Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for January 10, 2019

Suspense?

Good Morning™ after a long delay it finally updated. A poignant broad shot at the ICU. No dialog needed.

Good Morning™, Death anticipators !

The screen still has squiggly lines. Will this be tragedy or triumph ?

Great work by Joe Staton!

Regardless of the outcome of this story. This will have no impact on the regular strip.

Junior is just having a bad dream in the end.

Good morning™, pleaders!

A very effective image! It reminds me of when B.O. was in a similar position in a hospital bed. I’ll have to look up some reactions I have from that.

She won’t die…..

This is a much happier, upbeat strip than in earlier times….(but still excellent!)

Hey Donnie good job but what you should have done was have Mysta get gassed and when she inevitably wakes up let Mindy emerge from her deep sleep. That would have been worth the price of admission!

I’ve waited and waited to make this comment ever since Sparkle ended up in the hospital… and its got NOTHING to do with the writing. This time its the artwork.

When was the last time any of you saw anyone unconscious in the ICU unit in a bed holding their blankets up the way Sparkle has been since she got there? NORMALLY their arms are by their side since it facilitates injections, IV’s, pulse, etc.

Sparkle’s arms should be flat out at her side, either palms up or down, but neatly tucked under the blanket clutching to the top by her fingers isn’t realistic at all

While I’m liking the storyline, it isn’t doing much Mystery Advancing—for a Minute Mystery that is.

Even though it’s a Minute Mystery, wouldn’t it be an odd twist for Sparkle to die, and Tracy Jr transitioning to a villain?

Tear jerker.

I hit I liked today’s strip but I do not like where this is going. Hang in there Sparkle.

So she dies on Sat?

Very well done. You don’t need much, to portray the sheer pain Junior is in. One of the best strips posted aside from the 9/11 memorials.

Three more days!

You can see the crack in his voice by the jagged lines of the speech balloon. A complete jagged of the balloon indicates all is lost and he is into weeping.

What a poignant,moving, panel, especially with BO and Gertie in silhouette…

Even if Sparkle dies in canon, this is a comic strip/book and nobody stays dead in a comic strip/book. We all believed Bucky Barnes, Jean Grey, and Jason Todd were dead, too.

This mystery has taken WAY longer than a minute.

On Saturday, November 18, 1950, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published the first new edition since a 47-day strike closed all three of Pittsburgh’s daily papers.

The following Tuesday, the comics editors tried to quickly bring readers up to date with what they had missed in the continuity strips. They said, “We are sorry you missed all the laughs and excitement in the world of comics for seven weeks. Many things happened….” This is their synopsis of what readers missed in Dick Tracy:

“T. V. Wiggles is dead. B. O. Plenty is near death with four bullets through his chest. Sparkle Plenty is safe. These three short sentences bring you up to date with what has been happening in the Dick Tracy comic strip. But, we are sorry you had to miss each daily installment of this great comic strip. Sparkle Plenty barely escaped with her life after T. V. Wiggles kidnaped her. Tracy put his men on a 24-hour duty in an effort to capture T. V. Wiggles and save Sparkle Plenty. In the best Tracy tradition he succeeded. T. V. Wiggles was cornered and in the battle that followed T. V. was killed. He succeeded in wounding B. O. Plenty, however, and Tracy fears he has failed, for B. O. is near death.”

Tuesday’s strip was this one:

http://worldofdt.info/img/dt19501121.png

The strip actually asked the readers if B. O. should live. “Would Gertie and Sparkle be better off with B. O. gone? What do you think?”

I am put in mind of the tremendous public reaction to the death of little Nell in Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop. Although some critics saw it as bathetic, the public reaction was remarkable. I would not want to see Sparkle go out in a comparable way!

Sure, you can! You’ve got a backup, and Mysta has powers that can probably do wonders in private.