Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for October 17, 2013

Meanwhile, out in space…. I love this!

Fly me to the moon and let me die among the stars With apologies to Ol’ Blue eyes.

I wonder if Sail, Ghote and Flash are needing a change of undergarments yet???

The last Space Coupe with three soon-to-be corpses . . .

Good morning DT fans!The space coupe sure is speeding up! Passing Mars in a week, in a month it will reach Ganymede, or wherever Moon People went!

Cool, I was wondering if we would be getting back to the space coupe.

I’m still dissapointed that Mysta Chimera is not the original Moon Maid

Dyne o’ Matik? Was him really on DT strip?

@Chris one, get over it, buddy. It would have stretched suspension of disbelief too thin, I suppose.

I just have to say, I have truly loved this story. So wildly inventive, and it has kept me guessing throughout. Bravo, Team Tracy! Really fantastic work.

Oh yeah, the coupe will end up with the departed moon people…..orrrrr……it will finally occur to Dick the coupe would have to be lying around relatively close by if it simply blew away….and since it isn’t, “you have the right to remain silent, Diet”

I had a feeling about Mars, but it now appears that the Space Coupe is whizzing right past it for parts unknown.

Love it that we’ve jumped back to space! Very curious about the ultimate fate of the Space Coupe Trio.

And, I just realized — we’ve been wondering whether this was the only remaining Space Coupe on Earth, and Diet Smith now confirms that it was.

The space coupe is going “To boldly go where no one has gone before.” (No “human” anyway…)

I’m disappointed in Diet. He is not being honest, regardless of whether or not he has figured out there were stowaways (and I think he has.)Also, I concur with those who suppose that there may be a rendezvous with the Moon people who went to regions unknown……..

I could be wrong, but I doubt we, or the occupants of the space coupe, will live long enough to find out where it goes…

A Team Tracy resolution to the “Moon Maid” story worthy of Solomon. Moon Maid fanatics can cling to Mysta Chimera, who has great story potential. Anti-Moon Era purists can cheer the apparent elimination of Lunarian technology from the strip, thanks to Diet Smith’s drastic actions.Meanwhile, somewhere beyond Mars: Flash Munro was supposed to have some skills in handling the Space Coupe, and Ghote and Sail are two bright (if not ethical) guys; maybe they can work out a fix for the controls? It ain’t over ‘til it’s over….

Nobody’ll wanna open the pod bay door.

Is it possible the S[ace Coupe is headed for a crash landing on the Sun?

Starting a new story if it is half as good as the last one, it’ll be great!

It’s Dick Tracy…..those 3 in the SC will be back in later storyline, I wager.

Getting that close to both the moon and Mars is pretty unlikely unless it is a deliberately planned course. The solar system is a very big place, and you are incredibly unlikely to pass near anything as significant as a planet without a lot of careful calculations. Did Diet arrange for them to get the “grand tour” on purpose?

“And did they ever return? No, they never returned, and their fate is still unlearned… And they may ride forever through the solar system — they’re the villains that never returned!”

Truly a Moon Maid Light but I can live with that.

this storyline reminds me of a tune that my nephew sang to me over the phone many years ago…. goes something like this…

“This is the song that never ends.. it just goes on and on my friends….some people started singing it not knowing what it was…and they’ll continue singing it forever just because….”

talk about beating a dead horse!

Ashmael: For what it’s worth, Mysta Chimera pushes the envelope of “suspension of disbelief” more than an original Moon Maid. A simple not-really-dead woman passed off to an unethical doctor (coroner?) for kidnapping and experimentation – more likely than what Mike and Joe came up with. – But….As you said, it isn’t what we got, so I guess we have to get over it!.Still, I think Honey was on to something on 28 Dec 2012. And that we are following the space coupe today – which catches me totally off guard – perhaps on its way to Jupiter and Europa?.For what it’s worth, I thought for sure we’d be up to our chins with a not-so-little Abner by now…

There seems to be three opinions about where the SC is going. Either to drift forever, or to crash somewhere, or to end up at the newly relocated moon colony. I am hoping for the last option, but I have the feeling it will be one of the other two.

I do think that, with all the symbolism that Mike and Joe have embedded into their Tracy-verse, if something bad happens to the space coupe, that might not bode well for Junior’s current wife..Note that Sparkle Plenty’s name is still prominently shown on the side of the spacecraft..Today’s surprise is that we are still tracking the space coupe. I really thought we had a wrap up yesterday. Maybe Honey was right, after all (28 Dec 2012)….Won’t tsull2121, Mikeyj, and others have fits when we end up with TWO moon maids!

I’m hoping for the planet of the green women. “can’t find reverse”, haw!

Earth to Mars in a day! And Smith doesn’t believe that this tech belongs to humankind.

I have a challenge with Diet Smith lying about getting rid of the Space Coupe. What’s the big deal about him telling Dick Tracy the truth about this? He told them about Mysta Chimera and that the Consortium wanting the Space Coupe, after all.My problem with the Space Coupe angle?#1. Radar. All that DT needs to do is make a call to the local airport and ask if they saw anything on the radar the night of the storm. #2. The people who conduct radar surveillance of the skies surely would have tracked the rather rapid departure of the Space Coupe and would have wanted to investigate it, not to mention Diet Smith surely would have been required to file a flight plan if it were not a storm? They still would have seen it on the radar. #3. It’s kind of odd at this point that on one hand Diet is saying "Oh, they’re after the Space Coupe!’ and then makes zero effort to track it down, then ridiculously adds, rather dimsmissively, “Oh, it just blew away in the storm.”OK. You’ve got a coveted craft/weapon and you just shrug and never make an attempt to locate it or track it? I think DT is going to corner Diet and call him on this nonsense.

It takes a few more months than that to get to mars.

….seems like an efficient way of getting rid of all the incorrigibles on this planet

So, the bigger question is “What happened to the POLICE variant of the Space Coupe” (as first re-introduced to us in the 03/29/2011 strip) — was it dismantled, or once again, is Diet Smith trying to throw a “red herring” to the underworld element?

For those not in the know, the Law Enforcement version of the Space Coupe had a red dome light mounted on top and “POLICE” markings on its’ fuselage, and was last seen parked in Smith’s “Moon Suite” in 2011. I have always assumed the SC marked “Sparkle Penty” was Diet’s personal vehicle.

I have a feeling we will get to re-visit this storyline in the future, which is fine by me, as I have always been a fan of the tech side of DT.

Thanks for the (fun!) memories!

Not to be too nit-picky, but isn’t the rear end of the S.C. round? “Sparkle Plenty” looks like she’s got a flat rear end as she bypasses Mars!

A quick calculation, assuming that the Sparkle Plenty has traveled for 24 hours at the closest Earth-Mars approach distance, shows that the Space coupe has a MINIMUM top speed of 402.7 miles per second. The NASA folks must be gnashing their teeth.

It’s attitudes like Smith’s that make me hope that an industrial spy has been rooting around his Moon Suite.

With all traces of moon technology erased from Smith Industries files, Venus is going to be looking for another way to launch her satellite-launching business. I wonder what that could possibly be.

Passing Mars… up next: the Asteroid Belt. The trip is going to get pretty rocky from here.

I do have a problem with the idea that Diet would want to destroy anything to do with the space coupe just because members of the underworld would want to steal it. Since his introduction in the strip, Diet has been developing and introducing fantastic gadgets. Smith Industries, I would suspect, is a huge, high tech defense contractor. Criminals would be interested in stealing almost anything that they have come up with. Diet’s reaction of abandoning the technology to space (knowingly manned or not) seems both out of character, and a weak plot device to me.

Good afternoon everyone…

I’m really pleased that Mysta/MM will remain and be around from time-to-time but an disappointed (as is Melies) that the space coupe will be no more. Or will it?

I hope something related to moon people or technology pops up occasionally in this strip.

Oh No! Is the space coupe headed for the sun?!

If you think about it, Diet did not really answer Sam’s question. Because, if the Space coupe really did “disappear in the storm”, it would have to be somewhere, and the criminals who wanted it so bad could find it and take it. Diet’s giving himself away by appearing to be so nonchalant about this.

That could make for interesting doings

I’m still curious about who those 3 were working for. Who was ’Venus"?

Hello everyone. Craftybruin here. I have been a fan of Tracy since Feb. of 1963! I personally liked the space era although I am probably in the minority here. It’s great to see some sort of incantation of Moon Maid even though it’s Mindy Ermine. The last loose end is whatever happened to the rest of the moon people and to Moon Valley? Maybe the “last” Space Coupe will find out? Anyway, kudos to Mike and Joe. This strip is once again a joy to read. On with the next story!

I was thinking of a story to come. Diet says that all info on the space coupe has been wiped from the computers in his company and that was the last one left. What’s not to say that a good hacker or employee has not down loaded the info to build his own space coupe or sell the info to another buyer. .

I’ve read your comments and am with you on this AtomivDog. All technological advances have potential for good and evil. For Diet to trash all existing moon/magnetism technology because some people want to use it to commit crimes is backward and lame. I like the reboot of Diet as a man having secrets, but I hate seeing him adopt a simplistic “technology is bad because bad people might abuse it” mentality. That short-sighted and medieval way of thinking is not what got him where he is in life.

I think it would be something having people report a UFO and it turns out to be a new space coupe flying over the city.

“I’m still sad—-Mysta is not Moon maid..”.Me too. The ending was hard to take. I had my hopes up but it wasn’t to be