Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for January 27, 2018

Good morning™, big fish catchers!

Mr. Bribery is looking more and more demented! Lee has taken Crystal to safety, but Crystal is now headed to her uncle’s office, just as Tracy announces to Sam that he’s headed for the same place.

The cavalry are here….

Can the wrap-up be that simple?

I think Bribery should see a psychiatrist ASAP

Is Ugly Crystal ready to take over the family business? She might need to fill in the vacancy. When that happens, T-Bolt/Lee Ebony has just created an enemy in UC

Bribery has the ring! Did Sawtooth returned it to him? It wasn’t shown. Anyway, I think the ring is one of a kind.

Bribery’s in deep trouble now….Tracy has gun in hand.

The Moon Governor is very astute….Bribery is indeed INSANE.

I’ll be generous and estimate Bribery’s collar size at five inches.

Poor Bribery is becoming a bit unraveled.

I hope apprehending Bribery does not turn out to be as easy as Tracy going upstairs and slipping on the cuffs. To end the Bribery run now would leave untold: what happens to Notta and Purdy (and Purdy’s knowledge of hidden Moon Gold), Why Nah Tay’s brother was introduced into the strip, what happens to the Mattie Squared computer and all of the embezzled money it has transferred, the point of introducing Ugly Crystal into the strip, what happened to B.B. Eyes, Mumbles, and the rest of the Bribery crime cartel, etc. etc.

Mike has left unanswered threads in story arcs before but in this case,, which has had a multi-year build-up, there seem to be too many loose ends that the readers deserve to be answered and would be extremely anti-climatic.

Bribery is a slippery character so I am expecting him to find an escape from this brush with Tracy (like the time he escaped through a secret trap door which was disguised as a computer server seconds before Tracy closed in). However, I have been wrong many times before.

I think the guv is purposely inching Bribery into a cardiac arrest. And when Bribery sees Tracy, BOOM! The paramedics will be bent over Bribery with the electric paddles and then Tracy will have to deal with Sawtooth then.

I’m sure Mr. Bribery plans to force the Moon Governor and Mysta into the Space Coupe at gunpoint and have them take him to the moon. If he does succeed it would make for a very interesting chase sequence. We are to assume Diet Smith destroyed all the Space Coupes… or does he have a secret one hidden away? Tracy might have to team up with NASA to pursue Bribery.

I have a feeling that the Governor might just fulfill Bribery’s wish of TAKING him to the moon. He can then have all the gold he wants…until his oxygen supply runs out…

Just take Bribery where he wants. Let him get out of the Space Coupe and see how much fun it is to breathe vacuum. Problem solved.

What’s the equivalent of Arkham Asylum in Tracyville? Bribery may be headed there soon.

So Bribery has a Lunarian-zapper ring on his right hand – is it the same one that Sawtooth used, or a duplicate? (If the former, let’s see which hand Sawtooth’s gun is in next time we see it LOL)

So did Glitch get out in time, and if so did he “take” Matty Squared with him?

Is that Glitch Sam is loading in the car??

I figure Sawtooth will survive this – is there a wing in the State Penitentiary reserved just for ex-Bribery henchmen? LOL

Is it too much to hope the Governor takes Bribery to the Moon and leaves him there?

{giggles} as soon as I saw #3 I thought. “Someone’s having a bad day” But I agree with many others. Lets not wrap this up so quickly, or anti-climactic. Bribery is too good a character to just throw away; I want to see him so distraught he pees his pants!

Bribery is going to be sorry he tossed that Air Car.

I still wonder how Lee is going to come out of this. I suspect a well-placed slingshot missile will soon appear.

hopefully Bribery won’t fall through a roof again.

It’s only a paper moon, Bribery

This ending sort of destroyed the whole Bribery character……might as well kill him off now. His whole character’s scariness centered around his cool, controlled manner of dealing with everything.

Ygor Glitch made it as far as the squad car Sam is loading him into (panel 1). Excellent, classic Tracy, gun drawn, in panel 2! And Bribery about to have a brain aneurism in panel 3.

Mr. Bribery’s long-term, carefully-laid plans have been crushed by what Moon Governor has revealed, but Bribery does not want to, cannot, accept it as the final truth. All that gold in Moon Valley! All these years of planning! All the millions of dollars invested in expectation of huge returns! YAHHH!

The Loose Cannon in this little melodrama is Ugly Crystal, with her trusty, deadly slingshot. Will Lee Ebony survive? Will Crystal, in the end, go straight? Or is the family legacy to be taken on by the not-yet-teenager?

I want to take a moment to say farewell to Mort Walker. Beetle Bailey was always one of my favorite comics and Walker kept him funny, if not campy, all these years. After WWII a number of soldiers returned home and became cartoonists. Walker, Schulz, Mauldin and others. All were great, and Walker was the last of them.

I wonder if the Governor and Mysta combine their powers, they might be able to override that ring Ol’ Smiley is wearing…