Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for March 17, 2017

Welcome to Exposition Friday.

It’s a mystery, all right.

Basically, Tracy hasn’t known Am for more than a few years and he hasn’t quite figured him out yet. Of course, Annie has known Am for much longer, but I don’t think she’s figured him out either.

Is Vista Bill doing some behind the scenes investigating ?  Make sure you have the camera sounds turned off, Bill !

…and Good moaning !

On yesterday’s strip, 22ph wrote about 2 hours ago

My understanding is that Mr. Am was not in the hotel even before the holdup. If he was there, I expected him to make an appearance …

That would make sense. Mr. Am was not in the hotel at all.

On the question of what is a “suite,” I’m sure there could be two suites on one floor. It’s just that the statement, “The 30th floor is the Great Am’s personal suite” makes it sound like his suite is the whole floor.

Looks like VB is celebrating St Patrick’s Day

https://s21.postimg.org/5rzdkv19j/stpatday.jpg

Everything that I thought happened is being torn into pieces… I will just keep quiet and wait for what happens on Sunday. http://www.yesemoticons.com/free-cool-d/4667-2/tiny-smileys-yesemoticons-007.gif

Are there any Tracy – Or Annie – Or Spirit – characters who are notable for outsized hands other than ‘The Mole’ and … presumably … Mr. Am?

☘ Happy St. Patrick’s Day! ☘

Is it just me, or is Dick Tracy doing Adam West to Spirit’s Burt Ward? The last week or so, at least…

“He (Am) works in mysterious ways” – possible deification of the Great Am?

This story and the agonizing amount of wasted time taken to spin it is not unlike stretching out the Haunted House arc a few more months.

Why is Tracy calling Annie “Orphan Annie”? Does Mike think that some of the readers won’t know who Oliver Warbucks’ daughter Annie is?

Is his evil counterpart The Great PM?

Or he’s a communications magnate and his arch-rival is The Great FM.

For Am only the really serious cosmic horrors are for him to solve. Humans are so weak and primitive. He can out think them easily.

So, we’ve been puzzling about where the figure of five bidders came from since there are only four bidders that are really obvious. I finally decided to ask Mike Curtis directly about that. He confirms what I had been thinking. The Spirit is the other bidder, bidding on behalf of that international health agency. It was the only thing that made sense to me, but I’m happy to have gotten confirmation. I’m relieved that Mike does know how to count to five, LOL.

I hate to be a pill, but I can’t wait for this storyline to be over. I’m not familiar with these guest characters, so the nostalgia’s wasted on me, and I don’t know anything about their backgrounds/motivations, so it fails as a mystery.

If Tracy recovered the letter Perenelle was reading on the day she died, that could have help them solve the crime.

About Will Eisner, who ’broke ground with noir super-detective comic “The Spirit” ’: www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2017/03/17/will-eisner-at-100-a-salute-to-the-legendary-comic-creator-who-transformed-the-industry/

Does Am “border on deity”? You bet he does! “I am Who am” is what the deity calls himself in the Old Testament (Exodus 3.14). The Great Am, with his gigantic size and mystical/supernatural powers, is not explicitly identified as divine in Harold Gray’s Little Orphan Annie, but the implication is always there, not far beneath the surface….

Meanwhile…, that darn elevator sure is slow! Up, up, and away!

One of the Kitchen Sink volumes is titled “The Omnipotent Mr. Am”.

Ya’ know, maybe Am did it after all! Possibly, he figured Flammel and her stooge were going to stiff him on the bill……. even if she flew into Dodge on a Gulfstream. Maybe he ran her credit card and found it was a Banco de Mexico debit card with $2.50 left on it.

Just me, or does Am look like Uncle Jesse from “The Dukes of Hazzard”?

Spirit: Is there something about [Am] I should know?

Tracy: I’m sure there is. *thinks: But I have no idea what."