Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for November 26, 2017

Well, I didn’t guess it. But congrats to Mike and Charles Ettinger for a very successful and fun feature in the strip.

I guess from now on we go with the most obvious candidate !

I feel a bit cheated.

Tracy solved the mystery because he had info we didn’t have: which of the 2 coats belonged to which person.

We weren’t told that the fur coat belonged to Piston Puss.

We weren’t told that Notgo Meszadams didn’t wear a coat.

Tracy made short work of that. A case so quickly solved

Given short attention spans, helps some folks stay involved.

Ms. Clampett’s cost was in the car, she likes to show her curves

Miss Gregory she owns no coat,it’s getting on her nerves.

Macadamia wears no coat at all. Brisk saunters expose vigor

Dick Tracy works the case just so. Brain power matched by rigor.

He spied a thing that should not be. The costs placed on the stand

‘Neath Krispies’ coat hangs Piston’s fur. Let’s give Tracy a hand.

Piston Puss is going down. Look to see crime does not pay

Vows violent retribution as they carry him away.

A “Minit” means a mystery for amateur detectives

Be there next time to solve a crime with clues scarce and selective.

If gambling on the boards was allowed someone would surely take book on the outcome of these minit eggs !

And speaking of book, I wish poke-a-long  Bill would book it here for his “good morning all” opening shot !

Grrr … had the clues … but read ‘em wrong …

Sorry but this solution DOES NOT work at all.

First, and most important, yesterday Jarvis specifically said H.K. Krispies did NOT go out this morning. But if he didn’t go out, HOW could his coat have been over Piston Puss’s coat? That could only happen if he went out and came in after Piston Puss. But we were told he didn’t go out and had to rely on that information as being true. That being the case, and based on the information we had, we could not make the deduction Tracy made, because based on the information we had, Krispies’s coat could NOT have been over Piston Puss’s coat. (For that matter, Tracy shouldn’t have been able to make the deduction, either.)

In addition, the fur coat COULD NOT have been Piston Puss’s coat. Piston Puss is a very tall man; much taller than even Tracy. But look at the coat rack back in panel 2 of Tuesday’s strip. The gray coat (the one that is supposed to belong to Krispies) is longer than Piston Puss’s alleged fur coat. So, unless Krispie was a giant of a man, that gray coat couldn’t have been Krispie’s and had to belong to Piston Puss and Tracy was off base deducing the fur coat belonged to Piston Puss

We were never told that Mesadams didn’t wear a coat or didn’t have one. He never mentioned a coat one way or another. So Tracy made an deduction based on facts not in evidence and facts not presented to the reader — an absolute no no in a “fair play” whodunnit murder mystery; ie. we couldn’t eliminate Mesadams as a suspect, because we didn’t have full information.

As for Miss Gregory, it’s absolute nonsense to buy her story that she didn’t have a coat because she couldn’t afford one. Even the abject poor have some sort of coat. They buy them in thrift shops. I’ve been in Chicago in winter, you cannot survive without some sort of coat over you. So I don’t believe for a second that she didn’t have a coat. (I realize that this didn’t figure into the solution, but it’s a discrepancy which the solution doesn’t account for.)

Good morning guys!

Darn! I was hoping Piston Puss® would apply for the job of Buttsy™! He has the right profile.

I knew it!

Piston Puss will get the chair for this! “Old Sparkplug”!

I really thought it was the Ms Clampett-Jarvis tag team with Notgo on second place. I never even considered Piston.

More minute mysteries, please!

I love you Dick Tracy but that was way too short. I guess it’s because you had guest artists with you this week, but can the next mystery be a little bit longer.

This is annoying. I thought the dry coat on top was Piston’s, and it wasn’t dripping, so I removed him from my suspect list. Also, why would anyone think that Piston would be wearing a fur coat? The owners of the coats were not identified, so how were we supposed to know?

I’ve seen people poor enough to have no coat, but Miss Gregory didn’t seem CLOSE to that level of poverty. But I thought it was Ms Clampett because you don’t forget your coat in the car on a really cold day. You notice as soon as you get out of the car.

But how would we know whose coat was whose? And how would we know that Not Gomez didn’t have one?

And it’s pretty weird for 3 out of 4 people to not have a coat in the winter.

I enjoyed this artwork quite a lot, but I agree with everyone that this “solution” has more holes that Swiss cheese! The main problem, as others have stated, is that Tracy made his deductions from “facts not in evidence”. How were we supposed to know that Piston Puss wears a fur coat? Also, cause of death was never even mentioned, let alone any search for some sort of weapon. The kind of deduction Tracy made might be useful to tell a detective who to look at further, but it isn’t proof of anything!

We all thought this was H.K. Krispies home. Is this really just an luxurious office building that has its own butler? Why else would Krispies come in to his office from outside, and put his coat over Puss’s?

Quite a mystery. I hope to see more of the same.

Enjoyable! Although I must admit it was too quick, with a lot of holes it was still fun and hope to see many more of these :). The art too was delightful so an excellent choice for guest, team Tracy.

Ya win some, Ya lose some!!!

I was under the assumption that was a womans fur coat.

I hope that on the next Minit Mysteries, Mike will let us hear the interviews in its entirety and not just excerpts.

If someone here guessed it’s Piston Puss, that was just plain guessing and not based on facts.

What we didn’t get to see: Tracy checked the coat labels and found “Property of Mr. P. Puss” inside the fur coat. Oh, yeah, and in the inner pocket was a note from Krispie’s soon-to-be ex-wife and $2000 in hundred dollar bills constituting half payment for the job.

Why couldn’t the fur coat belong to Mr Krispies? A really poor ending to what should have been an interesting idea.

You do realize, of course, this took way longer than a “minit.”

How about “Two-Minute Mysteries”? So you have a little more time to develop the story. I love (how do I underline LOVE here?) the idea of the solve it before Tracy kind of story but it needs a little more time than merely a week. Great guest art, great story, great job!

Ok, hey, look, let’s not forget that this week was a chance for guests artists to show their work, and it was GREAT! The Minit-Mystery thing was fun, but the ART stole the show. The shading, figures, backgrounds, coloring, all were exceptional! Well done!

Well, everyone here hit it thoroughly. I am disappointed the readers didn’t have a level shot at it.

The guest artist was excellent. (Althought I am sure that Shelly’s inking helped to keep the look consistent with Joe’s.) The solution was weak because we had no way of knowing which coat’s was Piston’s. In fact when they showed the coats that was my first thought. Had he said he hung up his furry coat, then the solution would be fair. We were also not to that Mesadams did not have a coat, which would account for there being two coats on the rack. And the shorter fur seems more likely to have belongs to the shorter MesAdams.

They missed the real culprit. Everyone (except one), including Piston Puss, came to ask Krispies for money. With Krispies dead, everyone (except one) would lose. The wife, getting a divorce, stood to inherit the fortune if Krispies died first; she was the only winner, the only one to benefit.

I arrived at Piston a different way. I did have to guess the fur coat was his. He and the butler were the only two that left puddles in the house. Even the girl without a coat had clean shoes (heels? In that weather? How did she get there? She was my second choice). I surmised that they all arrived after the butler took care of the snow on the sidewalk. That meant that Piston had to arrive before he cleaned the sidewalk and slipped in past the butler while he was outside.

Thanks for the compliments, guys! It was an honor and a pleasure working with Mike and the gang on this. I’ll be contributing to inking chores next month over Joe’s pencils while Shelly is out for a couple of weeks so stay tuned for my return.

I eliminated Ms. Clampett and Jarvis immediately because it would be cliche to say, “The ex-wife did it,” or “The butler did it.” Also, I eliminated Midge because the villains in the Tracyverse tend not to have normal-sounding names. That left Notgo and Piston Puss and I just left my judgment at it being one of the two of them. Personally, I feel like we weren’t expected to come to the correct conclusion because we weren’t privvy to all the information obviously Tracy had.

Not good, but not as bad as Inspector Danger. Those are terrible!!!

By comparison, here’s a “Slylock Fox” Mystery which I think everyone will agree plays 100% fairly …

https://i0.wp.com/www.kidcartoonists.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/431146_384185284941790_995710915_n1.jpg

What are we going to have starting tomorrow? The Moon Governor? Mr. Bribery? Or something else….

Good show, but why would Krispies put his coat over anyone else’s? He owns the joint, and there would have been empty coathooks…

I enjoyed the week and would like to see more of them but I’d agree that we weren’t given enough to figure this out. Maybe the authors could do a “post-mortem” and show us how we should have deduced it all?

Interesting how the “minit mystery” took a week.

Repeating myself a little bit here, but we are missing a main point within the story; what Tracy has so far would not be nearly enough to arrest anyone. It is the kind of clue that a detective, such as, for example, COLUMBO, would observe. Then he might be morally certain who his suspect was, but he would go on from there to develop a case, or maneuver his suspect into a confession. But arresting a suspect on the strength of where a coat was placed on a hall coat tree? The DA would throw a fit, and the defense attorney would laugh Tracy out of court.

Shelley and I talked about this story. I, like most of you, felt that not enough info was given about the fur coat on the rack, and that H. K. Krispies’ coat was the one on top.

I am only surmising here, but this is what I think happened. Jarvis was preparing to go out and shovel the front walk so he didn’t hear Piston Puss arrive. H.K. came out wearing his coat. He may have been preparing to go out which is why Jarvis was going to shovel the walk. H.K. answered the door and led Piston Puss into his office. This is when they both placed their coats on the rack. Piston Puss first, his coat wet from being out in the snow, and Mr. Krispies’ coat dry since he hadn’t been out yet. They got into an altercation and Piston Puss killed Krispies. He then rushed out of the house without his coat, but saw Jarvis outside shoveling and not wanting to be seen leaving acted like he had just arrived instead. His transportation must have been in front of the house and Jarvis would be suspicious if he didn’t see him try and enter. Things were further complicated by the arrival of the other guests to the mansion, so Piston had to act like he arrived at the same time as everyone else, And like everyone else, without a coat.

As stated by others on this board, how Tracy new that the fur coat was Piston Pusses is a mystery. I guess he is supposed to deduce it from the fact that everyone else said they weren’t wearing one, and the fact that the coat in question must have been to big for Mezadams. Still, not an obvious clue.

Yes, I’m afraid that Slylock Fox would not approve of this solution.

Whenever a felon is introduced into the mix of suspects… It’s a “lead pipe cinch” that they will be charged with the crime…

A real twist would be for them to be innocent and someone that no one suspected to be guilty…

Since I posted a lengthy Reply above, expressing my disappointment with the “solution” to the crime (and I still say we don’t even know there was a crime, since we were given no information on how Krispies died), let me state clearly here that I enjoyed the Minit Mystery and look forward to more of them in the future. Charles Ettinger did an admirable job as guest artist. I just wish Mike had given us a better chance to solve the case! Unless we stipulate a scenario such as Tarry Plaguer does (just above), there is no reason why H.K.‘s coat should appear on top of Piston Puss’s at all.

A good defense attorney (I’d recommend a certain Perry Mason, Esq.) should get Piston Puss off easily as long as he has not confessed behind our backs….

Perhaps the best assumption to make is that Tracy and the others made a short whodunit film as part of a fund-raiser. The donors would watch the film (minus the ending) and the person who comes closest to guessing who did it and why got a prize. (The actor playing “Piston Puss” was the same one as in the Autolite commercials; there is no such villain in the Tracyverse.)

Tracy himself might come out to explain that in real-life things could not have gone this way e.g the body is just laying there with no CSI people around, the evidence shown here would not hold up in court, and so forth.

No one went for the “Murder on the Orient Express” solution.