Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for July 20, 2015

Kidnapping Diet Smith! Now, there’s a new plot twist!

To all of the friends of Shirttail Slim: Since his passing on the 9th, I am putting together a collection of his musings, occasional rants and stories as a Word document. If anyone is interested in a copy, please go on over to Benetin y Eneas (Mutt & Jeff in Spanish) here at GoComics and let me know your email address. I will be happy to share with everyone.

Based on the body language in panel three, it looks like lovely Venus is all in with Melies’ plan, while Apollo isn’t so sure.

Méliès has the place bugged……don’t you think Mr. Bigg has also done the same? And maybe led Méliès on with intentional comments?

So we’re finally getting to the “how” — sort of — actually, we didn’t really get an answer on that, but we did get the question.

I see it’s confirmed that Mr. Bigg wants the Space Coupe to mine gold from the moon. I’ve been wondering for two years what he wanted it for. I thought maybe he was going to do something else with it.

Melies and his giant head are a more deserving Mr. Bigg anyways…

Either Mr. Bigg fed Méliès a load of nonsense about why he needed the space coupe or his knowledge of actual gold mining in next to nil.

Since the Moon has no active geology there is nothing to concentrate the gold into veins as on Earth and so you are left with ore mining.

The BEST ore to rock ratio on Earth (Tau Tona, Africa) is 28 grams of gold per TON of rock and the majority of deposits are in the 0.71 gram per ton range. Unless Mr Bigg was planning on setting up a refining plant on the Moon the space coupe was going to be making an an insane amount of commutes. In fact, Mr Bigg would have made more money from the rare earths known to be on the Moon.

More over unless the Blackhearts have inside knowledge shouldn’t the issue of there being an advanced civilization on the Moon come up?

In fact, NASA discovered the Moon is loaded with titanium which the Governor of the Moon claimed lack of was his reason for wanting to steal the space coupe. Also Diet Smith had more then one of those things so the plans to build one should still be around.

So, now the Big Plan is to kidnap Diet Smith in order to distract Mr. Bigg. I suppose Honeymoon and Annie could become collateral damage in such a scheme. If Apollo and Venus join in this addlepated plot, they deserve whatever Mr. Bigg might have to deal from his side. BB-Eyes, DoubleUp, and Blaze Rize will not go down without a fight, and it is likely to be a bloody affair….

That’s a long way to go for a joke – uh – I mean a distraction.

Morning, Tracyville!

Is it just me, or is Melies’ head shrinking? It doesn’t seem as large as it used to be.

I wonder if Melies’ plan involves forcing Diet Smith to give them a Space Coupe as ransom for his release, and then using that to steal the gold.The coupe could easily carry the weight of the gold, and by having both the coupe and the gold, Melies would show he could do what Mr. Bigg couldn’t, and cut into Mr. Bigg’s finances, too.By making Mr. Bigg look weak, others may go to Melies’ side. -I know Smith said he’d destroyed all the ships and plans, but did he really?He hasn’t always been honest with Tracy. And since we know he has the Coupe’s under remote control, he might let them have one, knowing he could hijack it from them.There are almost too many ways this story could go.

I wonder how many times the artist has been tempted to draw Mellies’ head with an American flag – or two – sticking out of it? (Happy Anniversary, Apollo 11!)

Good morning guys!

Good morning guys!-————————————-Good morning to you as well, Vista Bill!

I was out of town over the weekend and couldn’t comment, but it looks like I have called it beginning on June 13 where I suspected that the plot would include the desire to further mine Moon Gold:

LINK

As I posted that day, Purdy Fallar said to Mr. Intro:

At that time I also speculated in the comments that Venus and Apollo were hiding something under their hair. At that time I speculated that what they were hiding was possibly Lunarian horns since the subject of that day’s strip was Honeymoon’s blossoming horns. Whether or not that eventually happens is left to be seen. However, my thoughts adapted as time and more evidence progressed.

Although many have suspected that Mr. Bigg could be Bribery, others insisted that Bribery had to be dead. However in my rather lengthy comments on July 10th, I laid out a good deal of evidence pointing to the fact that Mr. Bigg must definitely be Bribery and even opened a discussion of Bribery’s habit of branding his underlings:

LINK

I also speculated at that time that Mr. Bribery and Mr. Intro could well be one and the same individual. That remains to be seen as well.

All I can say is that my speculations are slowly proving to be true.

When can we expect the Moon Governor to appear (as I also predicted)?

I also pointed out on July 10th the branding on the forehead of Little Notting (supposed head of the 52 gang). However, it was pointed out to me by Sydney that Notting sported an “A” brand rather than the Bribery “B.”

But if you read my comments that day you will find how I laid out the progression of the 52 Gang through Mr. Intro’s gang into the Apparatus. I also suspected that it was secretly Bribery at the head of each organization. Could the “A” brand on Notting refer to Mr. Crime (aka George *A*lpha), once head of the Apparatus? Could Alpha have been a Bribery surrogate?

Time will tell. Time will tell.

Let’s see how this pans out…TBC..

@abdullahbaba999 “Let’s see how this pans out”, gold – I get it! LOL

Apollo shows his “B” – a sign of loyalty to Mr. Bigg – and no sooner does his hair drop back over his brand than he says “I’m in” to Melies’ plotting against Mr. Bigg. Venus likewise seems to be very easily persuaded to listen to Melies’ plan. Something doesn’t ring true here.Whatever complex psychology is involved in allowing oneself to be branded, it would seem (once done) that it would not be this easy to get the person to throw their loyalty away like this.

Gold prices are plummeting right now. Time is money. Whatever they are going to do, they had better hurry.

Good morning everyone.-——You nailed it Ray!-——There Will Be Blood-——Have a sunny day my friends.

Been a while since I chimed-in (I have been following the story, though) — since the “space elements” were reintroduced by Staton/Curtis, we have seen the following hardware: A “police-issue” Space Coupe, stored in Diet Smith’s Moon Suite, along with a 1960’s era Air Car, and a 1970’s two-man Air Car. The Space Coupe which was prominently featured, afterwards (and disappeared in space with Dr. Ghote and company) was Diet Smith’s personal SC, named the “Sparkle Plenty”. Besides that, we know that a SC with the ability to carry 100 passengers (to/from Diet Smith’s former factory on the moon, which could possibly tie-in to our story) was featured in a storyline, long ago. DS may have destroyed the plans, but I’m willing to bet they are backed-up, somewhere. Only time will tell…

Didn’t Diet tell Dick that he did keep one coupe, but that he rendered inoperable?

I don’t remember him saying anything like that. The one coupe he kept was the one that he sent to a crash landing on Jupiter.

Mike has posted on Facebook that we will not learn of the resolution to Purdy Fallar’s condition until 2016.

Gould underlined the words “at least one” branding. This implies that they may also have other brands…an “A” perhaps?

No, it said, at least one “B,” suggesting there may have been more than one “B.” I also think the the “A” brand more thank likely stands for “ace.”

Didn’t Diet tell Dick that he did keep one coupe, but that he rendered inoperable?-—————————————-I don’t remember that, but I’m sure you’re right. He probably has it stashed just for emergencies.

I was rather surprised to see Notta featured for four days in March/April. It was almost four days in a row______________________Many of Gould’s tales went off on tangents before working their way back around to the main crime. The original Mr. Bribery story had several plot lines going at the same time. MM working for a comic strip, the kidnapping of MM, the Matty Square plot, the pregnancy of MM, the birth of Honeymoon, the business dealing between Diet and Moon Governor, the Chin Chillars, etc. Everything being shown will prove to be part of the overall jigsaw puzzle.

Besides Diet Smith, the Moon Governor certainly has Moon technology. Consequently if Diet told the truth, the only place where Space Coupe technology could be found would be in the hands of Moon Governor. As Diet says in the strip Willy posted, Moon Governor had several Space Coupes under construction. It would be pretty hard to construct them without the blueprints and exact specifications.

Moon Valley is destroyed and all of their Space Coupes (the under construction ones were likely completed) are gone and presumably located where ever the Lunarians are located. But for what ever reason Moon Valley was abandoned, it has left the Moon Governor without access to his factories and laboratories to keep and maintain the Coupes in his possession. Which is why if Moon Governor is involved, he did not provide a Space Coupe of his own but needed one from Diet Smith that was in good repair.

While, as the strip has indicated earlier, the Moon Era has slipped from public knowledge into urban myth. But Bribery would certainly know the truth about it and be aware of the Moon Governor.

Despite the embargo, I wouldn’t put it past Bribery to have tried to contact the Moon Governor on the Moon to try and make a deal over the Gold (or the other way around). If that happened, Bribery could have certainly learned that the Lunarians are no longer on the Moon if he did not receive a reply or pick up Moon radio wave signals. With knowledge of the abandonment of the Moon, Bribery may have searched for the Governor in other places and found him (or the other way around—I suspect Bribery’s life was somehow saved by Moon technology). I am interested to see where the billion dollar limited gold was mined.

Remember, we have no indication that Bribery (or Melies for that matter who would have reported that fact to Bribery) knows of Diet sending his working Coupe to Jupiter. Consequently whether or not Diet destroyed all of his Coupes, the Blackhearts believe he still has them prompting Melies’ plan to kidnap Diet Smith.

Since Honeymoon was born during the original Bribery arc, we can assume that the incidents in that tale took place approximately 13 or 14 years ago. This is plenty of time for the Governor’s Coupes to have fallen into disrepair and the Governor to find himself in need of parts.

Oh, and congratulations to Ray Toler for his successful prognostications.

It doesn’t even have to be the Moon Governor alone.

If he does show up, I wouldn’t expect him to be alone.

“Why would they leave their home planet?”That’s my thought, too. The Lunarites need oxygen to breathe, and since their home at Moon Valley no longer has a breathable atmosphere (confirmed 12/26/2012), why go anywhere else but Earth to live?I’m pretty convinced they are living on Earth, either at a remote location like Antarctica (especially since they love the cold) or among men (hiding their horns and moon tech).

@Willy007: Thanks for posting the Space Coupe and Chin Chiller comics.

You’re very welcome, gentlemen. :)