This year is the centennial of the debut of Little Orphan Annie. While Annie is no longer in production, Mike Curtis has been glad to make his tenure on Dick Tracy a guest home for them. In celebration, then, we’re getting a backstory that seems to tie in to some Annie plot I don’t know anything about, the case of one Boris Sirob, and how it brought Annie to an orphanage.

This all, then, should catch you up to mid-March 2024 in Mike Curtis, Shelley Pleger, Charles Ettinger, and Shane Fisher’s Dick Tracy. At this link are all my Dick Tracy posts, so if you’re reading this after about June 2024 and want to know what’s going on, try here. There might be something you want to know.

Also: The past couple months saw the transition from Shelley Pleger as main artist to Charles Ettinger. I don’t think the style has changed that dramatically, but if you were wondering why it’s changed at all, that’s why. Nothing like Rod Whigham taking over the art on Judge Parker while Mike Manley recovers his health.

Dick Tracy.

24 December 2023 – 16 March 2024.

We were at the close of a story, last time I checked in, so this time starts with the boards nice and clear.

So our story began with comic book celebrity guest stars Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster stopping in to visit Dick Tracy because … they’re related to the Plenty clan and can work with relative Plentia Kopz on something that hasn’t come to light yet.

So our story actually begins with Rikki Mortis, onetime assistant to Abner Kadaver, getting out of jail on the support and secret messages of Fata Morgana. Morgana’s a travelling stage magician and occasional hit person and, apparently, Kadaver’s understudy. And needs an assistant to carry out some work. First is the murder of Patrick Throughton, who’d been scheduled to testify against drug lord Jon Pertwee. No, I don’t get what the Doctor Who Actor Names thing is teasing either or why they’re picking on Jon Pertwee. Still, it’s a clean hit, calling Throughton up on stage and sawing him in half with a chainsaw, and then later that night he dies of poison.

Johnny Adonis: 'Welcome to the Tracy Detective Agency, Ms ... ?' Fata Morgana: 'Morgana. Where is Ms Tracy?' Adonis: 'Ms Tracy got hung up in traffic, but I can help. You're a magician, aren't you? I recognized the mask.' Morgana: 'Yes. It's my stage gear. I don't feel secure without it, but lately I don't feel safe at all.' Adonis: 'Oh?' Morgana: 'I think I have a stalker. They've been sending me notes.' She takes some papers out of her purse, and her pen falls out on the table and jabs Adonis. Adonis: 'Ouch! That pen of yours is sharp!' Morgana, thinking: 'Oh, snap!' Aloud: 'Sorry!' — Mike Curtis and Shelley Pleger’s **Dick Tracy** for the 14th of January, 2024. I’m not sure why Morgana had the fast-acting poison here; the slow-acting kind used for Throughton’s murder seems to provide a much better chance for getting away with it. I guess that Morgana realizes the kind of strip she’s in and knows it’s not death without a witnessed corpse.

Morgana gets another job. It’s a hit on Tess Tracy. She hasn’t been in enough stories lately, so the Bosco crime family steps in to want her gone. Mortis can’t have any part of this, not after Dick Tracy let her say goodbye to the dying Abner. Morgana can work with this. She goes to the Tess Tracy Detective Agency, spinning a story of being afraid of a stalker. Bad luck for the hit: Tess is caught in traffic, and her partner Johnny Adonis accidentally gets jabbed with Morgana’s poison pen.

Morgana figures to disappear a while, doing so mid-show, alongside an elephant. And she disguises herself as Bob Baxter, okay enough magician who sometimes fills in when Morgana does one of her vanishing acts. That cover would be decent if George Bosco — alarmed by Dick Tracy asking to see his organization’s books — didn’t go to Baxter on the off chance that he can make people disappear too.

George Bosco: 'You Baxter?' Fata Morgana disguised as Bob Baxter, magician with a white rabbit in their arms: 'Oh! Yes?' Bosco: 'George Bosco. I'm told you fill in for Fata Morgana.' Baxter: 'You're right, sir, but I can't make elephants disappear.' Bosco: 'That's OK. I need someone who makes *people* disappear. You get me?' Baxter: 'Buzz off, mister!' (Full panel THAWK as Bosco slaps Baxter.) — Mike Curtis and Shelley Pleger’s **Dick Tracy** for the 3rd of February, 2024. My love notes that “THAWK” is an interesting choice of onomatopoeia there. I agree.

Unlucky for Bosco, Dick Tracy’s there. I think the implication is he followed Bosco, but my initial read was that Tracy was there to ask Baxter some more questions about Morgana’s disappearance. Anyway, in the scrum of arresting Bosco, Baxter escapes into the bootlegger’s tunnels underneath. She sheds her disguise, goes back to recover Baxter’s performing rabbit Harvey, and meets up with Rikki Mortis to get the heck out of the story. And that, the 10th of February, ends our introduction to Fata Morgana and the fall of the Bosco crime syndicate.

The 10th of February also ends our time with Shelley Pleger as main artist for the strip. After that is a two-week Minit Mystery written by Eric Costello and drawn by Dee Fish, a fresh poisoning puzzle that also has a solution in stage magic. Or at least stage magic-style trickery.

The current story, and Charles Ettinger’s tenure as main artist, began the 26th of February. This with a phone call from Oliver Warbucks, at the Hotel Siam. We get a mention of J P McKee and Captain Easy. The name “J P McKee” means nothing to me. Captain Easy I recognize as the concept-drift champion comic strip Wash Tubbs and Captain Easy, which I never read either. Anyway the important business is: Warbucks has made contact with Bob Smith, a figure we saw in a teaser back in May 2023. Smith has a picture of Annie’s parents.

From here we get into a flashback, explaining how Annie came to be orphaned. Way back in the day gangster-coded palindrome Boris Sirob planned to kidnap Not-Yet-Daddy Warbucks. Tracy was guarding him. Also guarding him: two FBI agents, Harold and Winifred Gray. You may recognize the name “Harold Gray” as the person who, in our history, created the comic strip. Go ahead and guess what Actual Harold Gray’s wife was named.

[ Boris Sirob, international terrorist, has plans to kidnap Oliver Warbucks. ] Sirob, addressing Harold and Winifred Gray: 'All right. Your ride will be at Warbucks' at 8 pm. No problems?' Winifred: 'Don't fret, Boris. That flatfoot Tracy won't be any problem.' Harold: 'As far as he's concerned, we're just the dumb housekeepers.' Sirob: 'Splendid.' [ Elsewhere ] Dick Tracy: 'You working late, Warbucks?' Warbucks: 'I don't keep banker's hours, Tracy. What time is it?' Tracy: 'Just about 8.' Harold and Winifred Gray, breaking into the room and holding pistols: 'Hello.' — Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger’s **Dick Tracy** for the 10th of March, 2024. This story might lead you to wonder about the timeline, since, like, who says “flatfoot” since **Johnny Dollar** went off the air? Heck, who says “banker’s hours”? So that suggests “a long time ago”. But the Grays are sure their child will be born a girl, when the biology of pregnancy was completely unknown to the medical establishment until 1994. And Annie is … not an adult … today, in 2024. So in short: there is no way to make this all consistent, just don’t worry about it.

In the story, in flashback, the Grays are undercover agents planted in Sirob’s organization. Harold and the extremely pregnant Winifred get the task with doing the actual kidnapping. They’re happy to subvert the kidnapping and let Tracy arrest the getaway driver, but now they can’t go back to Sirob without giving themselves away. And they’re thinking very hard about their imminent daughter, and the orphanage they’ve seen many times over the course of this assignment.

How does that all come together? I have some guesses, but obviously, no telling yet. I imagine the next month or two will answer it all and then I can get back to you in June to retell it, in fewer words.

Next Week!

One of my easy weeks! Yes! I recap a mere dozen comic strips as we go back to the time of King Arthur in Mark Schultz and Thomas Yeates’s Prince Valiant, all going well. See you then.