Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for December 17, 2023

Gravity her destiny. Libris takes a fall

Plunges from the staircase. Hard header. That is all.

Turn the page and close the book on her deadly obsession

Always one more manuscript to take into possession.

Greedy for another tome, a folio or script

With an épée in her hand, she was so well equipped

To end a life with single thrust, piercing beating heart

End came fast. One cannot last, quickly to depart.

Shutter now the library. Extinguish soft lamp light

Look to see Libris no more. Her heart was black as night.

and finally, that’s the end of THAT…

Yeeesssss!! The long, endless, predictable journey is over!! Yabba Dabba Doo!!!

Eric, I won’t bother you anymore. I’m sure you did your best. It is what it is. There’s only one question I need you to answer. December 1st, 3rd panel,,why did Libris clinch her napkin??

Good morning™, all!

It was a pretty spectacular fall, arms and legs akimbo*. The fall is completed with a quotation from a Latin grammarian. Maybe the whole story has been too cerebral for the Dick Tracy crowd.

Good morning™, sloppy endings !

Would it gross readers out to get the graphic “Thud” ?  Gotta hand it to Shell. Madsen and now X-Libris are so beautifully and realistically depicted when falling.

Greetings fellow Freefallers!

I gotta admit, I didn’t think Lady L. would go down this quickly or easily. I knew she’d put up a fight but I thought it would last a bit longer. She won’t be walking away from this. I like the art and dark coloring today and how fitting it is considering Lady L’s ending. Wendy can sleep soundly once again.

And that’s the last chapter for Libris.

Reckon she did land on that desk….tough desk that had to be some impact.

Guess we can “close the book” on Xaviera Libris…..

Ohhhhh …. Not the glasses!!

Today, the SBD method works fittingly well.

A rushed climax after a long, drawn-out story that never quite fulfilled its potential, but was entertaining in spots. What will we get next? Another guest writer? Mike’s return? A Minute Mystery reprint? The strip seems to be at a crossroads.

two for your musical interlude and entertainment in keeping with XL’s deep dive…

https://www.youtube.Com/watch?v=1lWJXDG2i0A

https://www.youtube.Com/watch?v=lcbJwiYARdY

Oh no pal. It ain’t over until you gives a meaningful motive. What was it that led this kook to does something as terrible as murder? For them medieval manuscripts MacGuffins was was worth lotsa money? Just because she gone insane? What on earth was they even in first place and why on earth she need it badly? Who were her loyal accomplices and why they help her? What did they get outta it? Money? And why on earth there was no attempt to investigate anything about poor book binding guy’s murder? Why killer even kill him in first place? How on earth she is knews delivery guy coming at what time? Where and how was she waiting in hiding? How she kill Manutis and manage to wipe bloodstains clean and hides his body inside his office and nobody even smell rotting corpse? And this list will goes on and on… Anyways what was motive? Lemme see if explanation on motive and all will follows. If not then me will unfollows. No use wasting time with terrible tales.

Moral of the story: High heeled shoes can be murderous killers.

It was the shoes that did her in! And this is an example for no running in the library at my school !!!

She had to surrender, turn herself in to the police, but she had to try the difficult retreat, even if everything was useless, well, at least the supreme judge can take her case and decide the punishment she deserves!

She took the plunge. The deceased was a person of mystery. Never got to know her family background. Was she raised in an orphan home?

I got to hand it to the guest writer…he sure played his cards close to the vest. Wendy Winchel, in an indirect way, has gotten her revenge.

Hope more will be learned about the late Ms. Libris when the authorities are going through her estate.

And now the end to this totally uninteresting story will be a Christmas present for us all.

Quite a swan dive she took there , wasn’t it?!

The rendition of this strip was stunning and the coloring set the mood for the dark ending of Ms. Libris!

And that kids, is why there is no fencing allowed in the library.

Lame ending for this character, dying like a Disney villain (i.e., to gravity.)

“How the mighty, have fallen” Obsessions can lead to no good. No matter what, material possessions have no meaning, in the gift of life. Memories, and how you help your fellow being is all that matters.

Quite an interesting story. The art was always excellent, and Eric and Shelly both epitomized what I wrote above.

Physics questions… If you get your shoe caught in the bottom of a wrought iron rail/step would that really send you over the top of the railing? Aren’t railings designed to be high enough to stop such accidents? If you drop a long object with a long end & a heavy end – say, for example, a sword – will it descend with the light end down? (Actually, if I remember my Galileo correctly, it shouldn’t matter – keeping in mind he didn’t have instruments accurate enough to measure things like wind resistance on the objects – and it should fall maintaining pretty much the same orientation to the earth as the orientation with which it began. At least to me the orientation of the sword vis-à-vis the ground appears to change with the point falling faster.)

“Maybe the whole story has been too cerebral for the Dick Tracy crowd”

Nice condescending comment Neil, I’d come back with a witty reply, but I’m busy being spoon fed my strained peas.

Possibly the most obnoxious, degrading, belittling comment I’ve ever seen.

And for the record, this story was far from “cerebral”… unless “cerebral” is an euphemism for MIND NUMBINGLY BORING AND NEVERENDING DRIVEL"

I thought the whole story was very well developed and I liked the cerebral part… the names of well-known Renaissance printers … most of the story took place in libraries, but the modern police tech was good too … very well drawn as usual. OK, the fall at the end is like the endings of many 1940s flicks, but, I can live with that. A gooder!

Oh I forgot to mention the Latin thought at the end. Very high-toned.

Those who can, do.

Those who can’t, criticize.

Selah.

The most beautiful images by Shelley today . Very special , top marks : )

Terrific art. Very cinematographic.

This is makes me sad, since Xaviera Libris was my fantasy woman.

I’ll be in the throne room if anybody needs me .

Hopefully, there will be a background recap to explain why Libris did what she did regarding manuscripts and why she was willing to kill Mrs. Caxton, the bookbinding employee ( and have the book bindery owner on her “payroll”… Also, what did she say to Webdy Welchel ? We may never know…

Reminded me of the 40s Dick Tracy film (Dick Tracy vs. Cueball) where the murderer running from Tracy gets his shoe caught in a train track and gets mowed down by a speeding locomotive. Sic Transit Gloria Calceus!

welp, I’m sure she’s dead now… :{

As we reach the end of this story – and I’ll be surprised if there aren’t at least a few more pages tying up loose ends, though maybe not all of them – I would ask those who have been criticizing the pacing and storytelling to point to a story in these archives that epitomizes what they think Dick Tracy should be.

In the meantime, the citizens of Tracyville, and collectors of rare volume everywhere, can rest a little easier knowing that one villain has gotten what was coming to her.

Lousy form and she completely botched the landing, I give it a 2.2. And that’s being generous.

She’ll be fine. Tis but a scratch.

As I will be out of town during this coming week, when the story wraps up, I did want to take this opportunity to thank “Team Tracy” for giving me the opportunity to contribute to the strip. Dick Tracy was one of the first comic strips I remember reading, way back when my family took in The Hartford Courant, and it’s a strip for which I have a soft spot. The more so, since I own copies of most of “The Complete Dick Tracy” volumes, and it amazes me how Gould was able to produce so many great stories over more than 40 years. Being allowed to create a Tracy villain was a wonderful experience. In particular, I would like to thank both Shelley Pleger and Shane Fisher for their work on “The Library Reveal,” “The Workman’s Fate,” and today’s “Libris’ Fate,” to make them pop. I know now, more than ever, the hard work that goes into producing a daily comic strip, and my respect for Mike Curtis, Shelley Pleger, and Shane Fisher has certainly increased. Thanks to all of them.

There was no escape, because they had all the exits blocked, yet they all appeared before she hit the ground.

Sensible heels would have saved more than just her ankles… just sayin.

A few side notes: (1) the “omniscient narrator” bit here was brought to my mind by the ending of Whip Chute in 1939 — a Gould sequence well worth re-reading; (2) the napkin-clutching was to show the “walls closing in” mentality Libris had at that point in the story; (3) Tracy, at the Caxton crime scene, had a hunch that something was “off,” a hunch that was proven correct when it became clear that Libris had tried (and failed) to clean up at the crime scene; (4) the missing volume on the shelf in Manutius’ office was the volume that he was working on at the time he was killed, and which was stolen by Libris — Lee spotted something was missing before the confirmation came a few strips later; (5) the Wichel sequence illustrated just how vicious and unstable Libris was — even a hardened character like Wendy could be rattled, badly, by something Libris said; (6) what, exactly, she said is left to the imagination of readers — it was enough to badly shake Wichel, though; (7) the diary was missing because Caxton had made a note of Libris coming by, and Libris had to remove that evidence in the cleanup; (8) Manutius’ fate was based on an old Anglo-Irish legend about a bride, on her wedding day, playing a game of hide-and-seek that went badly wrong (look up “Legend of Mistletoe Bough”); (9) the stolen Shakespeare manuscript (cold case involving the courier) ties in because of the “accession card,” showing that the item was stolen and in a collection, and the same type of card was used for Caxton — it also shows this sort of thing had been going on for a while.

Ahh, the welcome return of gruesome deaths.

I approve this Sunday panel for the unusual mystery story!

1-SAM: OOH! SHE’S WORKING WITHOUT A NET! DT: SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING!

2-XAVI-RHEA: CATCH ME TRACY!

3-SHATTER!

4-SPLAT! XAVI-RHEA: SIC…SEMPER…tyrannus… ugh

5-SAM: Her last words indicated that she was… an ill marine…and something about a dinosaur. What a nut!

DT: I just can’t help wondering if my warning shot that found its way into her buttocks had something to do with her fall. LIZ: Ya think? DT: I guess we’ll never know…

I wonder if boboscar will entitle this adventure as being, “Murder By The Book”…

I liked Libris and thought the story had a lot of potential. She wasn’t the usual emotional bad guy; she was a cold, emotionless killer who only came alive when showing off her library. Her books were her obsession and her motive. But it was as if the editors handcuffed the writer – no conflicts, no arguments, no violence, no threats, nothing. Instead, we got ‘Tracy narrows his eyes,’ ‘Libris holds the letter opener,’ ‘Libris whispers something to Wendy’ and ‘Libris falls to her death.’ I’ve never read such a dull crime story (there was no mystery). This made Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple seem like Dirty Harry.

Old School Dick Tracy would have had her landing on the sword held aloft by a statue, skewered. Sad.

Good story. The whole MCU was involved (we even saw Tess). Some real detective work. My only complaint is the end was too predictable. Would like to have seen a plot twist. Cheers!

Well, chalk up another one. I tagged Bun Woman as the murderer in the first panel she appeared in. I was laughed at and made fun of. Who’s laughing now? Yes, I’m a man of many, many talents.

Hmm… caught heel on stair railing and fell to her death while attempting to escape. Not exactly up to Locher standards for grisly demise (to refresh your memory… Locher’s bad guys made their exits by being dropped down an active chimney, having an airplane fall on them from the museum ceiling, and being eaten alive by rats, to name a few), but reasonably satisfying.

Colors are beautiful. So muted and dramatic shadows.

I’m kinda sad. I liked her as a vilain.

Are we in a contest with Luann and Breaking Cat News for most posts ?  LOL !

libris is off the strip, point to tracy, match.

The Latin phrase in full begins “Pro captu lectoris….” According to the capability of their reader, books (literally, small books) have their fate. Xaviera Libris’s fateful high heel also calls to mind the “for want of a nail” proverb in its many variations (see s.v. in Wikipedia).

The whole MCU Arrest Team, Tracy, Lizz, Lee, and Sam, gawk upward (first panel in row 2) at the rapid downfall of the Ice Queen like spectators at a circus aerial act working without a net. Although she does not impale herself on her sword, as many of us had more or less expected, the sword does strike and shatter the reading lamp on the ground floor reading room table, symbolically signifying the snuffed Life Light of the shattered Ice Queen.

For all practical purposes, thus ends our story, leaving many and tantalizing dangling threads; not least, questions about Xaviera’s motivations, goals, and ultimately sanity. It seems we may never fully understand what she (and the whole entangled story) was really about….

A note to Ms. PLEGER and Mr. CURTIS…I read Dick Tracy as a kid – back in the 60s (does he still have his watch radio?) – and have just recently re-discovered the strip, so I’m looking forward to the daily read.

I spent a bunch of decades in Public Safety…gotta say, i really appreciated the tributes to First Responders. Thank you for doing that!

You’re correct about the change. The etymology meant standing with your hands on hips, elbows sticking out: each arm in a kind of bow shape.

But if you are lying down (on a bed, the floor, or as here, in the air (for a very short time), having your arms and legs spread out (almost in an X shape) is now being called akimbo – so people who don’t know where the word came from (in kene bowe – in [a] keen [=sharp] bow [=bend]), are losing the original meaning. Languages change with time!

aside: notice elbow – el + bow (where el is short for elina = arm + bow = bend – hence, the bend in the arm.

and another Dick Tracy villain bites the dust

We might go back to the OODLES Story in 1955 to show how realistic Libris’ reactions were.

Thanks to blackmailing a millionairess, the big guy was able to live in insulated comfort for 19 years;taking very few risks.

When it all blew up in his face,he didn’t take it very well

“FooD!I want food!”

“Put down that axe,you’re wrecking our hideout!”