Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for August 07, 2022

Reality of mystery puts Tracy in a bind

Seems the numbers don’t add up. No wish to be unkind.

Relocation. Population now smaller than before

Destruction of Moon Valley changed their lives forever more.

Lunarian longevity remains the stuff of lore

What we have here a mystery. A puzzle to the core.

The council it can feud and fuss, but traitors have no place

Made many adjustments when they traveled here from space.

Thorin now shall share the truth, which sometimes is elusive

Simple answers won’t suffice. The facts are not conducive.

One thing is undeniable. Insurrectionists are traitors

Rue the day they may have their way, the dishonest, violent haters.

“Not so much missing as frozen in the glacier for later. Like ice cream bars!”

Dick HAS been detecting and is working in secret with Thorin… his investigation seems to be in the preliminary stages… not much really to go on or pursue at the moment, so Dick will have to dig a bit deeper… he just has the basic, most cursory of information and no hard evidence or proof of any kind, as of yet… the investigation must proceed further…

Good morning™, everyone!

Tracy finally has results from his detective work, since he has a clue exactly where they are. I guess that security is meant to keep the rebels away from the fleet. I wonder if it will work.

W-guy is one of the council members that was against Tracy’s immigration plan, according to Thorin. That means that Thorin sent Tracy to watch the back entrance to the council chamber building.

Thorin is finally going to tell us what happened to half his population? We’ve been waiting for any detail.

Thorin: “We keep accidentally pushing them into the active part of the lava tube. Food down here is scarce after all…”

curious thing about half the population of the Valley missing… “not exactly”?

Good morning™, dirty snow diggers !

I got the feeling Thorin was going to spill but then ran out of panels. “Dubbya” guy looked pretty heated in his objection. Good thing Coupe access is limited but are there other coupes that could be used in an invasion ?

Not exactly! How exactly?

I’d say half the population was hiding from Marina and her out of control hormones !!!

COOL , image in the top right , I’m not so sure about this cartoon , I’m sorry to say : (

The Govassador’s shirt has scribbling that keeps appearing and disappearing.

Cool!

“Not exactly.”

“Soylent green is people!”

“Dissent at that level isn’t good.” Spoken like a loyal totalitarian lapdog. Wow.

Hall of Fame: The name of the father who was charged with arson is Jared Hazelwood. This was back in March, so perhaps the trial hasn’t take place yet.

SOLENT AQUMARINE IS MOON PEOPLE!!!!

So we may get to know what happened to Marina’s husband.

It doesn’t look like Dick has found out anything that Thorin Moonstone-Shield didn’t already know.

Isn’t this sort of how the Romulans from Star Trek began? (Splitting off from Vulcan and all?)

The “immigration” plan is different from the “invasion” plan? Probably depends on whose face are on them.

If by “happen” you mean “got dead” then, yes.

Unseen thought bubble off the story board…Tracy I can hardly wait to get back to earth and contend with regular criminals. The cloak and dagger stuff that the Ambassador had me doing is for the birds.

Love the “I’m a detective” panel! You can’t fool Tracy, Moondudes.

Look at Tracy being the funny boy when the fate of mankind is at stake. Yeah. Yuk it up funny boy. You’ll enjoy being Tracy The House Elf

Seems to me if Tracy’s breath vapors are visible due to temperature then “Ambassador’s” should be too!! Maybe Moonies’ internal temp is cooler? Or they don’t respirate at all as earthlings do?? BREATHLESSLY awaiting thoughts on this puzzler~~and my surname ain’t even “Mahoney!!!”

Now we get into the meat of the story!

1-THORIN: Close the door – you’re letting the heat in.

2-DT: So where we goin? THORIN: Nowhere. I forgot the keys.

3-DT: I’ll make VROOM VRRROOOM noises while you pretend to drive then.

4-DT: Say. Another Moon Dude was flashing that “mine is this_big hand sign to me the other day – just like you did on August 2nd. Why you all gotta brag like that???

5-THORIN: You know you would too if you were that well “equipped”.

DT: Sniff Yeah. I would. THORIN: Anyway. What have you learned in your investigation.

DT: That Marina prefers little ones. SO, ipso facto, she must be behind the faction that wants to make sex slaves of Earthmen!

THORIN: So – nothing? DT: Not so much…

Wait, are they on the moon or on earth?

AMBASSAGOV: Wow, Tracy! You’ve been busy. You’ve learned that lava was hot!

TRACY: I’m a detective!

AMBASSAGOV: Was Marina hot, too?

TRACY: I’ll never tell. A trick I learned from you.

AMBASSAGOV: Wotta stud!

“I’m a detective, I know things”

Rereading this, here is something i missed this morning:

It may not have been too good of an idea to tell Amb/Gov that you’ve sussed out a possible location for this underground dwelling, Tracy. His face when he says “you’ve been busy” seems to indicate he’s not all that happy you figured this out. After all, they did bring the earth guests here blindfolded.

At least two important plot points just appeared out of the blue today – The idea that there was anything like an “immigration plan” in anybody’s mind – and the idea that half the moon population seems to be missing. How would Tracy even know that? Is he just remembering how many people were on the moon years ago?

“Dissent at that level isn’t good” … so Tracy subscribes to totalitarian government and yes men? Or does he prefer people who agree in the meetings and then work in the shadows?

Tracy’s lava-track reference to Mt. Erebus echoes what I said long ago near the beginning of the arc, that near such might work for NMV.

I wonder if that is a removable faux fur collar Tracy is wearing (i.e., with his trench coat) or, as seems more likely, he is quick-changing from trench coat to parka (also yellow) and vice versa.

Does Tracy mean half of Thorin’s allies on the Council are missing, or is he saying that half the New Moon Valley population is missing? Ambiguity is frustrating….

The thing is, there are 27 active volcanoes in the western half of Antarctica; it’s why the snow pack is melting there while getting thicker in the eastern half.

Lower left hand corner—-THAT IS DICK TRACY!!

Great artwork here by Pleger. Mike’s writing is steadily picking up pace. I like it.