Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for December 24, 2023

Libris is dead as a doornail. Now auction her estate

No more shall she collect rare tomes. Collection became fate.

The rarities fetch a high price. All bidding it is brisk

Obsession led to bloodletting. Crime never worth the risk.

Next up on the auction block, from Eighteen Twenty-Seven

Blackwood’s with De Quincey. Opium once was his heaven

Then his hell. Did break the spell and lived to tell the tale

And write essays, some greatly praised. Here is one for sale.

On Murder as a Fine Art. Satire still can shock

Fictional. Satirical. Next on the auction block.

The essay it was well received. For Libris inspiration?

Literary criminality. The stuff of imitation.

To Libris, adieu. The MCU crew has done it once again

Brought a criminal to heel. So bloody was her sin.

Christmas day so long ago

A special star shining bright

Led a group of weary men

As they traveled through the night

To meet the one

Who came to bring

Peace and joy to all

Will you open up your heart

And heed the baby’s call

and I should have guessed… one more day of this, then the Christmas installment, THEN the new arc begins on Tuesday…

Having dealt with an estate there’s no way there’d be an auction this soon. We don’t know whether she had a will or not, but the fact that it’s being sold rather than preserved makes me doubt it. At any rate, it would likely be a least a year.

What a joy to read today

A special strip in every way

Consistency is here to stay

As Eric keeps excitement at bay.

Good morning™, all!

I think we are finally at the end of this story. If you want to look at that essay, you’ll find it here: http://www.gutenberg.Org/ebooks/10708

It’s kind of long and probably even more boring that this story has been for some of you.

$2,000!

Good morning™, auctioneers !

Scholarly types everywhere are pulling out what remains of their hair, having been pulling on it continuously since finding out they will never have opportunity to study the collection in its entirety.

I can’t see why Mike can’t wait the full year’s time, as spelled out by firetruck1, since he has no qualm about letting other story elements hang and even the intro to garage guy has his full participation a way off in the distance. So what’s wrong with story finishing-up panels coming back next year, to where an auction finally happens, when the streets living bro comes forward and puts the brakes on ?  Unless he is in some yet to be discovered document as having rights to “Libby’s” stuff an unbelievable method can be concocted for him to stop any further sales of it.

OMG, they actually are going to show the dispersal of every single item in Libris’s library.

On a brighter note, Merry Christmas Eve everyone!

So this is how the “holidays” in Tracy land will go. An auction, gee strip has come a long ways from the days when MCU would be breaking bread at Tracy’s home. The equivalent of a station break from the action. Who is getting the proceeds from this bidding process? The Pfiester Institute? Or whatever their name was.

….could be a new arc starting right here, depending upon who bids for and wins the “murder” mag….

Decades to collect and put together, and a few days and hours to dissolve. An effort should be made to keep it as a library for scholars and the public. So who gets the proceeds if all is sold and she had nobody to leave it to?

Yes, who will get the proceeds from this sale? I imagine she had a will !

Congratulations to Eric and Shelley for a job very well done. I’m most gratified that I had a role in bringing this tale to the readers. A very Merry Christmas to all, and look forward to more first class entertainment from Team Tracy in the coming New Year! :D

Sic transit gloria mundi.

Can he PLEASE take that gavel and pound rusty railroad spikes into my eyeballs

Nonsense on top of nonsense. This is so stupid it would require Lawrence’s “Essay on Idiocy, Considered as an Example of Lack of Cranial Synapses” to cover it all. Don’t have time. And GoComics doesn’t allow sufficient space.

There would have been a will. And an auction this huge would have taken months, if not years to put together. And it would have been done on-line over more months/years. Lot 211, one magazine? My doG, there’d be 876,189 lots in that library at the very least. The auction catalog would be a multi volume set the size of the entire Encyclopedia Britannica.

Perhaps, some naysayer is going to argue (and there seem to be some here who argue logic is illogical) that this strip is set twenty-five years in the future from last Sunday’s strip, and there have been 2,507 auctions of the collection, and this is simply the final one. Still ignores the facts of wills and probate. (Or wants us to believe the Tracy fairy has waved his wand and made real world law disappear into the ether.)

I love estate sales but unfortunately she will not have any TVs so I will pass .

When do they auction the extensive fencing foil collection? And Mr. Bookbinder’s tools and assets?

Even the wrap-up for this story is long and drawn out. I honestly expected a new story to begin today.

Merry Christmas to all !

not over yet

Oh well, good art practice….I guess?

since it’s Christmas eve, I just want to take a moment to step out of character, be serious and put aside the all the hilarity, frivolity, jocularity and stupidity and take time to wish all the inmates here on the COMMENTS section, the happiest and merriest of the holiday season… to all my friends and acquaintances that I have made here in the year and a half that I’ve been committed to this place, as well as to the acquaintances that are not with us today who have stepped back for one reason or another to regroup in their own ways, and to all those far and wide out there and to any and all lurkers lurking in the background and shadows… you ALL know who you are… and yes, even YOU, as well… we all know that all the joking and jibing one another is all in good, harmless fun… there has been some stimulating discussions here as to the strip itself, which we all love and return to, DESPITE the ups and downs… the art of conversation is certainly not a lost or dead art form here … this is a strip that most of us have been with so many years that it’s hard to believe and conceive that the strip will be reaching a HUNDRED years in eight short years… it’s brought together a group of people who share in common a love for something that’s been a part of our lives for almost as long as WE’VE been around… I’m glad that the most of you have welcomed me into your collective community and made me feel at home and have put up with me and my brand of insanity and lunacy… but like I said before, it’s all a character that I’m stepping away from at the moment to relay this message… thank you all from the bottom of my heart that you have accepted and tolerated me… this really IS a good place to be with good people… and finally, good wishes and a ‘thank you’ to everyone at Team Tracy… none of this would be possible without your contributions and efforts… so before this turns into an Oscar speech, which it HAS… have a happy holiday to you and yours… :)

God forbid, but are we being set up for a sequel?? The never-ending Tracy Saga where every book in the collection will have its own special crime attached.

The 1824 essay does exist. It was a satire on the English public’s morbid fascination with the gory. We’re supposed to see this as the motive for Libris?

The lady obviously didn’t recognize a joke.

Perhaps we don’t either. Hard to take this arc seriously.

Apparently, “Incunabula” refers to books printed from Gutenberg (1452) all the way up to 1500. Certainly within the 750-year timespan of Libris’ collection.

We Three Kings of orient are trying to smoke a rubber cigar . It exploded and we floated over the yonder star .

Oh wow, that whole slog was a leadup to this one? Some criminal mind knowing a vast treasure hunt is contained in Xaviera’s library

1-MASON & DIXON AUCTIONEER: HEY Y’ALL! WHO’S READY TO BID ON SOME OLD MOLDY BOOKS AND SECH ‘ROUND ‘CHERE?!?

2-CROWD: WHOOP! WHOOP!

3-AUCTIONEER: Let’s start with this fella here – Blackwood… WOMAN: OH MERCY! HE SAID BLACK WOOD!!! PASS THE SMELLING SALTS!

4-AUCTIONEER: That’s just the man’s name, madam. Now, if I may continya…

5-…WHO HAS $50 FOR THIS OLD MAGAZINE? No one? $40? $30…?

MAN: WHEN DO THE BEAR BRYANT ERA FOOTBALL PROGRAMS COME UP?!?

Anyone interested in the essay can find it at Project Gutenberg, search for Miscellaneous Essays by Thomas De Quincey.

Great tip, unless you’re me or the Dude, please don’t party and drive!

What were the bids on the “Necronomicon” and von Junzt’s “Unaussprechlechen Kulten”? :-)

Merry Christmas to all of the lovely, noble and smellfungus of the rogue gallery of DT commentors.

“Next up, this wonderful fencing épée. Once used by an Olympic team member. Recently cleaned.”

٭⊹¤.•⨳•.☆✬ Merry Christmas to all and your loved ones, including pets! ✬☆.•⨳•.¤⊹٭

A sad coda to the tragedy of Xaviera Libris, seeing the estate being auctioned off by Mason & Woods, auctioneers, lot by lot. The collection dispersed is no longer a collection, nor even the memory of a collection: just individual auction lots, sold each to the highest bidder.

Will the Libris tragedy linger on, or is this a clever transition into a new story? We shall see….

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

A Christmas Eve strip that has nothing to do with Christmas?An unwelcome departure