Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for April 15, 2014

Well, allright!

Good morning everyone

I say, bring the space coupe back!

Good Morning All….This story is like Anything Can Happen Day… I hope your all loving it as much as me…and it’s great to be first in line….

Bam! Diet finally comes clean. I bet he has even more interesting news to report to us.

Yeah..Tracy KNEW…..and participated in a law enforcement cover-up. Wow, this strip is getting TOO realistic, lol. C’mon, Dick wouldn’t do that…..

“Crookededge Untrustworthy” the sequel….

The two doctors are probably by Jupiter by now.

It seems that when Diet Smith says jump, Tracy asks “how high”. For instance if Smith has something to discuss, he calls Dick to come down to his office instead going down to police headquarters to see him. Then Tracy admits that he knew DS was lying but didn’t do anything about it. Could this mean that public officials in the tracyverse are the subordinates of the one percent?

Great strip this morning though.

Hmmmmm……the space coupe may have been well stocked with food and a way to manufacture oxygen though….. remember, it did go to the moon…. so if Diet can turn it around…..

Disappointed……

My guess is, nothing will happen…..Diet Smith doesn’t know for sure that Ghote and Sail were on the Space Coupe and neither does Tracy. And without the Space Coupe, it can’t be proven. So……..

Well, my guess yesterday that it was news about the space coupe was right (more or less). He admits that he purposely sent it into space (and he has good justification for that) but he didn’t know that someone was on board until the doctors suddenly went missing. That’s what I thought all along.

The reason why I said “more or less” is that it isn’t really news to us or to Diet or to Tracy, either. Tracy already gave us strong hints that he didn’t believe what Diet was saying about the SC accidentally slipping into orbit.

There’s no way Diet is going to bring Dr. Ghote back now, even if he could. Even if he accidentally sent Ghote to his death, I’m sure that Diet thinks it’s “good riddance” when all is said and done. I don’t for a minute think that there’s any likelihood of the coupe having weeks or months of food and water on board (or oxygen), so if anything like that exists, we’ve yet to hear of it. In the absence of any new information, I’d have to assume that the doctors are dead and the coupe is destroyed. I have my doubts about whether it’s possible to turn the coupe around. I think Diet made sure it couldn’t be tampered with.

So Smith admits that he lied, and Tracy already knew that. Smith presumes that the doctors were on board, and Tracy already suspected that, too. So, nothing has really changed, but it’s all out in the open now. I think they’re still friends, and another loose end is tied up for us readers.

“Good morning, serious looking Bill”

That;s the way things were in 1982.

Why is Tracey in the shadows and not just the background? Is it foreshadowing?

The down side is that Diet just confessed to mass murder.

Sounds like Diet is in the confessional using Dick Tracy as a priest.

Having some guilty feelings after all these months Diet?

What Diet Smith admitted was that he destroyed the Space Coup by sending it into space. Last time I checked, the destruction of your own property was not a crime.

It appears that neither or Smith or Tracy knew/suspected at the time that anyone was on board. So Tracy would have had reason to believe he was “covering up a crime”. Over time, it became apparent that the two doctors (and one of the brothers) was missing. At that point the issue of a possible crime emerges. But what crime? Not “murder” because Smith had no clue that anyone was on board. Maybe “manslaughter” in that he was careful about checking for passengers before sending the ship to its destruction in Jupiter.

But really, what you are looking at ia an accidental death. He made a mistake. That mistake resulted in a lose of life.

Tracy now had to decide whether this was a “crime” or a “mistake”. The police do that all the time. In this case, he decided on “mistake” and walked away from the investigation.

I am detecting a “but…” hanging in the air here.

Come on, Diet, get to the point…

Obviously, Diet did not admit to murder. He confessed that he sent his Space Coupe into deep space by remote control. Even now, months later, his assessment is that the bad doctors may have been on board. There are no bodies and Tracy can’t prove that Smith knew that Ghote and Sail were aboard the Space Coupe. He would be hard pressed to bring any charges, as jz27wk aptly points out.

The Law and Justice are sometimes two different things.

Some hidden facts are being allowed into the light of day: ironic, given that Tracy is curiously hidden in shadows as this admission by Diet slowly builds…. Symbolism?

We had a spoiler yesterday that the Annie arc would begin 01 June, leaving about five weeks left to finish up this one..And yet, this seems to be the continuation of last year’s Moon Maid arc. This is, after all, where that arc left off..It’s about time we got back to it..No, I don’t think Richard and Dietrich are close friends at this particular moment. Tracy seems cold and aloof. And yet, as others have noted, Smith is still a useful ally..What is the real news Diet has to offer? No real clue, so far. All that has been stated is that which is already known..Save this: He didn’t want to say it over the telephone. And if what has been discussed up to this point is considered common knowledge, then this ain’t it!

That which is known to readers is not the same as that which is known to characters. Diet (named for his once frequent attempts to reduce) may have suspected that Tracy was wise to his fib, but the two have not discussed the final flight of the Space Coupe until now. Tracy has been busy defeating death traps and chasing desperate criminals into a frozen lake. Smith comes clean, clearing the air between old friends. I believe that Ghote and Sail’s journey ended in their deaths, but we don’t know this with certainty.

I like the new Diet Smith. (I call him Dietrich only because I’m German) In the early Curtis Staton Moon Maid stories, he looked quite a bit like Captain Kangaroo, complete with Bullwinkle’s antlers for eyebrows!.This new and improved Smith looks a bit more like the Gould version, though still bearing Joe’s distinct influence.

@tcreole:You asked late yesterday how “Diet” is pronounced. It is diet, like being careful what one eats. it is based on his original appearances, when it was established that his high-power, big executive life style gave him ulcers, and he was constantly shown eating strained peas and other baby foods. That was in the mid 40s, when the medical protocol for ulcers was, in fact, very bland, soft food. Today’s medical thinking on treating ulcers has changed considerably, and Diet Smith’s health doesn’t seem to be the issue it was in his early appearances. (Although, if he does still suffer from ulcers, most doctors would tell him to get rid of the cigars.)

People! Do you even know what “murder” means? It has to be done knowing that you are killing somebody. Diet is saying that he only suspects people were aboard the coupe. No one (except the readers) knows for sure. You could not even prove negligence in a court of law.

This is a way of extending the “cliff-hanger” many stories along the way. How long has it been since the storm at the Wheaton farm? What about the Apparatus investing in the Fracking of the land…and what about the Black Hearts, Venus and Melies taking over the Apparatus.. and the coming of Annie….Anything can happen in the funny page Universe..

“Meatloaf for dinner, again?”

I agree with jz27wk, Pequod77, and others. Cover up? Confessing a crime? Mass murder? That’s silly. The Space Coupe was Diet’s property, and he sent it into space to destroy it. That action was consistent with his other actions to destroy all moon technology. Diet says he didn’t know if people had sneaked on board the Coupe — and he still doesn’t. How would anyone be able to prove otherwise?There are no grounds here for Tracy to pursue criminal charges against Diet. Sorry to disappoint you guys who seem to think Diet deserves the electric chair, but no prosecutor would touch this. There’s no way Tracy will either.

I say let’s see if the moon people settled on or in Europa!!

It’s all academic. To paraphrase Bob Marly: No body, no crime.

hmmm isn’t that murder?