Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for December 23, 2019

Good morning™, backup officers!

This may explain why we didn’t see Steve yesterday? Anyway, the crooks will not get away this time.

I’m trying to be fair

Because I absolutely care

About Tracy and the strip

So I have to let ’er rip

This plot has been so bad

Can it be we’ve all been had

Is it all an inside joke

By the boys to make us choke

As we yell scream and fuss

Are Mike and Joe just mocking us

I mean that’s just the only way

To explain the mess each day

That we’re forced to read then cry

As we plead the reason why

A strip that once earned praise

Is just a foggy haze.

Very therapeutic for me. It’s important to express feelings. I feel better despite the moronicness of today’s strip!

Good morning™, missing Nomad wanderers !

I bet Mike is uncomfortably close to the escaping would be killers than most would find comfortable. I hope he doesn’t fall for another pitch. We were on our way to turn ourselves in, officer, so we’ll just be on our way then.

Everything is so darn easy and convenient. Yeesh!

They may already be on their way with the fake armored car, to pull off the heist that Splitface had planned.

A Ka-nod from a fellow crime fighter.

https://www.gocomics.com/riphaywire/2019/12/23?ct=v&cti=2243733

Well, it wouldn’t be a first for Mike to have a bad guy meet his demise at the zoo, from an animal….

Oh darn, how could this brilliant plan have failed? If only Splitface used that gun in his hand in the 12/16 strip to take care of his bound and unconscious enemies.

The beast just stood there and let his face be wrapped in duct tape without a struggle?

Oh well onward we go!!! Where ever the Nomad goes the rest will follow!!!

Oh, come on! This has now gone beyond ludicrous.

Tracy and crew walk into the most obvious trap on the face of the earth. The crooks come up with the dumbest plan ever to murder them – and leave their radios. Lt. Clark just happens to be right nearby, and just happens to have duct tape. And somehow manages to out-wrestle the gator and wrap duct tape around his mouth?

There isn’t a single plot point that makes sense. Not one.

anti climax after anti climax after anti climax… this is getting ridiculous!

SIGH i think with the foolish offerings in this story (and the last few months to be honest) i am most certainly going to pen the next (few) chapter(s) of my Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend story… theres a LOT to catch up on, and i work from 11am til 7pm on Christmas eve, off Christmas Day (with no pay, cuz i dont a=have accrued time yet) then work the 26th, but then its Friday and saturday, s..

Yeah, Veronica Estanque is gonna make some big moves in short order i think!

Great, thanks Officer, for duct-taping the gator.

Now we can’t even have a plot twist where Splitface gets himself ironically eaten (or at least have his face torn the rest of the way off) by the hungry reptile.

The crooks come up with the dumbest plan ever to murder them – and leave their radios.

I said it before — Splitface and Clybourne may not know what the Wrist Wizards are, and could have mistaken them for mere wristwatches. And before you ask “why didn’t they just steal them,” they’d have an impossible time getting rid of them. The WWs are probably equipped with a tracking mechanism of some sort that the MCU could trace. Every “fence” would avoid them like the plague.

Lt. Clark…somehow manages to out-wrestle the gator and wrap duct tape around his mouth?

See my reply to Ray Toler, in his response to corpcasselbury, who responded to tripwire45, above.

1-OFFICER DUMBLUCK: Luckily I had duct tape in my pants pocket. I carry it cause it’s shaped like a donut and I really like…

2-DT: Good work Dumbcluck.

OFFICER DUMBLUCK: It’s…

DT: Hey, you other guys knew my plan to trade places until I was at the end of the gator lunch line was for your benefit, didn’t you?

3-SAM: As the meal that would’ve ended up being eaten first, I can only imagine you were trying to spare me from watching you die.

DT: Sure! Good. Let’s go with that. Hey Dumptruck. Did you say you had donuts?

Good thing the bad guys left the cage unlocked.

Boy, it was really lucky a LIEUTENANT was wandering around and on the same frequency as the 2- ways. Even more fortunate, like all police brass, he’s issued Duct tape. Can you say serendipity kids. BTW, Mike’s last name is NOMAD, so of course he’s wandered off. Geez, crimefighters, shape up

Has there been a lamer crocodile/alligator sequence since “Live & Let Die”?

I just can’t believe Split face would try to harm Tracy and Sam! He was always such a good boy!

Ah, yes, the handyman’s secret weapon.

I hope they at least give him the steak

Lieutenant Clark just happens to be one of the departments best and most experienced ‘gator wrestlers! Ain’t that special!

And so the Four Dummies live to botch another arrest….

duck tape too/ all the gear officers carry and he just happens to add a big roll of tape?

Gator Works fast!

@neil wick I love how from the Sunday comic to today the aligator is magically subdued