Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for March 27, 2016

At Club Estrella the safe cracker cracks the stubborn lockWhat he sees just before life flees offers an awful shock.A safe wired and booby-trapped to go off with a Boom!To stick one’s beak into the vault shall seal a bloody doom.Concussive power of the blast renders Estrella rubbleSpecs no longer sees X-Ray, instead he’s seeing double.Ivanov discovers Specs lying prone in a sad heapSpecs koffs and moans, full of regret, a sorry little creep.Dreams that Spicy’s by his side, his sweetheart he is kissingIvanov now turns away, Specs’ spectacles are missing.Yet what of Spicy Condiment, the brains of the crime teamWas death so fast and violent that she had no time to scream?Seems Specs may have lost the one who truly is his treasureWith lashes long her lovers’ song made Spicy a sweet pleasure.Again we see crime does not pay, the blowback can be fierceTo covet all that glitters risks a darkness light can’t pierce.

A Happy Easter to one and all on this board!

.Good morning and happy Easter guys!.(the avatar is 8 year old me in 1943 in my Easter outfit).

Did Porfiry lift Specs’ glasses between the last two panels?

A Quick Wrap-Up …?!

It’s now clear that Ivanov’s mission is to get Specs specs.And where is Spicy? If Specs got out of it alive, Spicy is likely alive too.DJ can survive a pile of rocks, he is too big to be crushed by that unless he got a direct hit in the explosion.A poetic summary of events from Pequod and…. A Happy Easter to everyone.

Or was it Tracy who took it off-panel for safekeeping… Stay tuned and we will find out tomorrow.From the looks of it, Ivanov took it. But the DT team probably wants us to think that way…. just a thought :)

I am not really that sure but I think this is the first time that Specs showed us his face without his specs or a cover. Still his eyes is closed.

“A sudden surge in business”? I think the casino would say that surge is the kind of business they can do without….

Death, destruction, fire in the airFor far too many a sense of deep despairWealth, fame and fortune a goal at any costPlow through the crowd regardless of what is lostYet events that brought about sorrow For days that number threeAre replaced with hope for tomorrowDue to His transforming VictoryAll we have and all we needProvided in a supernatural wayAs life defeated death on that glorious Easter day!

Loosing his glasses is loosing his blingHis X-ray vision was his special thingBut loosing his mollIs hardest of allSpecs without Spicy would be a sad thing

Now you see ‘em, now you don’t!

Next, in 3, ‘magically’ our Trio looms, suddenly (somehow?) “materializing” there, in the Casino room ! ?March 25 specifically showed that the car taking Tracy and Ivanov back to the hotel, driven by Wunbrow, was driving right out in front of the Casino at the very moment that the guy with the blowtorch made his awful discovery. March 26 was the BOOM – and so Tracy and his amigos were only moments away when the explosion happened – a simple matter for Wunbrow to hit his brakes – probably an automatic reaction to the “Boom” – and then, as cops’ instincts kick in, they get out and start to look around.

I hope everyone today has a wonderful and meaningful Resurrection Sunday!

Haiku

Havana’s dark nightGlows with fiery kaboomits raining dollars….

.Nice poetry Pequod, avenger09, and Gweedo!

Gweedo noted,Bill, you look like an old time tv newspaperman. Are you looking for a phone booth to duck into ?-———————————————————————.That was 1943, Gweedo. Radio was the big thing back then! I doubt that I had even heard of the existence of tv. The closest phone booth was several blocks away. Most of the stores that had a pay phone had wall mounted phones. Phones in homes were few and far between.

They would have removed his glasses to take a look at his eyes while checking the extent of his injuries. That makes sense.

Great poem, Gweedo! Thanks!

First time we’ve seen Spec’s face?

So weren’t Tracy and Ivanov supposed to be in their hotel rooms, waiting to be deported from Cuba (so they won’t be inciting “terrorist attacks” like this)? Wunbrow’s boss should have Tracy and Ivanov arrested! LOL j/k

@ Ken in Ohio

“*March 25 specifically showed that the car taking Tracy and Ivanov back to the hotel, driven by Wunbrow, was driving right out in front of the Casino at the very moment . . .”*-—————————————————————-

I respect your opinions Ken . . .But the panel and strip you refer to (see below), comes with some “ambiguity” . . .First, no one was VISIBLE in that vehicle, and it depends (in part) largely on the readers ‘interpretation’ of the intent of the panel …Pictorially, I saw it as the Casino ‘Name’ Introduction. related to what occurred there subsequently in panels 2 and 3The text seemed like a verbal update from the earlier strip establishing their Hotel confinement … … not to show a graphic of driving there . . . ?<p.Then, we have the following days strip (further below) with visible cars on display, for " examination " as the Explosion Occurred ! ? ?

What are the ‘helpful’ indicators here ? ?

March 25, 2016 (No humans ’ visible ’ in car)

First, there is NO indication that the 2 cars ’ there ’ (below) are occupied by humans ?It’s reasonable to assume (taking your line of reasoning) that some “SIGN” of them should be there ? Not So ?It’s a wide (near ‘all inclusive’) panoramic panel !

Would be ‘surprised’ if Joe Staton somehow, ‘dropped’ the Ball on this one !

It beats me ! Nothing to hang my hat on . . . Not even Tracy’s - (say), blown to the side, by the Blast !?

Can you find any indication of their ‘PRESENCE’ here, to support your ‘theory’ ?I see two clearly EMPTY stationary cars with one now partially blown in the air from the explosionVisible, are to figures (backs), in the fore-ground facing the explosion . . .But not a sign of Tracy, Ivanov or Wunbrow ?

Strikes me as ODD, if they’re supposed to be at the SCENE ! (?) One short line of TEXT could have clarified it !From my Tennis Playing days, I realized you can’t ’ play ’ the game - if you can’t SEE the Ball

<img src=“http://assets.amuniversal.com/a68e3460cd420133494a005056a9545d”

March 26, 2016 ( No Humans ’ visible ’ in Cars)

Pardon the Pun . . .If that had been the Authors ‘intention’, one might conclude they forgot to DOT our EYES !

I hope Spicy has survived the blast. It is a grim scene. Specs lightens the mood a bit, as he is ever the dim doofus. His spectacles have vamoosed. It seems clear the Casino was on the route to the hotel. A fortuitous coincidence aids effective pacing. Spicy and Specs are a good couple that really grew on me. Pawns in the Apparatus’s games, they were quickly in past their depth. Light machinery should avoid heavy lifting. Hats off to Team Tracy for the fun Cuban excursion. Now, about those goggles…

Thanks to Ray Toler, Night-Gaunt49, 22ph, Gweedo (nice!), Tomas Texino (he looks horizontal to me, and I saved a syllable), Vista Bill, JPuzzleWhiz and Chris Sherlock for the kind words. Very much appreciated.

I’m sorry but this was a weak story line. Let’s see, Tracy gets easily captured and the wrap-up comes not from any detective work or heroics that Tracy and his team does but rather from the criminals stupidly blowing themselves up. Not to mention that the two other detectives manage to miraculously survive a deadly landslide and a mess of characters that didn’t really seem to have any purpose were introduced. There was a lot of set-up with no real pay-off. The whole thing seemed rushed and then there were strips that abandoned the whole plot and went off on tangents. Sorry but that’s weak.

Two big gaping wide plot holes:

If Specs could see where the treasure vault was located by the use of his X-Ray Specs glasses, why couldn’t he see the sticks of dynamite inside. Every depiction of what he saw shows that he was able to see shapes, so one assumes he would see bundles of tubes with wiring attached to them strategically positioned in the vault. Even a dim wit like Specs would have to been able to figure out what that was. If Specs can detect a weak fault in a rock face then surely he can see bundles of dynamite

In today’s strip, Specs has his X-Ray Specs on in one panel and by the next they are gone? What happened to them? Did Porfiry take them? I’m willing to bet it will just be glossed over. Clearly the creative team is in a hurry to do something else. It really does seem that they loss interest in this story halfway through.

Gweedo shyly replied,Some people are determined to bring out the best in me.-——————————————————————————————.Show us what your hidden abilities are, Gweedo! We deserve to know!

I loved all the poetry today. I tried to make a list of contributors of poetry both long and short and I found Pequod, Gweedo, avenger09, capt mutt, Sydney Phillips, Chris Robinson, and Tomas Texino. I hope I didn’t miss any and I think that might be a record for the most poems in one day here.

avenger09: My browser doesn’t like your small a. You need to get the Justice League to give you back your capital A — or something like that… LOL.

Then, Although, never before had those ‘two’ ever met . . .It was Russian Ivanov who (somehow?) ‘recognized’ our ‘Specs’ (?)

I suspect he’s seen a picture of the missing glasses at least. It’s no surprise to me that he recognized him. He’s in the country specifically to look for him. How would he know when he found him if he didn’t know what he was looking for?

And Chag Purim Sameach to the Jewish readers among us!

It seems to be a bit late for Purim (which was on Thursday) but maybe it’s not too early for Passover greetings, since it’s coming up in less than 4 weeks. I hope all our Jewish fellow readers have a good one.

Thanks for the blast That’s from the pastBut I wonderJust how long Can these rhymes last?Burma Shave

You obviously put a lot of thought into these, thank you for your contribution.

@everyone

The heck with it! I’m giving a great big shout out to all the great posters on this strip, I am really pleased to have joined such a creative and supportive community.Happy Easter, Purim or Passover, or Ostara.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to let me know you enjoyed today’s poem.

Can this be the end of X-Ray Specs? A lousy explosion caused by bad old dynamite in the long-lost vault of a special casino? BOOM, and Specs is down, maybe out (looks as though Ivanov was about to shroud the “body” before he swiped the goggles, as it seems), while it’s still raining old dollars. And what of slight-of-buiid Spicy Condiment; has she survived? MIghty convenient that the Three Amigos were on the scene in time to witness the blast and then get into the ruins of the club before EMTs, Bomb Squad, or even the uniformed cops at the location.I dislike quick-cut and jump-cut editing in films, and I’m getting the same feeling from the rapid and unexplained transitions in this story-arc. Maybe we need a bit of help from the Omniscient Narrator device….

… our Temple waits until Sunday to celebrate it … because that’s the only day of the week we can do it …

That makes sense. Sometimes you just have to be practical with these things. I’ve never had Hamentaschen. They look good.

I envy the guys who do the long ones but wont do that just to make filler …

Short or long are just as good to me. No need to make filler.

Gweedo said,And I hope those stars didn’t turn Gold, Bill !-——————————————————————-.Both uncles served and returned safely. I wish I still had the pin.

That protrusion could be the rear view mirror.

Still maintaining a hat brow.I have to agree that there’s no way it’s a rear-view mirror.

At Club Estrella the safe cracker cracks the stubborn lock

What he sees just before life flees offers an awful shock.

A safe wired and booby-trapped to go off with a Boom!

To stick one’s beak into the vault shall seal a bloody doom.

Concussive power of the blast renders Estrella rubble

Specs no longer sees X-Ray, instead he’s seeing double.

Ivanov discovers Specs lying prone in a sad heap

Specs koffs and moans, full of regret, a sorry little creep.

Dreams that Spicy’s by his side, his sweetheart he is kissing

Ivanov now turns away, Specs’ spectacles are missing.

Yet what of Spicy Condiment, the brains of the crime team

Was death so fast and violent that she had no time to scream?

Seems Specs may have lost the one who truly is his treasure

With lashes long her lovers’ song made Spicy a sweet pleasure.

Again we see crime does not pay, the blowback can be fierce

To covet all that glitters risks a darkness light can’t pierce.