Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for July 05, 2021

Such tenderness, it’s very moving. I’m telling you, Mad Mindy and Allcad might just bond due this crisis!

Wow! Everything looks so different!

Why is Sunday always colored wrong???

ᕦ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ᕤ “I AM SPARTACUS!”

Why did Mad Mindy take her right glove off in panel two???

A REAL superhero wouldn’t give up so easily.

She’s such a fraud!!!

Good morning™, all!

Eric S asked yesterday, “and what exactly is Mr Bribery’s ring?” As Mysta says, it’s a long story. Let me try to summarize. Corrections are invited.

In a story told in 1965, Diet Smith built a “Space Coupe” and commenced mining operations on the Moon. One day, a young woman (described as a “maid” in the strip), who lived in “Moon Valley,” sneaked on board his ship and ended up being brought back to Earth. This “maid from the Moon” became known as “Moon Maid” and eventually married Dick Tracy’s adopted son, Junior. They had a daughter, Honeymoon, who is currently a pre-teen in the strip. Moon Maid, who was the daughter of the Moon Governor, would be killed many years later by a bomb that was meant for Dick Tracy and the Moon people swore off contact with Earth people.

Mr. Bribery had several adventures in the 1965 to 1967 timeframe that involved stealing Space Coupes and trying to scoop up a large stash of cash that was lost in Earth orbit, but he was eventually thought to have been killed.

He was never heard from again until he suddenly showed up again in 2015 with a story that he had been in Europe and it was only a body double that had been killed. Anyway, he was still after riches from the Moon, but he assumed that the Governor and his people would zap him if he tried to plunder the riches of Moon Valley, so he needed a way to defend himself from them.

Mr. Bribery hired two scientists, Dr. Zy Ghote and Dr. S. Tim Sail, to capture a woman named Mindy, who had once won a Moon Maid look-alike contest, and transform her into the woman we now know as Mysta Chimera by implanting some of Moon Maid’s DNA and doing plastic surgery to make her look more like Moon Maid, thus creating Bribery’s very own “moon maid.”

(continued in a reply)

The ring seems to have damaged an item in his “collection”. Like a kid using a priceless baseball card in the spokes to make noise on his bicycle.

Good morning™, Laid Low Luscious Lunies !

I’m down but not out, it just looks that way.

Other than being a larger man, I don’t see Brock as having a weapon to thwart “Allcad *” should he find a foreign object to come back with. Are there any folding metal chairs in the room?

 * av’s new name for my comic strip creator.

Somehow, Mysta and Veda have to get the ring from Archival. Easier said than done, I think. We don’t know if maybe Archival has a common, ordinary handgun on him.

There’s a licensing fee ya know!

Hey, look on the bright side! Being Archival’s slaves can’t be that bad! The glass is always half full!

One has to wonder where Archival’s assistant is right now, the one we saw on June 19th. Does she know what he’s up to? Is she sane, unlike Archival? Does she approve? Is she Mrs. Archival? And how loyal are Archival’s servants, the “tin soldiers”? Will one or more of them try to contact the cops? There are more questions, but this is enough for now.

Vera could have used that ring the day you shocked him Moon Maid. : )

Vera could have used that ring the day you shocked him Moon Maid.

And be a man Vera, if you want Moon Maid to go out with you, impress her by beating this guy in a good old fashion fist fight!

This strip says that Vera didn’t know anything about the ring, so maybe its existence or what it can do is not common knowledge. The ring was probably secret evidence known only to a few of the police and the district attorney. It’s not something they’d want publicized. How Archival came to know of it is unknown.

Vera has to save her.

The ring blocks her Moon Attack powers, but what about her telepathy?

A physical violence from a guy named “Vera” isn’t much of a threat.

As long as he has it the story continues!

Anyone else missing Flattop?

So we’re back to my previous suggestion: Vera, pick up something and hit him with it. Preferably on the head. [If you know the Vulcan neck pinch, now would be a good time.]

Try punching him in the face.

It’s all up to Vera now!

“It’s clobberin’ time! VERA SMASH!”

no, you’re not powerless. you’ve got a physical body, so does the artist. GO FOR THE KNEES

After an exciting Sunday strip beautifully colored by Shane Fisher, things are back to dreary normal today with gocomics’ Mad Colorist back at the helm. Not only is Mysta’s costume back to shades of drab purple, we’re also treated to a disappearing glove and purple horns. Yeah, we know, the Mad Colorist is overworked and underpaid and all that. Regardless, he pays little attention to detail, has no regard for the official color scheme provided in the Sunday strips, and it’s obvious that noone at gocomics is checking his work or providing a modicum of quality control. It’s just embarrassing. Hard to think a kid off the street with a spraycan would do any worse. How much longer is gocomics going to be allowed to deface Joe Staton and Shelley Pleger’s great art?

Continued from yesterday. (NO RECAP – GO BACK AND READ IT FOR YOURSELF)

1-HORNY: So, there I was – under the table at Studio 54 – just like this – and I look up…

VERA: YES, YES! GO ON!

2-HORNY: No! I can’t! Those days are dead to me now. I’ve kicked the moon dust I was buzzed on. Also – you’re no Mick Jagger…

3-STAN LEE: Did you ever notice my first and last name, when said quickly, sounds like my formal first name. Try it. STANLEY. See? Now you do it.

VERA: STAN LEE. STAN: NO NO NO! Say it faster!

VERA: When I get outta here, I’m going to draw the ugliest picture of you! Warts and big ears!!!

…..so it’s “hero” time, Vera: make him NOT have it…..!!???!!!…Naaaahh, who am I kidding?

Bribery’s ring repels her powers. Like those episodes of Space Ghost where he is held in check and his power bands are useless. Popeye is up a cheek without Spinach. Superman is a lost cause when kryptonite is introduced.

I guess Mysta and Vera are going to be “guests” of Archival for a while. He leaves a lot to be desired for a host. Too bad while he was collecting things, he did not include Amy Vanderbilt’s book on Etiquette. Where are his manners?

99 Comments at 9:42 Mtn time: Don’t you people have better things to do with your life ? :-o LOL !

Hot dog! Archival is truly a bonafide villain for the 21st Century. No guns necessary.

Mysta, “he blinded me with science”.

Ivan and Neil really need jobs.

The one little flaw, I guess, in Archival’s scheme is that potentially either Alldid or Vera told somebody where they were going, or left behind some kind of note on a personal calendar or whatever that they’d be spending the afternoon at Archival’s estate. Which means sooner or later, once people realize they’re missing, the trail will lead directly to Archival. Maybe Archival will insist they did spend some time there, but then they left & what happened after that he doesn’t know. Of course, he doesn’t exactly exhibit the attributes of a non-suspicious person. Then again, maybe, like John Huston in Chinatown, he doesn’t worry about the police because he owns the police.

On a more serious note, the great film director Richard Donner died today at 91. I’m sure Mike Curtis is in mourning. Donner, y’know, directed Superman and most of its sequel. Those are still two of the best superhero movies ever made.

What a revoltin’ development this turned out to be!

At least Mysta 1) knows what they are up against and 2) is recovering at least to some extent from the reflected zap. But their situation looks bleak for now, and The Collector is lording it over his new pets.

Now what?

If there is a logic to the ring, it’s doesn’t make Mysta powerless, it repels her power. Therefore, she should still be able to communicate telepathically with Honeymoon. The question is: Since the ring was developed from Mysta’s weakened and artificially contrived version of the Moon powers, will it work against Honeymoon? I dare say that it won’t work against bullets, and Tracy & Co. won’t be coming unarmed.