Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for August 02, 2015

High up in his penthouse suite, Bigg’s singing to his roseHe’ll have his way or foes he’ll slay, ‘tis how the story goes.Delivering a Coupe, Smith claims, impossible to do“A fair exchange you shall arrange or ‘tis the death of you.Sans a Coupe I’ll be a poop. Chimera she shall payGive what I need or she shall bleed, not live another day.”Smith so sly. A twinkling eye. Knows when to bide his timeGoose chase to a warehouse may avert a violent crime.Down on the street young girls so sweet have come to see the showAm’s treasures in the gallery. Annie’s in the know.Odd surprise when Honey spies a scoundrel of bad intentionsThings soon turn from bad to worse, revelation Honey mentionsTorn pocket with “S” monogram belongs to Poppa DietTime to be crime stoppers: observe yet stay so quiet.A Tracy stops at nothing when a close friend is in dangerShe and Annie look for doors, to sleuthing they’re not strangers.Elsewhere, waiting to see Bigg: Mumbles and T-BoltShe stuffs him in the closet. What is this revolt?Mumbles had his guard down. T-Bolt a Blackheart tooJust some idle chatter. Who knew what she would do?With her slick skills at Krav Maga, she stores him with the bleachA “Clop” and “Thonk” out of the blue, now Mumbles out of reach.To drop a henchman of the boss is really not her gigMotives most mysterious mark the bodyguard of Bigg.

ANOTHER plot twist…Now, where is THIS leading? No matter what, STILL love it!

Shrunken Heads!

Whose side is T-Bolt on?

And doesn’t “T-Bolt” sound like “Tybalt?”

Good morning guys!.Nice poetry, Pequod77. All’s quiet here at Helen Bach Memorial Cemetery. A fresh start for the week ahead. Poor Mumbles.

Wow….T-Bolt has a VERY short fuse it would seem. And she seems to be the #1 person on the pecking order under Mr. Bribery…….and knows how to enforce her will.

Incidentally, Krav Maga is a legitimate fighting discipline

Happy Sunday, DT fans!What does Mumbles say to enrage T-Bolt? Need a Babel Fish!

Hmmmm…..T-Bolt is Lee Ebony undercover?

Oh, I got it! "When I was in Florida I saw the Private Eye you beat up! " implying inefficiency from Thibault, pardon, T-Bolt! No wonder she was angry!

So, I guess maybe you guys were right that the big crate contained shrunken heads. I didn’t really think it did.

@ Neil Wick, Thank you!

Odd how the shrunken head in the top panel looks like Abner Kadaver1

The theory that T-Bolt is working undercover, and the Johnny Adonis smackdown was a ruse, is gaining momentum.

Looks like T-Bolt is what is called here a DPA – deep penetration agent :) He might be working for the Feds or anyone that is against the Blackhearts

Peculiar. Is T-Bolt out of control, or with a fuse so short as to be effectively the same thing? Or, as some are suggesting, is she some kind of undercover (maybe Lee Ebony?) or double agent? Is she a threat to the girl-detectives, Annie and Honeymoon? Is she a threat to Mr. Bigg? Is she a threat to everyone not her? Is everyone else “problem people”?

Seems it was the mention of Adonis that set off T-Bolt. Hmmm.

Any idea what it would cost to put Mumbles in a space coupe toward Pluto? Any time he is in the strip I get a headache trying to decipher the hieroglyphics…

After reading feedback from others, I’m now leaning to the idea that T-Bolt is indeed Lee Ebony undercover.1) Lee is experienced working undercover stings. See the 10/20/2013 Sunday.2) It’s been quite a long time since we’ve seen Lee in the strip, well before Mr. Bigg ever showed up.3) I’m thinking the beat down of Johnny Adonis was only to help establish Lee’s cover and wasn’t nearly as severe as it first appeared. This is why Johnny was alive and well in Florida (instead of recuperating in a hospital) and why Tess and others have seemed so unconcerned about his whereabouts and his “injuries.”4) Apparently Miss Steffihawk’s hospital visit with Johnny was just a ruse to keep up appearances — in case the Blackhearts were monitoring the police?5) The reason T-Bolt/Lee beat up Mumbles and stuffed him in a closet is because he was sniffing around and getting too close to the truth.

The only thing that might discount T-Bolt being Lee Ebony in disguise is that T-Bolt seems much, much taller than Lee Ebony.

I mean, like, “Cleopatra Jones”/Tamara Dobson/Grace Jones tall.

POTENTIAL SPOILERS:

Didn’t someone say Mike said that this arc would introduce – and I quote – “An important new character moving forward” …?

Maybe T-Bolt works for this person.

[… Though to be honest, I’m leaning towards the popular “Deep Cover Agent” theory.]

I’m also thinking that T-Bolt is undercover. She had to do something about Mumbles when he revealed his knowledge about Johnny Adonis. At this point, because of his mumbling, it’s possible that his bosses don’t know what he saw. (He tried to tell them, but they couldn’t decipher what he was saying, remember?). The only other explanation for her actions this morning are that she didn’t like Mumbles getting “frisky” with her.Mr. Bigg’s big “treasure” that he was so excited about appears to be the collection of shrunken heads – but I thought the guy who did that for him was dead? The other day someone posted some strips from the original story, where he was moaning about how he lost the whole collection and that he was now all alone, with all his hench-men gone.

This is definitely an unexpected twist. Everyone’s theories on today’s events are interesting. Particularly the Lee Ebony angle. This all has to fit together somehow and this would make sense. If this is her in disguise, it’s a good one.

I do remember many years ago during the last Angeltop story when Lee yanked one of Angeltop’s huge henchmen through the hull of the ship they were all hiding on. This guy was much larger than her also.

If T-Bolt is Lee, Lee has been doing crossfit

I wonder who does Bribery’s head shrinking these days now that he no longer has Nah Tay?

PQ 77 You X-Cell…shrunken heads and diabolical plot twists and disguises…these Sunday Funnies are no laughing matter…TBC..

Like Blunebottle (nice work!), I speculated (on July 5 and 12) that T-Bolt is actually Lee Ebony working undercover. Today’s events would certainly seem to support this. It is Mumbles’ mention of seeing Adonis in Florida that sets off T-Bolt. This is further evidence that the “beating” of Adonis was staged to cement Ebony’s deep cover. She can’t have it discovered that the beat down was faked, so into the closet goes Mumbles. He has been in tighter spots than this, although that was out on open water.

Thanks to Vista Bill, cpalmeresq, Night-Gaunt49, Gweedo, Neil Wick, Willy007, Sydney Phillips, Chris Sherlock, Ray Toler and abdullahbaba999 for the kind words. Very much appreciated!

If T-Bolt is so bad, she would have surely finished off Adonis, not just beat him. Same goes for Mumbles. Something has to be up.

Chekhov’s bleach!

I [somehow ?] got the impression the collection had been confiscated.-————————————————Items that are confiscated are sold, not destroyed (except narcotics or counterfeit money, of course).Police in CT routinely have sales of confiscated cars, bicycles, office supplies, etc.

Remind me when I’m proven wrong:I think the action’s going to rely upon Mysta’s connection with Honeymoon, Lee’s unmasking, and Blaze turning on Mr. Bigg.

A blissful Sunday to everyone.-—-@William Weedman: re Mumbles lingo I get a headache too.-—-Have an abundant day my friends.

can’t understand " Mumble-ese " WTF’s he saying ?My translation is the 13th comment down from the top. I must admit that I puzzled over the content of the first frame for a long time.

My Dick Tracy fan-boy dream has come true. The Shrunken Heads of Mr Bribery indeed!

The talk about the cops selling shrunken heads is nonsense. Human body parts would either be stored as evidence or if the head could be matched with a missing person, it would be turned over to the victim’s family. It would be a moral and probably a legal outrage to sell the heads.

I certainly agree these shrunken heads are new ones.

Okey, I’m a new reader here and don’t know the full storyline, but I’m wondering it T-Bolt could be an undercover cop and the private eye she beat up was taking a fall to enhance her position and now that Mumbles has mentioned seeing him she’s afraid he’ll talk and blow her cover so she knocks him out and hides him in the coset so she can either get away, or finish her job.

In the situation of the originals, all the heads in Bribery’s case were from murder victims and they were all labeled.They would never again have seen private hands once confiscated by the authorities.All of them would have been returned to the families (or destroyed if that was the family’s’ wish).

These may or may not be the original shrunken heads of Bribery’s collection but considering Bribery was able to re-establish his criminal empire I’m sure he could find a way to get his treasured collection back from wherever it was held if it still existed. This reminds me of Flatop Jr.’s crime car that Silver was able to obtain and Sprocket re-built.

Now, this is getting really interesting. I wonder if this is headed for a quick showdown or if there are many threads to this story to go through yet? T-Bolt is getting intriguing and I think there is more to her than we realize yet. Any of the theories expressed here could be valid. Somehow I think Diet Smith is conducting a ruse and I don’t think we’ll see a Space Coupe in this story even though I would like that.

*@Kip WChekhov’s bleach!

And Chekhov’s broom, too!*Sometimes a closet is just a closet.

So, I went looking for pictures of Lee Ebony to see if I could find evidence that she resembles or doesn’t resemble T-Bolt. It’s a little inconclusive, but the interesting thing is that she’s missing! Here are all the strips she’s appeared in since the beginning of 2013:

2013.Jan 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27.Feb 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 14, 17, 23, 25.Mar -Apr 7.May -Jun -Jul -Aug -Sep -Oct 20, 21 (back from being under deep cover).Nov 23.Dec 8, 25.2014.Jan -Feb 15, 22.Mar 19, 24.Apr -May 7.Jun 8, 15.Jul 22.Aug 4, 8, 29.

In the 11 months since the end of August last year, Lee Ebony has not been seen even once. There was a 5½-month gap when she was under cover in 2013. Aside from that, she’s never been missing from the strip in the last 2½ years for more than about 7 weeks.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the first appearance of T-Bolt was in the Jan 11, 2015 strip, more than four months after Lee Ebony disappeared from the strip.

High up in his penthouse suite, Bigg’s singing to his rose

He’ll have his way or foes he’ll slay, ‘tis how the story goes.

Delivering a Coupe, Smith claims, impossible to do

“A fair exchange you shall arrange or ‘tis the death of you.

Sans a Coupe I’ll be a poop. Chimera she shall pay

Give what I need or she shall bleed, not live another day.

”Smith so sly. A twinkling eye. Knows when to bide his time

Goose chase to a warehouse may avert a violent crime.

Down on the street young girls so sweet have come to see the show

Am’s treasures in the gallery. Annie’s in the know.

Odd surprise when Honey spies a scoundrel of bad intentions

Things soon turn from bad to worse, revelation Honey mentions

Torn pocket with “S” monogram belongs to Poppa Diet

Time to be crime stoppers: observe yet stay so quiet.

A Tracy stops at nothing when a close friend is in danger

She and Annie look for doors, to sleuthing they’re not strangers.

Elsewhere, waiting to see Bigg: Mumbles and T-Bolt

She stuffs him in the closet. What is this revolt?

Mumbles had his guard down. T-Bolt a Blackheart too

Just some idle chatter. Who knew what she would do?

With her slick skills at Krav Maga, she stores him with the bleach

A “Clop” and “Thonk” out of the blue, now Mumbles out of reach.

To drop a henchman of the boss is really not her gig

Motives most mysterious mark the bodyguard of Bigg.

“What’d he say?”

Mumblespeak Translator: He said, “Enjoying the exhibit?”

“What’d he say?”

Mumblespeak Translator: He said, “Don’t you know? It’s not just a collection. It’s his trophies.”

“What’d he say?”

Mumblespeak Translator: He said, “Is that so? When I was in Florida I saw the private eye you beat up!”