Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for November 02, 2022

Good morning™, everyone!

Well, I don’t think it was such. a good idea to keep us readers confused for days, but we finally have a little bit of an explanation.

Sam didn’t leave the radio in the car because he was lazy or something. It was because the radio was “glitching.” Apparently, the glitch doesn’t interfere with Steelface listening to police calls, but it prevents the police from tracking the location of the Wrist Radio. The other surprising fact is that Sam is all upset about the missing radio, but Tracy is just fine with it.

(It seems that the location of the failed raid provides hot coffee, even if the employees all left in a big hurry when they heard that the police were coming.)

In Panel 1, I thought Tracy was trying to distract Sam with coffee so he could shoot him without a lot of fuss. “Sorry buddy, but you knew the rules. Guard your radio with your life.”

Is Mike filling in the plot holes after the fact?

OK, assuming we can infer from today’s strip that the MCU has been aware for awhile that Sam’s wrist radio has been stolen by car thieves who can now listen in to their transmissions without being traced, wouldn’t it make sense for the MCU to stop talking about their operations regarding the car thieves over compromised radio transmissions?

Good morning™, Kwik  bugout artists !

Dick has one peculiar look on his mug in P.1. So STOP talking on a frequency Steelmug can listen in on unless you start playing a game with him !  Will they discover the left over hulk of what was Sam’s car ?  Love the P.3 yard shot, looks like the kind of shops/junk yards I have been to.

Sam realizes what Steely must be doing in keeping one step ahead of him but he also realizes that he fooked up… Dick is so understanding… “Hindsight”… the only hind end around here is Sam for being such a horse’s-ass in carelessly leaving his two-way for Steely to get his grubby hands on it… he must have had pastrami on the brain… better convert to fish… it IS supposed to be food for the brain, you know… then the only thing that Dick and co. will have to deal with and put up with is that Sam smells a bit on the fishy side…

And now we know the wrist of the story…

Sam must have left his Halloween cape on in panel one.

Is this the first time in MCU history someone said NO to a cup of coffee?

We welcomed our first grandchild, Olivia into this crazy world yesterday. I’m very ecstatic!

I wonder if Warbuck’s kid is going to use his skills to fix it.

The Bad Guys were here…But first, Coffee….

And yet we still keep talking on it.

Sam, we’re getting you fitted with an Ankle Monitor Radio.

Hindsight is 20-20 Sam!

Coffee’s on! Steely knew Tracy was coming and is messing with him!

They should be able to deactivate his wrist radio remotely, shouldn’t they? I know, I know, there’d be no story if they could do that…

the coffee is ‘still hot’ because it’s sitting on a hot plate sherlock. no wonder there’s so much crime in tracytown.

Well, the obvious course of action is for the cops to start feeding false info via the radio to set up a sting.

so can’t they trace it? must have chip in….and if you know they got it, you can also use it to your advantage

Does anybody else see a way around Steelface listening to radio calls over Sam’s wrist radio? I do. Don’t most police vehicles come equipped with video display terminals, at least marked ones? Couldn’t Liz, and, Lee, or, whoever is leading a raid, arrange to send messages to the VDT’s?

Ah. He did figure it out. I feel better.

Hindsight….simple explanation?

Now they can use the wrist radio to catch Steelface, whether to track it, if that part isn’t glitching, or to put out some false information that he will act on in such a way that will reveal his activities and lead him into a trap.

Why not try using codes until the radio can be found? “Chief, if we keep losing equipment, like Sam, hours could seem like days.” “I read you, Tracy, go on…”

1-DT – REACHING FOR HIS PISTOL: HEY! WHO’S THERE? HANDS UP! SAM: DON’T SHOOT! I GIVE UP!

2-SAM: Oh, go ahead and shoot! I deserve it. I’m such an idiot!

DT: I wasn’t talking to you, Sam. I was just making sure no one was around to claim that cup of coffee…

3-DT: And stop worrying about that Wrist Radio. And that Squad Car. And the shotgun, ammo and riot gear in the trunk. Oh, and the DNA and other evidence you had on that suspected serial killer. Uhhh, can you at least remember the suspects name? Address? Job? SAM: Nope.

DT: No problem. The public is well aware that he’s out there. They can take a little responsibility for themselves until he slips up during a future torture, slaughter.

SAM: Thanks, Dick. I feel better.

MOVIE QUOTE—

“The judge had married for money.No one has figured out yet what his wife married for”

Title Card—Stan&Ollie’s DO DETECTIVES THINK?—1927

Funny!

Tracy’s expression in Panel 2—-“Don’t say anything….don’t say anything….”

And I wouldn’t drink “villain coffee” on a bet.If crime pays,why are the bad guys working out of dumps like this?

TRACY: "Besides, this is the fifteenth you’ve lost this month We’ll be taking an additional $15,000 out of your paycheck,:

STEALIN’ SAM: “It’s okay, Tracy. I have…err…another side income. Uh, you mind if we stop off at Evidence first?”

SAM! FOR SHAME!!!

‘Glitch’? OH! He had the silly thing turned to the 3 STOOGES NETWORK, and their 24-hour looped ‘woowoowoo’ celebration of Curly.

Tracy sentences a devastated Sam to drinking the dreaded squad room coffee for the next six months.

Time to upgrade ye olde wrist radio!

firestrike1how about some birth stats on ‘Liv’?… I’m sure we’d all be interested in the details…

Gladly.

Olivia was born yesterday, 10:00pm est, 34 weeks old, 4lbs 7oz.She will be in the hospital for a couple of weeks as a precaution although all is fine thus far.

She is a real miracle baby. At 21 weeks after her mom’s cervix tore, the regular doctor said there was nothing they could do, go home and just wait for the baby to come out and die.

Not willing to accept this a desperate search was done to find a solution. A recommendation from several doctors led to a connection with a surgeon who was willing to try a procedure to close her cervix that came with no guarantees. All we asked for was to give her a chance to live.

13 weeks later we have our healthy baby girl!

My only disappointment is that I couldn’t convince them to name her Lizz! LOL!

Thanks to everyone for your prayers, thoughts and encouragement.

Toby Townley still married to Pat Patton,although you’d never know it(Haven’t bene seen since Rikki Mortis tried to kill Pat).

No mention of the 1940 baby she had with first husband Kress Kroywen;who had his own story.

Why is Tracy drawing his gun? Planning on shooting the coffee maker? Maybe it’s Brewface in disguise!

Looks to me as though Mike is having a little subtle fun in panel 1 with the Commentator Cohort who say “they’re always drinking coffee”!

And then he goes on to give us a Better Late than Never explanation from Sam of what happened with his glitchy wrist radio (what’s with these repeated wrist-device failures from the geniuses at Smith Industries? Diet by rights should have a lot to answer for, though he will probably skate as usual). And Tracy (panel 3) shrugs it all off and looks forward rather than backward (which is as he should).

Nice cop-partner interactions today, with some show of emotion from more often subdued Sam….

It took Sam this long to figure out what was going on? Perhaps he needs to change his name to Sam Clouseau for this piece of dumb.