Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for October 06, 2013

Finally the storm abates down on Wheaton’s farmThe barn is left in ruins, livestock frightened but unharmed.Elsewhere, in the Space Coupe, Flash begins to panicLocked out of navigation, the threesome become manicAs they hurtle through the night, now passing by the MoonRudderless and helpless, they’ll be in deep space soon.Space Coupe as sarcophagus, a coffin fit for threeExists an unseen pilot who controls their destiny.Tonight there is a shooting star racing ‘cross the skyLook up to see a mystery, yet for these three don’t cry.They coveted the mighty Coupe, duplicitous their schemeEmbarked now toward a gruesome end, the three begin to scream.

Morning, all!I don’t know if I believe Diet’s story (despite the narrator’s comment). I mean, why hasn’t he used his remote to bring it back?

Happy Sunday to you all!Well, THAT was unexpected! Wonder if Diet has other Space Coupes? Moreover, how cold a sttorm make it OVERCOME GRAVITY to the point of having it exiting Earth`s orbit? It just doesn’t seem possible…

@Nightshade09 Agree with you, Smith is oddly vague, and I also wonder, has the Space Coupe been hijacked, and by whom?

…..and the cow says….what….dick lost his hat

Maybe he knows who was on board and saw this as an oppotunity to be rid of them and the Coupe at once? What use is the Coupe with the moon situation all messed up?

Elvis has left the solar system.

In any case, Tracy needs to FIND THAT HAT!!!! You can’t just walk into Walmart and pick up one of those babies, ya’ know. Oh, wait…..Halloween’s coming up. Maybe you can.

Nice to see that Nellie & Sparkle are okay.

Johnathan k. It will leave the Solar System in a few decades, if it travels like the Voyager launched in the Seventies, leaving Solar System now. I has left (how?) Earth-Moon system’s orbit. Hey, Dr Sail is has indeed SAILED away, and how!

I take it Diet was rather angry over Ghote’s revelations. Three down, one to go? It also looks like the Consortium isn’t going to be rolled up in this storyline; is that “Queen of Hearts” a signal that it’s run by the new 52 gang?

And, yes, Diet once had a fleet of Space Coupes, including one large enough to carry a hundred or so.

OK, this lost me. Here’s Diet Smith with his remote control and mere storm winds cause a friggin’ space coupe to exit the earth’s orbit? I’m sorry, I have loved this story line but this was even worse than expecting that Mysta & Sparkle would end up at the Wheaton Farm where Tracy happened to have had his run-in with mordred and where Junior Tracy just happened to have been with Honeymoon to find Sparkle where Pa Wheaton kept an amnesiac without ever alerting the authorities. I shudder to think how the rest of the story will wrap up.

Agreeing with those who find Diet Smith’s reaction rather unlikely……

I agree Diet is up to something with the space coupe. He had a suspicious look about him the other day when he was punching the buttons on his remote control. “Deep Space?” Sounds like curtains for Doc Sail & co.

Didn’t see that one coming. It’s a good thing Ghote told Diet the truth about Moon Maid so we may finally find out her real identity.

Puzzling indeed that a mere storm (no matter what the winds) should have sent the Space Coupe out beyond the moon so quickly, unless Diet Smith deliberately locked the controls in full high-speed flight mode! Meanwhile, back at the farm, Nelly and Sparkle are attempting to round up the scattered livestock, Tracy bravely soldiers on without his beloved fedora, and sly Diet blames the disappearance of the Space Coupe “with no one on board” on the straight-line wind. Yeah, sure. It was the wind….

Gotta admit….didn’t see that one coming.

Perhaps the input from the remote while Flash was working the controls at the same time vapor locked the Space Coupe. But even if Diet Smith sent the Coupe on a one way trip to oblivion I can’t say it wasn’t a good idea considering who is going along for the ride.

I’m inclined to take the strip at its word. Diet sent the Coupe into space thinking it was empty. He may be a ruthless businessman, but nothing in the history of the strip has ever indicated that he is capable of cold-blooded murder.

I said back on 10/4 that the Space Coupe was heading towards the Sun.

On July 1, Diet showed he could lock out all of the controls on the Space Coupe. Perhaps he did that again realizing someone was trying to steal the Coupe….and taking a guess as to who that someone was.

My guess is that Dr. Sail and company are about to meet the Moon’s Governor and become his prisoners. Diet Smith is definitely up to something not even Tracy knows. Interesting plot twist.

…moreover…diet….after the typhoon …..still has a smoking stogie in his hand….enough said about attempting to curtail smokin’ in public

If they made it past the moon that quickly, they may actually make it out of the solar system before they die of thirst.

Good morning fellow DT fans…

What a surprise! Like in a box of Cracker Jacks!

I wanna see who they’re going to ask for directions! (I repeat, SAVE THE HAT!!!)

I’d be inclined to say he Diet sent away the Space Coupe (probably the only remaining one in working order), except that the narrator says he didn’t know it had passengers. Who am I to distrust the narrator?

I’ve been thinking for a very long time now that the people of Moon Valley escaped to Mars. That would seem the most logical if they didn’t go elsewhere on the moon or somewhere on Earth, neither of which seem likely. If they are on Mars and the Coupe is headed that way, I’d say there’s a good chance of them intercepting it, but for now we have to assume that the 3 passengers are doomed. Méliès is certainly not going to be popular with the boss after this, especially when she was so happy to have the Coupe in her hands. With it, she was easily going to be able to recoup their expenses, but not anymore! The Apparatus also mentioned that they were kind of broke and their deal didn’t go as planned, either. Crime doesn’t pay!

About the hearts on Venus’s curtains, the Queen of Hearts (as in playing cards) could certainly fit. I wonder it we’ll be meeting a King, or Jack or Ace sometime in the future.

“The authors are doing this rather than ever come up with the answer to what the deal is with Moon Maid.”Never fear, the Mysta mystery is nearing its conclusion. We’ll find out what the deal is with Moon Maid very soon.

Gentlemen, please fasten your seatbelts securely and make sure your trays are in the upright position. During this rather long flight, you will experience a steady loss of oxygen due to being in deep space. Unfortunately, death will follow. But, as always, thank you for flying Diet Smith Airways.

I wonder if the SC has a restroom or dining car? The guys are gonna need one pretty soon.

On another note, I’m wondering what time the troll whistle blows and the snarking starts tomorrow.

Interesting that the Painted Lady, aka “Miss Intro”, was killed by her boyfriend Hy Jacky.

Well, Diet sure is acting shady. If he does know who’s inside the space coupe, that secret about Moon Maid must have made him very, very angry with them.

Technically speaking it’s not deep space, as they are still in the Solar System. Once they cross the Heliopause they will be in deep, or interstellar, space

diet no’s more than anybody and i bet its less to deal with and he needs a new rocket-(battery powered) planet traveler anyhow. dont ya tink juss maybe ? (grin) hee hee~~ I T u

someone once said if we had a battery powered solar-charged thrust-er that could travel at one light-year speed the moon would be less than 5 minutes away so go figure. is that or could the clone Idea sparked Diet to save mankind from that group? I thought Melies was on there

I Love the Sunday Funnies. I also Love the Daily cliff-hangers. We’ll wait and see what happens here. There is more to this than what meets the eye. i once read that Chester never planned any of his stories. He just showed up for work every day and started drawing and creating……

No, Melies was on the ground shooting at people and controlling things as the hijack went down. Methings he will be less than gruntled when he finds out about this.

With all the comments today centered on plot, I’d like to add an art note: I really like the diptych in the middle section.

Cue Lost In Space theme (from 1967-68).

Oopsy-doopsy!!

Holy Krazy Kat Batman! The space coupe has just been used as an Ignatz trap!.Is Dietrich (as I am wont to call him) capable of murder? Methinks this is exactly what we have just seen..Smith has already double-crossed Dick Tracy by meeting Ghote and Sail without telling Tracy. Smith brought Ghote to the scene of this crime, saying, “Isn’t the space coupe what you and Sail were after in the first place?”.Ray Toler, I think it was, noted that the present team likes to shade over the faces of those who are intentionally about to do evil – see second panel, second line..And Vitamin Flint’s speech that lives would be forever changed….During the week, Smith said that space coupe was the only thing that was safe to fly in the storm – today, he says he took great risk flying it to the farm during the storm, claiming that (1) the “straight line winds” must have carried it away and (2) there was no one on board..So far, we have at least two lies..I’m thinking that he knew exactly when the space coupe began to “drift” (as was described the other day) that it had been boarded, and its likely boarders were at least Sail and Ghote..But I don’t think Smith knows that one of the Elvis brothers is also on board the space coupe. To my knowledge, no one in the current cast is aware of their existence (except moon face, of course)..Now, we have a new problem. As willy007 suggested last week, likely Dietrich is the only one (on earth) to know just who and what Franken-Mysta or Franken-Mindy is. But now, can we trust Smith to tell us?.Or her?

the moon folk are summoning it

Oh, yes. That little nasty thing about the “narrator.” Is it Vitamin Flint? I don’t know..The other day, I think it was willy007 who mentioned, either in this forum or off-line (we correspond) that Sunday panels go out significantly in advance of the dailies, leading to such confusions as last week’s apparent death of Ghote by Mumbles, only to see Ghote picking himself up Tuesday with just a “flesh wound.”.Who knows what other inconsistencies may have just been introduced today?

My vote: Today, I don’t trust the narrator.

My vote for best line of the day, even if technically inaccurate:.Jonathon K and “Elvis has just left the solar system!”

Going back to the introduction to the Showdown by Vitamin back in early September, Secrets have not been revealed. Perhaps the rest has come to pass, as the villains have gone punished.

No question in my mind – Diet Smith sent the Space Coupe on it’s one-way trip.And, as others have pointed out, if he did so knowing someone was aboard, that would make him a murderer, hence, the narration assuring us he didn’t know.But I think Diet is playing fast and loose with the law, though.He brought Dr. Ghote with him, knowing he and Sail wanted the Coupe. And while no one was in the Coupe when he left it, he did casually leave the Space Coupe’s door open when he entered the farmhouse (as if he was setting a trap).

If Diet has committed murder; he has crossed The Line; and has ended his friendship with Tracy forever. Are Joe and Mike willing to go there?

Smith appears to have sent the Coupe toward deep space with no programmed destination. This would make him guilty of triple murder. While it is reasonable to speculate that the Coupe might be traveling to the new home of the Lunarians, we have no evidence that Smith knows where they went, nor that he has been in contact with the Governor. I believe he used Sail and Ghote’s desire to steal the Coupe to seal their fate. Tracy is a skilled detective and will no doubt smell a rat, but suspicion doesn’t add up to evidence. I don’t see Smith wearing bracelets any time soon.As to the “twice told tale.” We don’t know what Ghote told Smith. We don’t know if he was honest with Smith, or if he himself was completely clued in as the true nature of his role in the “Moon Maid” project. In the aftermath of being slapped, Sail remarked, “Your work?” in a manner that suggested Ghote overestimated his importance in the work on Mysta. Further, we can’t be sure just how honest Smith will be on any topic, given what has apparently just transpired with the Coupe. He did seem sincere in his desire to help Mysta, so I’m looking forward to that, as well as to more of Venus and Méliès.Thanks Trader Joe, mzkdad and Dennis Sisneros. Much appreciated!

A slightly off tompic observation:This story is so good, I keep checking back here several times a day to read the recently added comments.I’ve also noticed, I’m not the only one! -—————In all the coments about the story, I’ve forgotten to say how great today’s art is, especially the final 3 panels!

I think it’s great that Nellie and Sparkle are playing Charades to entertain the cows in the background.

It took until 1967 for Scotland Yard to hire a black officer?

Finally the storm abates down on Wheaton’s farm

The barn is left in ruins, livestock frightened but unharmed.

Elsewhere, in the Space Coupe, Flash begins to panic

Locked out of navigation, the threesome become manic

As they hurtle through the night, now passing by the Moon

Rudderless and helpless, they’ll be in deep space soon.

Space Coupe as sarcophagus, a coffin fit for three

Exists an unseen pilot who controls their destiny.

Tonight there is a shooting star racing ‘cross the sky

Look up to see a mystery, yet for these three don’t cry.

They coveted the mighty Coupe, duplicitous their scheme

Embarked now toward a gruesome end, the three begin to scream.