Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for October 06, 2023

“X. Libris?” Uh oh! Could that be our first real suspect?

Guess they studied to be an optometrist!

X. Libris… of course…

There’s more action watching Gweedo’s goats sleep then in this story!

There’s more action watching Firestrike’s Viagra IV drip then in this story!

There’s more action waiting for Neil to express displeasure over the strip than in this story.

Why does it feel like they’re trying to channel Harry Potter?

Good morning™, all!

Xaviera signed in around the time that the victim signed in and also did not sign out. I do think she’s a suspect.

Choate is formally called “Choate Rosemary Hall”, a private boarding school founded in 1890 in Wallingford, Connecticut. John F. Kennedy (and his older brother, too) went there for high school. The book he is pulling out is obviously their yearbook, but they are known for many publications.

For what it’s worth, the quotation beside Xaviera’s picture is from Cyrano de Bergerac, Act I, scene 4. Cyrano is fencing:

[– Tac ! je pare la pointe dont]

Vous espériez me faire don, —

J’ouvre la ligne, – je la bouche…

Tiens bien ta broche, Laridon !

À la fin de l’envoi, je touche.

Here is an 1898 English version:

[Tac! I parry the point of your steel;]

—The point you hoped to make me feel;

I open the line, now clutch

Your spit, Sir Scullion—slow your zeal!

At the envoi’s end, I touch.

“And she’s available for live readings. Book her, Danno.”

Thanks to Neil’s research, we know that Ms. Libris seems to have a thing for sharp pointed weapons, so she could well be the killer … hard to believe, though, if she did go to the institute to kill Manutius she’d sign her real name in the register. Guess we’ll see…

Hey Gweedo, there are two “artists” named Matthew Hansel.

The Marty & Spud Matthew (Matt) Hansel and the other artist is Matthew P. Hansel.

It’s not until you find or see a profile pic of them both to know that they’re not the same person.

Good morning™, lady meatevilists !

She’s a real cutie. ;-)  I wonder who she’ll refer the gumshoes to ?

Which actress is she modelled after? I see a slight resemblance to Julia Roberts

Choate School is a wealthy private school with an excellent hockey team that we at Canterbury competed against. But St George’s School looks like Hogwarts .

Xaviera Libris. The Happy Bookef?

Just in case the very famous off-the-cuff duel poetry goes over some heads here, from Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac, Act 1, Scene 4:Vous espériez me faire don, —J’ouvre la ligne, – je la bouche…Tiens bien ta broche, Laridon !À la fin de l’envoi, je touche.

In the first panel he resembles Tom Bosley, the guy from Happy Days!

This would probably be a lot more interesting if it was Xaviera Hollander.

Now we have our first suspect, Xaviera.

I’ve seen merry go rounds that spin fewer circles than this story….

Hey Look! I think we finally have seen the killer. Add 40 year to her looks, I doubt she’s as stunning now!

I get it, “Ex Libris” ha ha ha ha. It’s funnier than Six Chix.

Well… It hasn’t been proven yet, but I thought a recommendation by Desmond would point at the killer. Assuming for a second that she is our villain, isn’t it (yet another) amazing coincidence that Desmond attended the same private school, same class, in Connecticut, 35+ years earlier, and has kept track of what she has been doing in the 35+ years?

(Actually, if she’s a great medievalist the school newsletter/magazine – sent out to all alumni to encourage financial giving – would have updated publications by former students)

Oh dear.

Xaviera Book. There WAS a book named “Xaviera,” but it was about a hooker.

Brainy chicks – who needs ‘em ?

‘85? They had to introduce a year? (It was a good enough year.) Tracy has always (in my mind at least) been an interesting blend of anachronisms and this spoils it just a little. This gives me an age in the story and I’m both older and younger than Tracy.

There is some server error at GoComics currently affecting my link. I can read the original posts, but when I try to see the Replies, I am sent to the Find Comics A-Z page. Is this happening to anyone else? If so, have you found a way around it?

MOVIE QUOTE

“He came home drunk six times this month!”

“SEVEN times!”

“Six. One was his birthday,that doesn’t count”

Ranchhands discuss John Wayne—-McLINTOCK—1963

That loOKS LIKE AN EVIL smile to me.Get the handcufffs ready.

We were both inchoate at the time.

1-NORMAN DESMOND: Remember that book Lee saw was missing from Manatauk’s bookshelf. I took it. Here it is…

2-…It’s an ultra-rare Choate ’85 Yearbook. Me and Manatauk are in it as is…

3-…*_Xaviera Hollander, the infamous writer of The Happy Hooker.* Her last name was Labia then but she changed it because it was too “on the nose”. Anyway, her presence in this yearbook brings back a lot of fond memories so I took it. SAM: Why’d you kill Manatauk? NORMAN: Huh? Come again?

DT: THAT’S WHAT THE HAPPY HOOKER SAID! ALL: HA HA HA!

Does anyone else imagine Desmond getting big laughs at Choate back in the day by grabbing his crotch and yelling CHOATE ON THIS, BABY!

I like her already! She seems very smart.

so she is X Libris?

Three day Holiday—will return on Tuesday the 10th.And Monday,besides being Columbus Day,is National Cheese Day.

Notify Mousey—1949—she’s still with us

Hopefully, Xaviera can provide some useful information. Or Tracy and Sam are going to look like they are being passed around like a bag of potato chips.

Desmond and Libris are both Choate ’85? East Coast Elite, it would seem. And if cast in real time, both would be in the neighborhood of 56 years old (plus or minus, depending on individual circumstances).

Xaviera is a medievalist, interested (at least when she was young) in Edmund Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac (swordsman, poet, with big nose). She checked into (but not out of) the Pfister Institute Library around the time Manutius did. Did her youthful fascination with the French swordsman carry over into an adult obsession with bladed weapons? Might she covet either or both manuscripts in question, a late 13th c. Book of Hours and a more mysterious 11th c. Aristotle?

She is our best (only?) suspect…so far.

Just for fun, an excerpt from Jose Ferrer’s great performance as Cyrano: https://tinyurl.Com/2c8uy4xv