Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for December 15, 2023

wow, Lizz has a bizarre look to her today…

“Cinnamon Knight?! En garde, sir!”

He’s got his gun back Why doesn’t he shoot her?

Good morning™, all!

Is there really a blade-proof vest that would work for that? I guess there is. I think that Libris is kind of cornered. She obviously didn’t expect Tracy to still be living.

Oh, and everyone was right yesterday about his vest :)

Let me guess, tomorrow she’ll fall over the railing and impale herself. A fitting end to this wonderful, exciting, action filled, saga of mystery, intrigue and leg tingling adventure!

well, that’s an attempted murder charge on a police officer added to her list of murders…

she’s got nowhere to go to now…

she’ll never make it now or in prison…

this is the last we’ll be seeing of her…

Yesterday she was holding her weapon in her right hand and today she switched to her left. Is that normal? I don’t know.

Hats off to Tracy for putting on a vest…..

Libris has a surprised expression, I wonder who she is seeing!

Ken in Ohio about 2 hours ago @avenger

Your analogy with the single rose is weak. If you’re starving to death, you should give thanks and shouts of glory when someone who has the ability to provide you with an entire meal only gives you one bean?

When your boss, who is vastly under paying you gives you a penny an hour raise?

When you pay for a week at Gweedo’s Goat Farm but are given only 5 minutes?

Man, you’re very easy to please!

Good morning™, shocked futilely fleeing villains !

It has to be Lee that she sees, with Lizz and Tracy following up. Some might like to see her impaled on something but I am looking forward to her expression when the bracelets go on. It should be as good or better than her vicious grimace from yesterday.

No warning shot fired too? Even after attempted murder of cop? What is wrong with these cops? Just when you is thinks tale is no gets any more illogicaludricrously preposteridiculudicrous…

Blade-proof vest, same as a bullet-proof vest, never heard of that before!

Running around a facility after hours in heels, it’s a wonder she does not develop a case of fallen arches.

The way she swung that blade yesterday I thought she poked Tracy in the eye.

Anyway, with that vest Tracy came prepared!

I’m pretty sure X’s bun is cooked.

Is that a spiraling staircase she just ran up on? Will her motives for the murders ever be revealed other than wanting to be the first one to own rare manuscripts?

Shoot her in the a$$ !!!

“Stop! You’re under arrest, Libris”! Besides we have an orange jumpsuit awaiting you. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. It was all in her mind.

What he was actually wearing was a stab vest underneath.

https://en.wikipedia.Org/wiki/Stab_vest

Interestingly, a stab vest will not stop a bullet and vice versa in that a bullet resistant vest will not stop a knife attack.

Second panel; Libris: What? Me?

As we are doing swashbuckling tropes: Is there a chandelier whose rope she can swing from? If so she will probably be crushed under it when it crashes down.

Libris is thinking Tracy has more lives than a cat!

“Curses! Foiled again!!!”

Shucks! I was hoping someone would throw the book at her.

She didn’t drop her book bag. She intended to give it to Tracy all along. She was going to say, “Detective Tracy! Here’s evidence in this bag that will lead to the criminal! Gotta run or I’ll be late for karaoke!” but she’s a woman of few words.

Too bad he didn’t have a chainmail hat.

She should have stabbed him straight through the face.

Do it for ol’ Choate!

“BLADE PROOF VEST” huh, what WILL they think of next?

Is it just me or does lizz look like she should be terrorizing swimmers off the coast of amity island?

somehow she will be a victim of her own blade

Today Libris’ weapon looks like a regular fencing saber, and thus it’s a piece of stiff wire. (Presumably she put a real blade on it, but then it would have totally different weight and balance than a sporting weapon. She’s apparently been training for years to murder people with a sword for some reason.)

I was thinking yesterday Dick would have some type of shield on for protection ᕙ⁠(⁠ ͡⁠◉⁠ ͜⁠ ⁠ʖ⁠ ͡⁠◉⁠)⁠ᕗ

Blade…proof…vest. Would have been more acceptable if it had been bullet proof one, a natural precaution that would have sufficed. This stretches it a wee tad. Rather like the last sci-fi serial Columbia made, which boasted in the neighborhood of 100 scientific inventions in the advertising.

Back in the days when I wore concealable body armor, the armor I I wore had a trauma plate in the front pouch of the carrier. That plate came in quite handy on a couple of occasions.

so she thought she got him… got it. she may have had thee element of surprise, but the gun is still mightier then the blade. :J

Good grief .

MOVIE QUOTE

“Any wild ducks around here?”

“No,but I can get a tame one and aggravate it for you”.

Al Jolson&Allen Jenkins—THE SINGING KID—1936

We know that there are some abandoned underground tunnels in the United States that were once used for various reasons. Perhaps the Libris family built their house above one of those tunnels. X might be able to escape if she can get out of sight again.

But yes, she’ll probably be impaled by her own sword on Sunday.

There’s an old NOIR called SLEEP MY LOVE—1948 that opens with a shot of a h uge spiral staircase in a penthouse.

Right away I’m thinking—“That isn’t there just for show”.

Sure enough, at the end the villain falls 6 stories to his doom.

The spiral staircase—-I KNOW why it’s there!! And why run UP unless you t hink Tracy is so old you can tire him out?

She’s not only panicky, she can’t stand the idea that she’s being chased through her own “impregnable fortress”

@avenger.09 – What a great story teller you are……That should be the fitting end!

It was clever of Tracy to think of wearing his blade proof vest instead of the usual bullet proof one.

Oh, Plot Convenience Playhouse presents… (Crow T. Robot)

Nest Week: Thrill to the mildly scandalous antics of ‘Brief’ Hiatus, a former male underwear model out to ruthlessly ‘break up that dratted pants coverup conspiracy’ by blowing up pants-producing factories city-wide. (Bet you didn’t know the city’s nickname was The Pants Capitol of the World)

Armed with painful wedgies and aided by his sidekick, faded screen star and ‘dainties’ model Clare Bloomer, Hiatus will prove to be the most Ruthless TRACY villain yet! Take THAT Brow and pals!

What a crashing let down! It went from “How’s Tracy going to survive his stupidity?” to “Oh. For the first time in his life, he wore a vest and Libris didn’t even think to go for the throat and decided instead to make a doomed-to-fail run for it.”

Lord have mercy. I love this strip!

1-LIZ: PLUG HER TRACY! EVEN YOU CAN’T MISS THAT BODACIOUS BIG BOOTY! DT: Can’t. I promised her a 60 second head start if she didn’t stab me. 21…22…23…

2-LIZ: I didn’t promise her anything… I GOT THE CAXTON MANUSCRIPT AND I’M ABOUT TO TEAR OUT THE FIRST PAGE! XAVI-RHEA: WHAT???

DT: DAM IT LIZ! You made me lose count! Uh…1…2…3…4

There have been several recent notorious cases of cops shooting a fleeing suspect and killing him. Sometimes the suspect is armed with only a knife. And the cops are usually not convicted of a crime in doing so. Perhaps the strip is reacting to this trend and showing how it’s done properly,

“Blade-proof vest?” Kevlar wont stop a pointed weapon like that sword…

Checking out now for a weekend trip; back soon. Ta!

AFTER IT’S ALL OVER

SAM:“We’re feeling merry,today,Libris. What do you want for Christmas?”

LIBRIS: “Your Blood!”

SAM: “Sorry I asked”

Well,I shall not return to these Pages until Tuesday December 26th. Taking next week off from work to celebrate with what small family I have left.

I’ve enjoyed this storyline, and we can hopefully wish Curtis good health in 2024. Libris joins Rod&Nilon Hoz,Johnny Mintworth,Miss Egghead,and a few others in learning too late that rich crooks get caught just the same as poor crooks.Andsometimes worse than caught.

Tonsils 2 will now sing “Silent Night”.

MOVIE QUOTE—“You’re out of order,Mister Scrooge!”

Shareholder to Alastair Sim—A CHRISTMAS CAROL—1951

Too bad about the vest! A dueling scar would have made Tracy veen more manly than he is now!

In the December 13 comic, you can see that the vest comes down pretty darn low on Tracy’s chest – like a suit vest. Libris had easy access to the heart but as with the guy in the morgue, she must’ve forgotten where the heart is located and stabbed somewhere around Tracy’s liver.

Some would call that December 12 comic a Shelley Blunder. I wouldn’t. She just didn’t care anymore – and who could blame her?

If as stated she falls and is impaled, it might be the first demise like this since The Brow was impaled on a flagpole???

Admittedly I’m reading my comics Friday evening but OMG 322 comments!!! I gave up on this storyline about a week in but I must have missed a really good one.

[Xaviera} You’ll never take me alive, copper!

Or was that Edward G. Robinson, or James Cagney?

But I bet it’s The Truth of this climax.

Tracy’s “blade-proof vest” is a bit of a deus ex machina, since we’ve never heard of him having or wearing one until just now, but such do exist (see GoComicsGo! above and the “stab vest” article in Wikipedia; note that combination stab-proof and bullet-proof vests also exist) and are more or less standard police equipment. For better or for worse, Tracy will not shoot unless he feels it can’t be avoided. More likely, panicked Ice Queen will bring about her own demise….