Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for January 05, 2019

G’mornin’!

Good morning™, assembly viewers!

Bonnie, apparently, had one of those plastic objects, herself, and has it on tape. Are Sparkle and Bonnie about the same age. I have to look that up.

Looks like Adam Warlock’s cocoon to me …

https://goo.gl/images/iDGg5h

Let Sparkle kick the bucket. These little M&M’s aren’t a part of the “real” story anyway.

They’re 1-2 week vacation fillers.

Poison, lies, and videotape.

Sam’s…..HAT !! Awkward angle..

It vaguely seems to have a clown face in panel 2

The plot thickens..

Bonnie should answer, “which Videotape?” I’m only storing 10,00 of them.

I’m old enough to remember what the package looks like and videotape…

Is that rain on the window or are Tracy and Pat dripping with sweat?

One of the things I have liked about this story is the kinetic feel of the artwork. It perfectly reflects a sense of urgency written into this tale that hasn’t seemed to be present for a while. I like seeing the team in “all hands on deck” mode.

I like Lizz with the eye makeup. It makes her look like the old Lizz (before Locher’s horn head version).

Lee Ebony must still be in Hawaii. She had a lot of vacation days coming after hanging out for so long in the pool hall.

Black mold gas.

Well, after seeing the subtly-shown smile on the device in the second panel, I can see a face with a round nose on it, with the rest of the object showing a costume with red buttons. In other words, it’s a clown doll! Sparkle must have been videotaped with it when she was a child. By the way, here is a link discussing the relationship between Sparkle and Bonnie Braids as children:

http://dicktracy.wikia.com/wiki/Sparkle_Plenty#Young_Sparkle.27s_New_Friends

A dried poop with hemorrhoids?

Looks like fancy bubble-wrap, to me.

Surprised ultimate Tracy expert Wick didn’t know Sparkle is around 4 years older than Bonnie Braids..1947…1951.

Lest we forget, the plot line must address the mystery- within-a-mystery as to the object’s actual origin. When last we saw a vertical and conscious Sparkle, her last words before the device, er, passed gas, so to speak, was that she hadn’t seen the item since she was a girl. So is this a truly old object that somehow went bad (possible but unlikely), an old object that had been sabotaged recently, or something new and dangerous made to look like an old toy/decoration/ whatever? If the latter, then someone who knew she had such an item must be involved, thus raising the fear that it’s an inside job? Surely not! It seems the middle of my three theories, IMHO, a pre-existing and known item having been recently sabotaged, is most likely. Which, of course, fellow crime-solvers, clearly supports the involvement of one of the home improvement workers. But whom? And why? Stay tuned, for only DP knows what evil lurks in the hearts of, oh, wait, I’m mixing my tag lines…

Hmm… if the poison-bomb is something directly targeted at Tracy, how does it fit in with the 4 or 5 other poison gas bombings Tracy’s city has recently seen? Or does it? Still, I have to admit, I dreaded another Minute Mystery, but overall it’s been a great read so far!

You’re a better man than I, Dick Tracy! Even after reading all the speculation from our hardy band of Commenters, above, I have no idea what this bubbly mass of distorted plastic may have once been. I hope Bonnie’s tape does provide a solution! (And, to be sure, I hope the MCU has something capable of playing an old videotape!)