Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for December 23, 2023

She should have had a will to create a foundation or something. Ah well.

Good morning™, everyone!

Well, I suppose that a lot more people will be able to enjoy some the books when they are sold off piece by piece.

They switched sides. Shelley can’t be bothered keeping track of things.

it seemed like a postscript yesterday and STILL the spectre of XL lingers…

like a bad disease or a pandemic…

Good morning™, massive “monumental” endings !

I never saw taffy stretch this far. Dick’s not going to let the new entry to the wall of hats out of his sight. The top part of the hat may be in a pocket, can’t wait to see it take its rightful place among the other ‘close calls’. Will the mansion show up at a police auction ?  I had two bikes that Dad got from the Buffalo PD auction. I was about ten or 11 for the second one and was there with him. I believe we got it for 10 bucks or close to it.

Real tragedy is completely forgetting poor helpful book binding guy who got killed only because he try to help your investigation. And you not even investigate the incident and not even remembers poor man. It is indeed a crime to be poor in a world of elite clowns.

True fact: Christopher Columbus’ (illegitimate) son accumulated one of the great book collections of the Renaissance era! Only about a quarter or so of his books have survived, but they recently found a contemporary catalogue listing all of them…

Yeah, Tracy! What were you thinking? If you’d left Libris, alone, you’d still have “visiting rights” to this “magnificent collection.” What a ma-roon.

I think this case should have been solved with a guest appearance by Barnaby Jones starring Buddy Ebsen with Lee Meriweather !!!

I was just watching Cozi TV !

My aunt and uncle decided to recycle their World Book Encyclopedias instead of giving them away.

This was a good tale overall….

Uh, wait… You did a research of her family tree before getting an arrest warrant? Is that like looking up her grandfather and Caxton’s grandfather had been partners? (I.e. totally irrelevant to the crime.)

Why in the heck would the police check to see if she had an estranged brother living on the streets in San Francisco, or not? Why do you expect Owen to know any distant relatives simply because he went to school with her 30 years ago?

Distant relatives will be coming out of the hills for a pile like that.

Not that distant relatives, or even a hippie brother matter. What does the will say? That certainly hasn’t been opened and read yet. It will mention the heir of her choice – possibly her pet poodle Hamlet. Or she could endow some non-profit literary institute to keep the collection together (minus the stolen volumes, which somehow must be identified and returned to their proper owners).

Tracy’s ESP is kicking once again. He knows there are no close relatives and what an unread will says. Apparently his ESP doesn’t extend to distant kin.

Finally…..put an end to this just before Christmas. How about a Flattop flashback, or Mumbles, and where is Moon Maid these days? We still have the Space Coupe out there.So many directions to take.

Good LORD just take this aimlessly meandering collection of septic dwelling (so called) literature out back behind the woodshed already…this convoluted abomination has dragged on for MONTHS (with the first several weeks being as incoherent and aimless as a Joe Biden speech) and the make believe “wrap up” looks like it may take just as long, its “stories” like this that make me envy the blind and the illiterate

“The real tragedy is that this book collection will be split up…oh, and also the murdered people.”

This is the arc that never ends.

Yes, it goes on and on, my friends.

I started reading it not knowing what it was,

Now I’ll be reading it forever just because…

(repeat indefinitely)_

—paraphrased from Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop

“Even the porn? I got dibs!”

This arc ends on Xmas with the collection gifted to……Owen.

They’re assuming she had no will.

Did we ever get a motive? I always thought the books she was stealing were ones that had once been part of the library (from her ‘death to thieves’ pose with the letter opener).

About to head over the river and through the woods for Christmas. Everybody have a great & safe holiday, and see ya next week!

“Yeseree, that pending INSURANCE fire’ll really be something! Bring marshmallows.”

SHIRLEY THIS IS THE END!!!

1-DT: Ya know, Owen – I gotta library at home too. This one is much bigger but maybe too big. I never did notice a terlit.

2-OWEN: sigh You can trust me to look the other way if you want to take her HARDY BOYS collection, Tracy. Maybe you could pick up some sleuthing tips.

DT: HA! Don’t be silly. I’d be FBI if I was smart enough to follow those complicated mysteries, Owen!

A tragedy that TENS of rare book collectors will care abut.

Books should be free!

A true tragic story!

Nobody’s holding a gun to your head, Crybaby. Let’s see you do better. Sheesh.

Now I’m really sad. Let’s hope that some institution can take care of that magnificent library.

Dispersal of the Libris Collection would be a tragedy piled upon the tragic slayings she committed. Perhaps some philanthropic foundation or some Tracyville cultural institution can come up with the resources to keep this invaluable collection intact!

Great art in Panel 2.YOU try drawing that background without a jeweler’s eyepiece!!

Dibs on first edition of THE HOUSE WITHOUT A KEY