Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for September 28, 2023

Tracy: “ZZZZZZZ.”

Good morning™, everyone!

Manutius got his name scrambled again!

Medieval manuscripts. It was all leading to that up till now.

how appropriate… I’m getting ready to head off to sleep soon and reading today’s installment will help me pass out that much faster…

“Not yet processed” sounds like one of those administrative oversights.

Good morning™, (way) too late manuscript processors !

Considering the material of topic, Mantootius may have been put down with a ferociously wielded mace ?   That being the case we will never see his remains. :-(

Hmmm…..first a diary then Medieval manuscripts…..interesting.

“Errr…” Why does he keep saying “Errr”? And why can’t Tracy get the dead fish dead victim’s name right? Mantuis? Who dat?!

Do you know the name of the author of the medieval manuscripts?”“Somebody named Monty Python.”

This story is already so convoluted that even the letter cant keep things straight

Hey, I’ve heard the British Museum has unopened crates of stuff from the 19th century that English looters… er, explorers… pilfered from all over the world and sent home to gather dust.

A Copy of Aristotle’s book on comedy?

Oh this is getting interesting!

Someone killed him for a valuable ancient Medieval manuscript?!

“Evil manuscripts? And you rate them low, mid- and high?”

Manuscripts. Medieval manuscripts.

And yet, despite that possibly pivotal revelation, I am neither shaken nor stirred….

“…paperbacks from the 50’s and 60’s.”

It’s an interesting premise of a Medieval manuscript being a base for the motive of the murders. Medieval literature is mostly of Medieval Occult whose umbrella covers mythicism, magic and fantasy, most notably King Arthur and the Codex Gigas – where we get the modern definitions of evil and the devil and whom the author is speculated to have suffered from Schizophrenia.

A possible motive could the killer found out about an artefact of significance from Manutius. But also I think it’s more likely a greedy treasure hunt

Why is everyone calling each other “sir?” Isn’t that sort of “eccentric.” Perhaps the murderer was the Polite Fairy who sprinkled polite dust over everyone. By the way, what happened to Sam?

Medieval manuscripts?! What if it’s a map to the Oak Island money pit!

Somebody got medieval on Manutius?

Got this link on my email this morning. Apparently Mad Cave Studios is teaming up with the Tribune Content Agency on a new Dick Tracy comic. I haven’t read the article yet but I wanted to share with my fellow Armchair Detectives…

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rdptek1950

See September 17 script, last panel. Looks like reflection of Mr. Specs eye glasses in Wilhelmina’s eyes. clue??

As usual , Shelley Pleger is carrying the feeble story on the back of her stellar artwork .

MOVIE QUOTE—

“If I ever wanted someone to live to a ripe old age, I’d hire you to bump them off!”

Waren Hymer to Eddie cantor—KID MILLIONS—1934

Dr. Mantis, Dr. Munsters, Dr. Minces, Dr. Minestrone, Dr. Musty, Dr. Mootinus, Dr. Millionus, Dr. Mistress, Dr. Milhouse, Dr. Mountainous, Dr. Madmanus, Dr. Marfan, Dr. Minuteman, Dr. Marcus, Dr. Munch, Dr…

Liked Panel 3—-for once the Prof doesn’t look like a clown.

I’d never steal a Medieval Manuscript—-darn things crumble in your hands and tough finding a “fence” who’d even know what the darned things were.

Hmmm, this story is OK so far…..I guess.

The story hasn’t run off the rails yet. Mind you, it’s probably hard to run of the rails when you’re going about 1 mph.

Now if he was praying Mantuis then you is knows who is kill him.

I’ve never understood “fences” in the strip and in real life.

You give 25 to 50 percent of your work to a guy who just sits on his rear end and takes none of the risks.

And you’re also telling a complete stranger that you pulled the job.Non compis mentis

What he was working on 11 months ago when they last saw him?

He had just gotten to the pages labelled “Forbidden Incantations.”

Sweaty Shorty, a.k.a. the Director of the Pfister Institute, is understandably nervous being interrogated by Tracy, particularly as being an introverted academic faced with the grim fact of a murder in his institute of a colleague, albeit an eccentric one, Aldus Manutius {and will someone please get Tracy clued in on the correct spelling [panel 1, he botches it again] of the victim’s name?). And at last we begin to get a glimmer of the significance ot the canting names related to early printed books: Manutius was working to compile a catalogue for a collection of medieval manuscripts that had been donated to the institute “some years ago” and neglected until he got on the job.

The killer of Caxton and Manutius is evidently someone with an interest in early printed books, probably rare incunabula, and manuscripts as well. This double-killer (perhaps on the way to becoming a serial killer) has to be a rather knowledgeable person, perhaps even a member of the institute.

Love the inexorable, slowly growing, trail of evidence and leads. This is a pleasing procedural….

1-PERFESSOR MOLDY: HEY! YOU FORGOT THE BODY! DT: They’re just now going in to pick it up, SIR!

2-PERFESSOR MOLDY: Ahh, yes. I knew that. cough

3-DT: Wait! You didn’t know that and now you’re embarrassed. I can read people like a book. PERFESSOR MOLDY: Oh yeah? What’s the last book you read, Mr Smarty? DT: Ummm… Archie