Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for February 22, 2018

Good morning™, everyone waiting for the lab reports!

Here’s an interesting question… If Ghost used Fugu poison to kill Stagg who ate the non-toxic prepared Fugu… How would that be noticed ?

Maybe examining the stomach contents would be in order…

If this was murder it’s going to be hard to prove that the death was intentional.

Did the blowfish make Marty’s towel disappear?

I like this. It reminds me of the murder of Addy Gothorn, where they showed the procedure in collecting evidence and capturing the murderer. I really do hope Team Tracy does a few more like this. Not all the time, of course, but every so often.

Seems Ghost has done well in executing his execution of Simon Stagg.

Congratulations to all of you who called it yesterday: (Apparent) Cause of death, accidental!

So far a perfect crime.

with this murder lost my taste for exotic fish

Accidental? In Tracytown? You must be new here…

Sam looks skeptical in the last panel too.

Notice Marty’s wording in the third panel, “IF tests show fugu poison it is MOST LIKELY accidental” That IF and MOST LIKELY leave a lot of room for a change of opinion

So the Dick Tracy comic just gave sound advice on how to murder somebody and not get caught.

Could Marty’s last name be Grass?

Murder or not, his next of kin have a good lawsuit coming!

Well, we saw Popeye for no apparent reason. Now I can’t Wait for Homer Simpson to show up! FUGU ME!

Question: Who kept eating Fugu until they discovered the part that didn’t kill you?

Another case successfully solved! Now, let’s see if the Plentys took in Crystal while Junior and Sparkle had their belated Valentine’s Day vacation…

While seeing Tracy cut short a vacation to tend to detective work is nothing new, seeing Sam and Tracy on the case this early in a story is rather unusual. I like the avoidance of formulae. Many stories find us spending weeks with the criminal(s) before the MCU gets involved. This is good for character development, yet I like the change of pace we’re seeing here at the Coroner’s office. Pepper does not stand a ghost of a chance. Sam and Tracy know something is fishy.

Marty is a distinctive coroner (though I still prefer Ducky Mallard of NCIS as my forensic pathologist of choice) and knows his poisonous fishies. But can he tell from the forthcoming toxicology and lab report how concentrated the poison was, when it was ingested/administered, or if there was any other abnormal presence—especially any psychotropic? I think the lab work could yet be significant to Tracy’s investigation….

The fugu didn’t kill him, it was the “special ingredient” means that the toxin wasn’t enough to kill Stagg.