saybrook in 1965, shortly before my twin sister and I were born. I know that they got the mortgage on the family house from the Essex Savings Bank, which then as now is a small, local mutual savings bank. (It's where I had my first bank account, a passbook account.). For regular checking and such, my parents opened an account at the branch of the Hartford National Bank on Main Street, a few doors down from the ESB.

Up until the time my father died in 2020, the family still banked at that same branch, and in many cases the executives and tellers handling the accounts were the same people over the 50+ year period. (I remember being fascinated by the Mosler safe leading to the safe deposit boxes.)

The oddity came from the serial banks that used the same branch, same equipment, and same people.

As I recall, it went from Hartford National Bank to Connecticut National Bank (1982) to Shawmut Bank (1988) to Fleet Bank (1995) to Bank of America (2004). Which drove my mother, who maintained the family's finances, totally nuts, since she had to deal with scrapping multiple sets of documents each time the banks changed.

In today's Dick Tracy, the conversation with the homicide detective continues. We now a get a bit more insight into what happened. The blackmailers, it seems, had gotten a hold of a document from the files of the RTC showing that Gordon Pierce (the banker that killed himself) had worked for the failed S&L. From here, Homicide could have checked up on Pierce's c.v. to show that he, Pierce, had covered up his employment with Old Court. Tracy draws the correct conclusion as to how this would have motivated Pierce to pay up. This is why Homicide, judging from the post-it note, has decided to take matters up with the MCU.

Also of note: curious gold-coloured ink...

Art by Charles Ettinger.

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/05/23

In today's Dick Tracy, the homicide detective consulting with Tracy provides him with an unusual fact; apparently, the suicide victim had, at one point, faked their resume by omitting a period of employment with a bank that had collapsed in scandal during the S&L crisis, a bit of fakery that had, apparently, not been caught...at least by the bank that employed the victim as CEO.

Panel 1 is modeled after contemporary news-photographs of the collapse of Old Court Savings & Loan in 1985; in fact, the president of Old Court did go to jail.

Art by Charles Ettinger.

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/05/22

In today's Dick Tracy, the Homicide detective continues to lay out to Tracy what had been bothering her; apparently, the banker that had killed himself had once worked for a savings and loan.

Old Court Savings & Loan, inclusive of that distinctive logo, was in fact a real bank that failed in 1985. It was located in Maryland, and was a major news story during my freshman year at university, in Washington.

Art by Charles Ettinger.

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/05/21

In today's Dick Tracy, another detective, apparently the one investigating the banker's suicide, has called upon Dick Tracy to talk about an element in the case that bothers her. (The banker has now been given a name.)

The detective here is unnamed, though in the script she's named "Helen" after Helen Mirren, the detective in "Prime Suspect," and Charles Ettinger: Artist at large! has designed her to reflect, in part, that spirit.

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/05/20

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/05/19

What's going on here, today, is that we see what appears to be a high-ranking executive at a banking firm. It is night-time, and he is obviously thinking deeply about an important decision. Ominously, he leaves a note to his family under a paperweight on his desk (one with his bank's logo on it), pauses, and then picks up a gun that is on his desk. Down in the lobby, the security staff receive a report of a shot fired (probably from night-time custodial staff) and immediately call 911 for assistance.

"Guardian" is an allusion to a well-known banking disaster that engulfed Detroit in 1932-1933, when the city's leading banks, including the Guardian Detroit Union Group, collapsed, leaving the city virtually without banks. The logo seen (and designed very well by Charles Ettinger) is actually modeled on the logo for Equitable Life. One bit of inside baseball: years ago, when I was in firm practice, I worked for a law firm that had its offices on the 58th floor of One Chase Manhattan Plaza, where that bank had its headquarters. (My office had one hell of a view of the Twin Towers.)

I'm pleased to report that Tribune Content Agency has picked up another story of mine for the Dick Tracy comic strip, and that the story begins today, May 19th.

https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2024/05/19

Some darn good work by Charles Ettinger, there.