Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for August 20, 2023

Revealing no fright, Madesen takes flight. Tracy in pursuit

Anders spilled all. Hastened this fall. No longer in cahoots.

Bullets fly by, as Tracy can’t die. He’s made of sterner stuff

Fire engine has speed. Madsen has need to elude or to play rough.

Bound to be found. Soon has higher ground. Leech takes deadly aim

“Give up!” Tracy calls. Has seen deadly falls. All part of the game.

Ammo all out. Thus with a shout, Leech plummets to the ground

Tracy said, “Slow.” What do you know. Madsen makes not a sound.

Good morning™, everyone!

No, no, no! He said, “slowly,” nice pile of concrete blocks and jagged wood beside Tracy, by the way.

So, once again, Tracy ought to be dead.

After Ahh, the next words from of Madsen’s mouth " look out below" and “good-bye cruel world”.

“Slowly” = 32 feet per second per second? Well, on some planets I suppose that is in fact pretty slow.

I mean, I thought he got hit by that truck a few days ago, so he got a brief reprieve….

Hello, fellow Splinter Dodgers!

The firetruck may have missed him but I fear the results of the fall won’t. Talk about a stake through the heart, if he has one, that is. I almost feel sorry for the old spikehead… but only almost. After he tried to kill Anders, all my sympathy went to him. Madboy should have counted his bullets better.

and don’t burn crosses…

Ooooo …. Punji sticks!

In honor of the Mortal Kombat video game reboot….. We get a classic finisher.

Good morning™, wishes DO come true ! :-D

I wanted to see a frightened, falling face first Madcaps and here it is. :-)  And No I did not have anything to do with writing this travesty of a tale.

WOW! (⁠☉⁠｡⁠☉⁠)⁠!

It’s the landing that’s going to hurt….

I don’t think he is following instructions.

Shane and Shelley are in good form today. :-)

We are seeing Madsen’s downfall today!

The last panel is pretty graphic!

Top marks to Shelley for her " terrific " images today : )

Madsen still goes “ker-splat”…

I agree that the artwork is great !

Crimerstarters notebook: After emptying your clip, remember to reload.

Eh, it would have just hit his hat, anyway.

Wilhelm Scream

The building was abandoned and condemned for a reason and our would be assassin is about have the point(s) made to him.

Madsen isn’t coming slowly, and Tracy’s prediction of a death trap is probably about to happen.

“I said SLOW! Get back up there and do it again!”

Is it just me, or does Tracy get saved on a semi-regular basis by malfunctioning equipment?

Hopefully this it it for Madsen, he got old quick.

The real question is whether or not the story will continue with Tracy confronting Sprocket, or was she just a cheap way to fill time and space. If she’s allowed to just slither away then just about the last bit of respect I have for the strip will vanish like a Firestrike in the wind!

Surprised the final panel didn’t get editorial instruction. As there are likely younger readers, I’d have voided that. Then again, in gaming, I was usually the one issuing general are requests that offending players watch their language, due to that concern.

Where’s a passing girder when you need one……

To quote the late, great Robin Williams as Batty from Ferngully: “Oh, this is gonna hurt…!”

Excellent .

Only bad guys run out of ammo.

Falling from a high height onto some conveniently placed steel rods and broken timbers, all pointed up? Eh, I’m sure he’ll be fine. Just a flesh wound.

1. If the gun were empty, the slide would be locked back.2. How is this little surprise attack taking place after we saw them have a conversation yesterday?3. He should have listened to Tracy, and not come down so fast!

Fitting fate for this guy here!

cue the dark ambient music with discordant overtones which, although broadly tonal, is inflected with chromatic and polytonal passages representing the archetypal example of a florid, melodramatic style without being interpreted as an overly heavy-handed metaphor within the context of the thematic material

So, sometimes, Tracy is just lucky???

Add “impaled by punji sticks” to the list of gruesome Dick Tracy deaths.

1-DT: ♪♪♫ THIS PLACE IS A DEATH TRAP – A SUICIDE RAP! WE GOTTA GET OUT WHILE WE’RE YOUNG, TRAMPS LIKE US… ♪♪♫

2-MADSEN: I HATE SPRINGSTEEN! TAKE THIS…

3- …ooopsie.

4-DT: HA! I read your rap sheet and KNEW you hated Springsteen! So take this, punk…

♪♪♫ BORN IN THE USA. I’M A LONG GONE DADDY IN THE… ♪♪♫

5-MADSEN: YOU FIEND! IT’S EVEN OFF KEY! AIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEE!

6- DT: Heh heh. Who needs bullets. Know your opponent I always say!

Wile “Leech” Coyote.

Aieee !!

uhoh, now Mads Maddy will truly be sporting a spike…

or should I say… spikes…

YIKES!

Great artwork!

This does not bode well for Madsen as a continuing character.

Madsen pays for his crimes in the most cruel way possible….watching his impending doom approach and screaming in terror as he knows there’s no way to cheat the hangman as he takes a final death dive to a well deserved fate.

Gee whiz. Looks like Madsen is gonna go SPLAT after all.

looks like a typical ending for a Dick Tracy criminal.

Dang… another plot device that diverges from reality. That semi-automatic handgun would have locked in the open position after its last round was expended.

Ah, some of the old ultra-violence. Alex and his Droogs approve.

Ooooo! Ghoulishly Gouldian.

Dead fall.

As Bruce Campbell put it oh so well in Army Of Darkness….OHHH, THAT’S GONNA LEAVE A MARK!and then some!

Looks like a banana split the hard way !

Today’s strip is entertaining, in a nourish sort of way the strip used to be known for. But it beggars logic on 2 counts. 1 Why would Madsen run into a building where he could be trapped, instead of sticking to the open streets & alleyways? 2. Why would Tracy race into a building after a gunman without waiting for back-up?

OT: Ugh. Second day in a row for 108 degrees. Have the a/c on and a fan blowing on us. After 60, your resistance to heat drops markedly.

An ending worthy of Locher!

As Fate would have it!

Madsen has the drop on Tracy (1st panel of the 2nd row). But, wait! His ammo has, fortuitously, all been expended (and evidently he isn’t carrying any spare magazines)! &#$!

Tracy hears the click of the empty gun and Madsen’s profane exclamation. He warns Madsen to come down slowly. Madsen, in an ironic twist of fate, does not comply, but rather collapses a weakened section of flooring and plunges down fast (last panel) to a fate we won’t be allowed to see for ourselves, impaled on upright shafts of wooden debris, almost like punji stakes from the Viet Nam War Era.

Karma is not a beach….

My prediction a week ago turns out wrong. Madsen doesn’t eat an axe, but days later eats unfortunately placed debris that is spiky pointing up. This week’s interlude of Madsen lost, trying to escape the fire, then escape the police has given a lot of time for Audie, Sabrina and Susan to slip away. To be seen what the police say while cleaning up the crime/fire scene. (I wonder how cut up Susan’s bare feet will be after this, and what she tells Austin.)

This is what happens when people get careless. Madsen could actually get hurt.