But published on Friday the Thirteenth, which may explain it.
Yes, it’s something of a CIDU, raising unanswered questions, even if they aren’t deep questions. Is the boy from his public family, or his secret family? And either way, what is the point of this conversation? (Besides getting to enact a takeoff on this erstwhile very standard capitalist melodrama scene.)
If you were thinking that the color version might brighten our outlook, let’s give it a try:
Comics I Don't Understand 
I think the date is irrelevant, and that the colorized version interferes with the tone of the dialog. The way the father refers to the “secret family” implies that his son is not a member of it, and will therefore inherit diddly squat.
Or … this is his son with his secret family, and they’ll inherit it all. Otherwise, why tell a small kid?
True story: Some years ago, a decent sized diamond on my wife’s ring was coming loose. She was heading to Philadelphia for a high school reunion, the the woman she was staying with had a husband who was a prominent jeweler. My wife decided to take the ring down to him to have it repaired. But she forgot.
A few months later, the jeweler showed up on 20/20 (an ABC news show). They’d done an undercover investigation of that jeweler and found out he was switching stones — and using the money to support a secret family in New Jersey. His legal marriage collapsed, his business collapsed. I don’t know where he is now.
My wife’s ring sits in our safe deposit box, unrepaired (along with her unrepaired trust of jewelers).
Recalling a 60s magazine cartoon. The cook in a glitzy-looking roadside burger stand tells his son “Someday, this — and hundreds more exactly like it — will be yours.”
An older one showed a storefront plastered with signs like “We lost our lease!” “Going out of business!” “Last chance discounts!” The proud proprietor is telling his son all this will be his someday. The perpetually going-out-of-business store was an enduring minor trope.
One might classify this as a variant of the ever-popular lawyer-reading-the-will setup (often centering on a bunch of relatives glaring at a smug young bimbo).
What, the curtains?
What, the curtains?
Yeah, that immediately came tom my mind as well.
zbicyclist –
When I started working in accounting I did not work for my dad (though I had done so before I started working as an actual job). The accountant I worked for had a father who had originally worked in the jewelry district before HE became an accountant – my boss had taken over his dad’s practice. One of the reasons he hired me was that I had worked in the jewelry department of a well known local home goods/jewelry store (Fortunoffs to those who might know it – on the jewelry side, but not the home goods”side”.. – why different side is interesting story of family and how they do or do not get along, if anyone hears to it) so I had a knowledge of the terms and such in the industry.
There were some clients who I would trust to send someone to buy from and some I would not. Just like accountants, lawyers etc. – some are a lot more honest than others.
(I really think Minor Annoyance is responding to something seen on yesterday’s Comic Strip of the Day.)
@Lost, I partly see what you mean, as M.A.’s remark about “the ever-popular lawyer-reading-the-will setup” does seem like the scene in a cartoon in yesterday’s CSOTD, the one with a will-reading scene! (Image embedded below.) However, that cartoon has a murder-by-dagger, and a ventriloquist, which are not at play in M.A.’s comment; and it lacks the “smug young bimbo”, which is in the comment.
At any rate, M.A.’s whole first paragraph is about a franchise variant on the “this will all be yours” theme of this comic.
zbicyclist: Your jeweler story just reminds me of why it’s ridiculous to pay huge money for diamonds. Without reading the news story, she had no idea that her diamond was fake. Since its whole purpose is decoration, why pay extra when you can’t tell the difference?
MinorAnnoyance: There was one (or rather, a set) of those perpetually going-out-of-business furniture stores around the corner from where I once lived. Different name after all the signage came down.Same store. Apparently the same furniture.
Here is an entirely different outlook, but with the same key lines:
I think the son in the picture is not from the secret family.
With cutthroat capitalists like this, or so the comics would have us believe, the cruelty is the point.