Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for December 09, 2023

Good morning™, everyone!

So, it sounds like the Caxton murder is the only one where there’s likelihood of a conviction at this point.

“And finally, Owen, all the many yawns from our reading audience tell us of the level of boredom our readers endured",

Well, one first degree murder conviction will take her out of circulation for quite awhile…..

Good morning™, evidence summaries !

More talking to follow… Tracy looks good in all three panels, X-Treme shovel chin notwithstanding.

What method will MCU use to decide who will make the arrest? Rock, paper, scissors? A coin toss? The shortest straw from a broom?

Just when the authorities are closing in on her, Libris takes a dive from one of her book or manuscript shelves. Oh well, the city or the institute will have dibs on her collection. Ideal spot for tours. Cha ching, I can hear the cash registers. The younger generation will use cash app to partake of the sights.

And what about the poor book binding guy who tries to helps you and get killed? Where the CCTV footage and phone calls records and other investigation of that? That surely not outta you jurisdiction is it.

Tracy looks sharp panel 1 , I thinking he is putting all the clues together!

Gotta give credit to Eric tho…I didnt think ANYONE besides Mike could write such an incredibly convoluted, nonsensical, unmotivated, inane story….but here we are…756 weeks into this unending miasma of bleakness, and theres STILL no end in sight

“What we don’t know, Owen,” Tracy told his friend, “is why she chose a weapon she needed to assemble. Someone commenting on a comic strip claimed it only requires a minute to take it out of its case and assemble it. A minute is still a long time to watch someone put together a weapon to kill you. Oh, and why did she spend hours cleaning up the murder scene at the institute? I mean, yeah, it was to hide the date of the killing because she’d signed in and would be on the book as visiting that day. On the other hand staying around and carrying buckets of water and cleaning supplies for hours increases the chance of someone seeing her and asking questions.”

Laying out the case, step by step, just like Owen will lay it out for the jury at the trial.

TRACY: "So, it’s obviously all a string of meaningless coincidences. Case closed! Another triumph for me!”

This is by far the dumbest continuity that poor Dick Tracy has ever endured. No true continuity to the storyline can give us any idea what may be next. I am a teacher who teaches complex subjects. I find this story far to complex and without substance even for those who might enjoy harder-to-solve mysteries. What idiot editor thought this was a good story?

1-DT: Lemme bring you up to speed on this case, Owen…

2-…Old Biddy Caxton got stabbed and…

3-…so did Manutius. OWEN: Yeah. I know. And? DT: Uh. That’s it. What are your thoughts? OWEN: That we need new blood in the Detective ranks.

DT: I agree but Sam has tenure so I can’t fire him. OWEN: What? DT: I dunno. Something he told me about that means he can’t be fired. OWEN: He’s definitely not the one who should be the first to go.

DT: YOU CAN’T MEAN LEE! We can’t fire her! She’s a member or 3 pro… OWEN: YOU, YOU IDIOT! WE SHOULD FIRE YOU! DT: Oh…

And now Tracy is doing the Columbo TV (also Agatha Christie, Adrian Monk, etc.) wrap-up explanation-thing. It seems that all the clues are falling into place and that only the apprehending of Xaviera, or final fence-off, remains.

The End Is Near!