Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for September 09, 2019

Good question. ✨

Good morning™, cadaver examiners!

… but Clara is walking around with a jar of some kind of powder? This could now be a legitimate reason for all the yelling.

GerardD said about 15 thriller flicks ago,

@HarryCK

The whole shebang:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6tv900

Got it on a tab for later viewing. Thanx for saving me going back to the original post !

Good morning™, prime suspects !

This doesn’t look good for kassie. “Hey, I just found this and it doesn’t look like SlimFast™ !”  With all these days to go I don’t think it is her as much as she is easy prey for suspicion.

He’s not THAT Dexter, is he?

“It’s just talcum powder. Can’t a girl powder herself in privacy? Sheesh!”

She seems shocked at the question, could be a clue?

I like panel 3’s composition, well drawn.

Abner Kadaver? I think he’s dead in Switzerland

Gotta nitpick here. A freshly dead person, regardless of cause, is NOT a “cadaver”. In 40 + years and thousands of rescue calls, I’ve never heard a medical examiner call a body a “cadaver”. It’s just that, a body, or a victim, or the deceased. A cadaver is something else entirely.

It’s face powder. She’s a model. That would be an awful lot of cocaine.

I will have to defend her. You get a murder scene, a white powder is a clue, with a detective that suddenly jumps on you. You’ll get a fearful response. I’m not considering her a suspect just yet.

When I first looked at it, at first I thought he was asking DT where the caviar was? lol.

I’m afraid someday they’ll find me

Just stretched out on my bed

With a handful of Pringles Potato Chips

And a Ding Dong by my head

In the daytime I’m Mr. Natural

Just as healthy as I can be

But at night I’m a junk food junkie

Good Lord have pity on me

Dexter? THAT Dexter?

Except for once, this past Saturday, when I commented on it, this artist just does not get Tracy’s mouth right! He sure can draw gorgeous women, though.

Wide Open Mouth Theater continues…

“Hello, city morgue. You stab ’em we grab ’em.”

Dexter? Wasn’t there some TV show about a Dexter?

Anybody seen Avenger lately?

“…um, talcum? You wouldn’t believe the heat rash I’ve got.”

Tracy really knows how to secure a crime scene.

Pepoy is not alone in drawings of the wide open mouth in Dick Tracy. Gould himself used to draw exceptionally wide open mouths when his characters would uproariously laugh at things. Here is an example of how every character laughed at Vera Aldid’s name. Note that they all have exactly the same mouth shape when they laugh:

https://myimages.bravenet.com/833/132/922/MSB_1568049381.jpg

Dexter!!! Yes!

ka-talcum

Dexter?! I’m sure that’s just an “in-joke” nod to the popular TV forensic technician and serial killer. Right? Right.

Kassie, Friday’s assistant, is caught like a deer in the headlights with some suspicious white powder. Is it the same white powder Tracy found on Clara the Cadaver’s lips and maybe on that glass/clue? Or is this just a deliberate misdirect? Still six days to go (T W Th F Sa S)….

A bit late, but I’d say that I’d be very surprised if an ME or crime scene tech said anything like “Where’s the cadaver?” with acquaintances or family of a victim/ deceased around. I’d be surprised if they said anything stronger than "remains, " if that. Out of their presence, yes, gallows humor and more, but not with “civilians” around.

And I’ve been at those scenes, though fortunately less than a handful of times.

Also, in the real world Tracy would have said “witnesses” rather than “suspects,” if for no other reason than triggering Miranda potentia l. I know Mike is tacitly recapping key points for readers who don’t follow the strip like readers here, but this is a bit more than usual.

How did Tracy know the girl’s last name? Oh, I forgot, “off panel.”