Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for July 02, 2021

Good morning™, captive readers!

What do you get for the comic art collector who has everything? His very own comic strip artist and his very own live comic strip character. Said captives do not look happy about this in the least!

Is it zapping time? We shall see!

“Oh, you are NOT locking me up with him!”

Seems like team Tracy are fans of Star Trek TNG. The episode where Data become part of a collection comes to mind. The episode was called “The Most Toys”.

If you’re going to steal, steal from class! LOL!

Taking a trip down memory lane reveals how different sanitation man looks now than he did on 6/18.

Continuity is not a strong point in Tracyville.

He probably foreseen the Mysta problem. Let us see if he has anti-Mysta device in his house.

I would actually be pleased if the boys turned this into a “us against them” battle, an event that could lead to Vera and Mad Mindy bonding.

I don’t expect that but I would be pleased.

Good morning™, shocked and reeling !

I hope to see the beginning of an escape attempt tomorrow. If colonel Hogan were there he would see that they get out; with uniforms and fake papers.

Good morning everyone. I haven’t been on the board for a few days because I am in the Ozark mountains of Missouri for a family reunion on July 4th. I am not always in cell phone range. I am surprised that I was able to get a signal to post this. Happy holiday everyone. See you on the 7th when I return home. I am hoping Vera and Mysta get to return home.

Make them shrunken heads!

Alldid: Wha ya mean?

Mysta: No that B*&%$# didint!?!?!?!

If Brock is going to kidnap them, I don’t think he understands what Chimera can do under duress.

Get ‘em, Mysta!

But something tells me it’s not going to work….

This dude is so audacious. He has obviously been planning for this moment, so he must have found a way to neutralize Mysta’s powers. But has he accounted for her telepathy? Does he even know about it?

Maybe Mysta telepathically contacts Honeymoon who gets Pop Pop involved and saves the day?

Stuffed and mounted?

Kathy Bates, call your office.

I remember commenting the other day, he couldn’t possibly be that dumb enough…I guess I was wrong.

He wants to keep them alive or…

In panel 2, in the lower right, it looks like Archival has Ed Roth’s cartoon of a rat driving a hot rod. I wish I could remember its name. Oh, and I loved CARtoons magazine in the 60s and 70s. They were as funny as MAD.

Looks like we just might have a plot worthy of the slower build-up.

That’s it, Brock is off his nut. He’s not gonna get shot, but lead away in a straightjacket

Taking a good look at Brock today, I can’t help thinking he was modeled after a younger Stan Lee.

Well, no surprise there. Now off to the rubber-lined room to handle that annoying little electrical quirk.

uhh… so you’re gonna turn them into part of your collection? without a fight? good luck buddy.

cue the dark ambient music with discordant overtones which, although broadly tonal, is inflected with chromatic and polytonal passages

The collector has decided to move up to felony kidnapping.

This guy’s not too bright. How many people knew they were coming here?

Mysta appears to be recharging up a few levels above stun………

Well, someone’s going to get a /shocking/ surpise. You don’t piss off a woman ;)

Having seen trade in religious relics or Beatles memorabilia, sometimes you wonder if some rich fan may try to acquire the ultimate souvenir.

Hopefully this guy is also a part time taxidermist and stuffs these two then mounts them on his wall

With guys who have so much it is never enough. But, he’ll get his?

Mysta just opened a fresh can of ZAP-ASS.

Mysta likes two things – chewing bubblegum and zapping ass. And she’s all out of bubblegum.

It’s time for Mysta to zap-ass and take names!

I think – now hear me out – that if he kept the humidity in his house very high, it would have the effect of dispersing a Zapp! Like how my house humidifier keeps me from getting those Mysta-like static electricity shocks in the winter time. Same principle. Tomorrow, we’ll probably see a frame that shows a humidistat set at like 90%.

CAN’T WAIT TO SEE IF I’M RIGHT!

I call no way.

This whole Mars Maid thing is what, six months in Tracy Time? Is something like that worth the effort?

Is The Collector here some kind of Annie Wilkes? Is she going to force Vera to continue to work and Mysta to model for him?

“I’m your greatest fan!”

Brock’s art collection appears to include a guy with a “Captain America” -type shield, a guy with a fedora and mask (Spirit or Green Hornet?) and a dinosaur attacking a little guy with a shield and spear. Also two kids (a boy and a girl) facing each other (Nancy and Sluggo?)

This guy Archival is past the “nuts” stage….he’s a freak.

“Today, the addition of you and Miss Chimera will take my collection to the next level”. What is he going to do? Charge admission to his estate to see the collection? I suppose Archival has factored in he must keep his “add-on’s” fed. Unless he plans to have them stuffed and mounted.

Talk about delusional….I’m reading it today.

Over the years…collecting art originals, memorabilia and collector’s items….wonder if he was the kind who started out collecting stamps and butterflies.

Send in the appraisers! Archival knows he is sitting on a gold mine.

He’s going to have them stuffed? Like Roy Rogers and Dale Evans?

I see a huge ZZZZZAAAAP! coming.

OH fudge muffins!

didn’t Comic Book Guy do this on the Simpsons?

This reminds me of the collector episode from Star Trek:TNG where an avid collector decided to kidnap Data because he was the only sentient android in the Federation.

Today’s takeaway:

Brock Archival is crazy.

But he has a platoon of Tin Soldiers to enforce his lunacy. He probably also has some means of nullifying Mysta’s known powers. In the short term he will (seem to) get his way. Not in the long run, however, as somehow the Collected will get word out and help will at last arrive. But all this will take some time to play out.

For now, he revels in his fulfilled fantasy. We await the Turn (Aristotelian peripeteia) and the Rescue….

Ah, a collector of humans.

To bad our moon woman doesn’t have a real man to protect her, instead of this disgusting pantywaist.