Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for August 30, 2016

Look to see a prone Tracy recovering from the fightSlice and dice is not so nice, yet Tracy knows no fright.Severe wounds sustained were blunted by a long, heavy trench coatAbner and he bow to gravity, fight better than they float.An IV drip doth ease the pain, yet also dulls the sensesResources Tracy gathers up, as silently he winces.The quiet doctor loads a bowl and draws upon his pipeHis patient must have privacy. Avoid the fuss and hypeOf media voracious for the fate of the two menWho could survive and be alive? Who lost and who did win?

.Good morning fellow DT/Kadever fans!.Yikes! What an unexpected turn of events! Gweedo is standing bedside to bring you the latest! The rest of the team is searching for Abner...

Will he turn out to be the son/grandson of Dr. Watson???

Yesterday certain people were complaining of a slow boring pace, comparing the current strip to Dick Locher’s infamous run.You were saying?

Much swifter reveal than I’d imagined.

But why didn’t “Doctor Watson” ’fess up to the authorities …?

Is Mike cribbing a page from the novel “Misery” …?

So, it seems the doctor is a big fan of Sherlock Holmes and it also seems that the yellow trenchcoat saved the day. What our listeners want to know is how the search is going. Apparently, Tracy has been hidden from the searchers, but will they be able to locate Kadaver?

Superb use of the two-panel format today.

So why is the good doctor hiding Tracy in his home?How’d he get Tracy, anyway?And where is Tracy’s dance partner?-For more questions, join us tomorrow! Same Bat-time. Same Bat-channel.

Gweedo showed up and so much as said,Good morning, Bill and all the rest a ya !-—————————————————————————————————-.Good morning Gweedo! .I’m a-headin’ for bed now, Gweedo. You can reach me with this…..I ask, ain’t modern technology great or what?

We’ve assumed our “Mystery Man” to be a descendant of either Doyle or Watson.

What if he’s actually related to Professor Moriarty …?

Tracy never would have fallen if he’d had him one of these.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) – Studio GhibliI’ve heard of ham radio operators, but BMBG takes the cake!

Tremendous use of the two-panel format. More of the good stuff from Team Tracy.

I wouldn’t assume Abner didn’t have Dick’s face and outfit under all that film flam. I suspect a big reveal Sunday.

Aaaaaand this little piggy’s off to bed !

Not to make too big an issue of it…..and Tracy is used to Sam’s & Diet’s smoking after all, but if I were in Tracy’s condition, I certainly wouldn’t appreciate the good Doc puffing in my presence!

Good Doctor maybeWe hope so for Tracy’s sakeLying weak on bedHelpless trusting with no choiceWe don’t worry but Tess does

Getting more interesting! :)

Aha! As I expected, Tracy has shown up, alive, well before we have any information on Kadaver’s fate. To be sure, I did not expect that the Doyle-lookalike would turn out to a doctor (from the Watson side of the famous consulting detective agency?) who would find and rescue Tracy, then treat the wounded Tracy in his private clinic/laboratory. Is this man an honest Good Samaritan, or does he have less reputable motives and intentions?In any case, let us be thankful for the heavy yellow trenchcoat!

Meanwhile, BMBG team, get (ahem) cracking! We need the story behind the story!

Since the patient has stab wounds, it is unlikely to be Kadaver, since Tracy did not use a knife on Abner. The doctor does correctly assume that Abner (like Moriarty) has people working for him in the area, and so a Tracy whose location was known is still in danger.So it appears that our mystery man found Tracy after his appearances in the August 23 and 25 strips.

Look, I couldn’t save Measles, so I had to save my second favorite Tracy villain. Trust me, Abner is doing fine… looking a little worse for the wear (if that’s possible) but he’s fine. He looks a tad different tho, maybe he hit his face on the way down…..but don’t worry… good ol’ Abby will be up and offing people in no time!

I have a pretty skilled plastic surgeon on call (I believe he took over Dr Will carver’s practice) so the Abby you end up seeing might not look quite like the one youre used to…. as for the good doctor’s name? Hutter… Dr. Ike Hutter

heh, heh

TRACY LIVES!I’m thinking that the water the good doc was boiling yesterday was not for tea, but for sterilizing his hands and his instruments.

Doc says, “Thanks heavens you had that heavy trenchcoat! Your stab wounds weren’t fatal.”This tells me that the trenchcoat wasn’t what helped him survive the fall, just kept his stab wounds from being lethal.

I’m guessing the doc here has other-than-honorable intentions. If he moves him to his buddy Dr. Frankenstein’s lab in the basement, and lightning-gathering antennae emerge from the roof, then we know he maybe is planning to build a supercop….. or, he maybe is planning to remove Tracy’s brain and replace it with Gweedo’s.

How come they stopped showing him with the dog cane? I’d gotten the impression that that was somehow significant.

On second though …

… definitely Supercop.

Going to VA for annual “peek under the hood” so will get back to the news casting and waiting with bit finger nails over Abner’s fate later.

Something seems “off” about the doctor..

Will Mr. Tracy eventually retire and raise Bees in the country? Will they make a movie from the book somewhere in the distant future??

Will Dick become a major Netflix series staring young actors playing Sam and Dick.

Anything can happen in the Funny Pages…but who is laughing???

We know Tracy won, yet the media is in the dark, clamoring for more juicy tidbits of the fight, fall and aftermath. A freelance reporter may scoop the infamous BMBG, but only by a whisker. @AnyFace: yes, a real winner. Seems Studio Ghibi can do no wrong. @Boboscar: right as rain. @Gweedo: Is that “Hammy,” mascot of radio free Tracy? They know my 87 year old father by name at the VA. May all under the hood be exactly as it should. @capt mutt: nice work! Thanks to all for the kudos. All props to Team Tracy for another great strip. Good to see the great detective on the mend. Tess can take it from here, but not until she knows the fate of her man.

Dr Moran??

A couple of days ago I compared this story to a Gould continuity where Tracy disappeared in what appeared to be a watery grave, and Tess called Sam in to help. In that story, it was eventually revealed that Tracy was being nursed to health by an individual who had pulled him out of the water just in time. here we have another parallel to that story, which is kind of cool.

.Who is the doctor that is treating DT?.

I guess this is how Joe & Mike think European socialized medicine is practiced.

By all means, Herr Arzt, contaminate the sterile field!

Ah well, so it’s not Sir Arthur after all, but some other doctor. But Dr. who? Hmmmm…

Now there’s an idea for a crossover!

Once again, without outside help Tracy would be a goner at the hands of Abner, who is now 3 for 3, in a way……still don’t understand why Dick went close enough to get stabbed, though…..

@avenger09, Morrow, RightwingmoronI brought up Locher today because Morrow brought him up yesterday, trying to claim that Curtis was getting as sluggish in his pacing as Locher had been. Today’s strip blows that comparison out of water. Suddenly, BOOM! we now know where Tracy is. There’s no way Locher would’ve settled that mystery so quickly.The most important aspect of writing an adventure strip is to be able to make every single day move the plot further along (even if the “plot” is at that point a subplot or running gag). This was a skill that Gould had in spades, as did Collins, Killian, and now Curtis. It was a skill Locher had when he wrote one story for the strip after Collins left in 1993 but before Killian joined, but which he lost 13 years later when he took over after Killian died. And so much more happened last week than was evident to the people complaining about the pacing. In the past week, Tracy and Kadaver vanished, their disappearance became known to the general public, as well as friends and family, AND we found out what happened to Tess and that she was going to be ok (well, apart from thinking her husband might be dead) AND we were introduced to Mysterious Old Guy (MOG). Even yesterday that was supposedly so “boring” the plot moved further along. It was established that a full day had elapsed since the disappearance, and we saw more of MOG. Today, we learn why we’d been seeing so much of MOG.Rightwingmoron, thanks for the support. I’m left wing, but there’s nothing I disagreed with in what you said.

Gweedo pulled out one of our latest scientific evesdropping devices and displayed it for Sisyphos and other doubters to see,Meanwhile, BMBG team, get (ahem) cracking! We need the story behind the story!… I was having a good view over Mike’s shoulder, boss, when the maid came by and pulled the curtain !-——————————————————————————-.That’s showing ‘em our broadcasting muscle, Gweedo! I’m so very proud to be a part of this great historic endeavor!.

This story is getting harder to follow. What did Sam mean a few days ago when he said they were being played? I think I’d like to see more of the Rikki part of the story because the European part has been bogged down for some time now. Tracy could have finished off Abner easily with a couple of shots. Instead he engaged him in physical combat as if it was a wrestling match. Sure, it would have shortened the story but it would’ve been the logical thing to do since Abner wasn’t giving any information on Tess. I don’t think Tracy’s rescuer is adding anything to the story except stretching it out. We’ll see if it leads to anything but I was expecting more from the big summer story.

I don’t know if this radio stuff that’s been going on the last few weeks is real,or a sketch put on for the amusement of posters, or something else? It doesn’t make any sense to me because it doesn’t seem relevant to the story. Anyway, I don’t have any equipment for receiving any transmissions, if there are any. I must have missed something here.

Wonder if something like the storyline from “RANDOM HARVEST” might occur…….?

Look to see a prone Tracy recovering from the fight

Slice and dice is not so nice, yet Tracy knows no fright.

Severe wounds sustained were blunted by a long, heavy trench coat

Abner and he bow to gravity, fight better than they float.

An IV drip doth ease the pain, yet also dulls the senses

Resources Tracy gathers up, as silently he winces.

The quiet doctor loads a bowl and draws upon his pipe

His patient must have privacy. Avoid the fuss and hype

Of media voracious for the fate of the two men

Who could survive and be alive? Who lost and who did win?