Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for October 07, 2020

Good morning™, students!

Sam’s been busy, besides reading the comics! He actually managed to trace the device to a college student and the lab confirmed that it can’t pump fast enough to kill someone, so it’s cleared in several ways. It does, however start to point them in the direction of the college.

I found this video of how blood plasma donations work in New Zealand. It’s a tour of some of the equipment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOUcq8l5yHg

Returning to the story at hand itself has become a whiplash.

“So does it work like the real murder weapon?”

“No, but it turns out that this IS the real murder weapon.”

“How could that be?”

“The killer simply smacked his victim over the head with this box a few times.”

“Wow, that’s some impressive detective work…”

“Occam’s razor baby, Occam’s razor…”

Occam’s razor indeed, by gar, by gar…

Good morning™, energetic explainers !

Sam has snapped back to hard cold reality. Let the investigation draw some usable clews.

Saw your late reply, artsyfartsey. ¦:-)

Really great artwork, today.

But the killer modified his to work faster!!!

POLICE WORK!That should calm some folks down…

It could still kill – open an artery, and the victim will bleed to death, even if the toy vampire kit only gets a few ounces of blood. The BP skyrockets, and blood gushes out.

The heck with that. We wanna hear about the Happy Hangman’s latest witty banter!

Well, I called it when I said the thing in the box was not as large as the device Stokes had used. As an academic I can tell you it isn’t the first time a faculty member has stolen an idea from a student. (Usually without giving credit.)

Love Lizz’s style, she’s rockin’ it today! And that plasma device sorta reminds me of that robot from MST3K, like how he would look if he was pretending to be Dracula for Halloween.

Meanwhile, over at Li’l Abner, Fearless Fosdick is finally due to appear tomorrow:

https://www.gocomics.com/lil-abner/2020/10/07

(At least assuming the GoComics feed for the strip doesn’t leap over another vast continuity chasm, as it has admittedly been wont to do.)

Even in cartoons, age catches up to you. Chief Pat Patton looks old enough to retire…now!

Lizz looks like she overdosed on botox…and what’s with the horrendous haircut? Guess she hired stevie wonder as a hairstylist

“Hey, Sam, can I borrow that? My niece is always looking for something neat to take to ‘Show and Tell’ and school.”

“I guess so. But I need it back because I think that it’s evidence.”

“No worries. I’ll tell her not to use it when she presents it.”

“Okay…”

Elsewhere, the comely and delectable Edison continues her hunt for a new sugar daddy. She’s narrowed her hunt down to two respectable and noted octogenarian cardiac surgeons with diagnosed heart conditions. She’s already filled in the do-it-yourself will kits. No more small time, penny ante hustlers for her. She’s ready for the big leagues!

And so it goes, by gar, by gar…

1-SAM: Ok. So Tracy confiscated Sven’s Spank Bank Donation device. See these sharp things up here. You don’t wanna know where they been. Then this part does this and that part does that and on and on until…

2-…and in conclusion, I will continue to make my donations the old fashion way. Thank you.

3-DOLLFACE: That was fascinating but one question – why would the Spank Bank want, ummm, yours?

SAM: To be honest, they don’t. But in this day and age of free salacious internet material, it’s tough to find magazines to stock the collection rooms. So, I’m their only source for good old fashioned dirty magazines. They pay me to rotate the material to keep it fresh for the frequent donators. They tell me they get the best turn around time when I rotate my collection of material in that features models who look like you. Those are my personal fav…

DOLLFACE: HELP! HUMAN RESOURCES! HELP!!!

Finally back to the story!

Is Dicko on vacation? BTW, What story?

We’ve gone from Sam reading the comics one day to having the device not only at the station, but fully examined by forensics AND the person who built it identified, investigated and cleared the next. So they can waste a week on Svengoolie but can’t give us one day to properly bridge yesterday’s strip and today’s? In Gould’s day, we would have had at least a day or two of investigation/examination/explanation but apparently these days the police work is less important than seeing how many superfluous characters they can shoehorn in.

Hmm. Was this steampunk version cobbled up by a student of Professor Stokes? And will police inquiry lead from the student to the wannabe Vampire Professor?

Get busy, detectives!

Blood plasma different from the 4th state of matter.

Why would a real vampire need a “vampire device” to suck out blood? Isn’t a vampire essentially a “vampire device” to begin with? I ‘m guessing the bad guy in this story is not a real actual vampire, which kind of makes the story pointless, assuming they wanted a good horror story for Halloween, & a story featuring a pseudo-vampire (or whatever) isn’t really that interesting.

If your following lil abners fearless Fosdick get ahead jan 31 2012 plus a comment by vista bill….

Hang on a sec. That looks like detective work.