Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for March 28, 2017

A shocking development!

I wonder if that shot will end up anywhere important.

That was too easy !

Good morning, better not be late to the party, Vista Bill, atop the Mighty Comet !

He must have been psychic!

Goodbye, Ramon! It was nice knowing you.

Well, I think that’s about the climax for Ramon. Who was the first to figure he would be hit by lightning?

I hope the Spirit is still doing well dealing with Double Am inside.

A bit unexpected and anticlimactic too. Bolt from the blue…

⌁⌁ Good morning guys! ⌁⌁

Well, seems Ramon has come to a shocking end…..

At least Ramon was partly right….it won’t be Tracy taking him in, it’ll be the meat wagon with a trip to the morgue.

Roasted and toasted!

https://s19.postimg.org/6sk8lix3n/devil-roasting-smiley-emoticon.gif

If you’re going to go, go with a flash!

Well, he got his wish.

Joe’s art has been fantastic these last few days. Look at the first panel – rain is bouncing off the railing, Ramon’s hair is slicked down. Very Eisner. Thanks, Joe.

How much time does the story have left to play out?

Was the ‘murder’ of Perenelle Flammel a ‘False Flag’ event?

And will P’Gell make an appearance in ‘Real Time,’ as opposed to in flashback?

It’s probably time to fill in the blanks and connect the dots from now on… that is, after Spirit sorts out Double Am.

Morning gents from me, Josh’s cousin. Then if they won’t take him, God will!

To quote James Bond from Goldfinger, “Shocking, Positively shocking.”

The Dick Tracy comic has a history of killing off criminals by lightning strike. The Brush was supposed killed by a combination of lightning strike and dynamite, although he seems to be alive now. Mistress of Death was killed when she became the evangelist Mistress of Faith, and lightning struck her revival tent. Were there any other lightning deaths?

He’s not wrong.

“Shocking, Isn’t It?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo19qujXbnE&t=14s (… @ 1:45)

A so called Crack of lightin’

Not shown today, but Tracy may not have been far enough away to escape the electromagnetic pulse effects of a bolt of lightning plus anything conductive on the wet balcony will also be dangerous. Certainly his hearing will be affected for a while.

I would not be out a terrace holding something metal in a thunderstorm, not wise.

Well that short circuits Ramone’s plans

I bet Ramon’s thinking his old job wasn’t so bad right about now.

Somebody get the broom and dustpan, Tracey has an arrest to make.

Was he struck by lightning…..or by Mysta?

well THAT was a lame ‘write-off’ for Ramon… not to fear tho, much like BRUSH I am sure he will be back in a few years when the new writer forgets that he was killed :)

Yesterday and today combined must be that “same bat time, same bat channel.” Of course, it’s Dick Tracy, but I don’t think I’d get away with his first name instead of “bat”!

Hey, Gweedo and Still Da Avenger – think I’ll get banned for that one?

Now that was a surpise!

We’re all getting a “charge” out of today’s strip!

I just looked it up…… 90% of people who are struck by lightning survive. So don’t write Senor Ramon off quite yet! Gould liked to kill off his vermin; Mike & Joe not so much. They re-appear.

And elsewhere in the building, somebody notes that Mr. Am’s finger seems to be smoking. “Is it?” He blows the smoke away. “As I was saying, it’s funny how Karma works, isn’t it?”

I was thinking it’s sort of ironic that Mike, who didn’t remember (or didn’t know) that Brush was killed in a lightning strike event, has Ramon hit by lightning in the same story that earlier had a reappearance of Brush.

Come on now, was this really a shocking development??? This couldn’t have been more obvious then if Mike and Joe printed a flyer stating the day and time of the lightning strike! “SAVE THE BALCONY!”

In ancient Greek plays this sort of plot resolution would be called “Deus Ex Machina”. Where the most popular god of the day, say Zeus, would intervene, via dangling in a basket lifted up over the stage by a sort of wooden crane (the “machine”) , to save the hero of the play from some horrible fate.

Thank you everyone for yesterday’s words of comfort, they are all greatly appreciated!

In frame 1, he’s holding the gun in his right hand and in frame 2 he has it in the left hand

Perhaps we’re all wrong and Ramon was zapped by Mad Mysta Mindy! She does owe Tracy and she seems to have the hots for the Spirit!LOL!!!

That will teach him not to bolt from the law.

I was somewhat expecting that lightening would strike the metal of Ramon’s gun … perhaps due to the “powers” Tracy said Am has

L

Not alive, anyway…

To paraphrase Storm in the original X-Men movie, “Do you know what happens to a gunman when he’s struck by lightning?… The same thing that happens to everything else.”

Well looks like he was right.

FANTASTIC second panel Team! Classic Tracy climax too!

Well, you know, Ramon was right. He was also fried. I don’t recall who it was here that predicted this, but Ramon’s gun does indeed seem to have served as a lightning rod. Those who live by the gun shall die by the gun, or words to that effect. With Escobar now toast, our attention tomorrow must shift back to the Spirit and big old Urk, unless we veer off into a completely different scene….

I’ve been wanting to comment that Mike is not jumping to another scene right in the middle of the action nearly as much as he used to do (for which I, for one, am grateful). This action sequence at the Siam Hotel stayed pretty much in order throughout, I think.

re: Lightning strike. It was speculated that 90% of lightning victims survive. There was also a question as to which hand Ramon was holding the gun. Assuming no change of hand, Ramon is in yet another precarious predicament: Standing on the ledge on the 28th floor, facing outward. Ramon may well survive the lightning strike, but I doubt that he is going to survive the sudden stop…

Ramon did switch gun hands, for some reason. I tried to see if he could be facing out, but no – his back is to the railing. His nose can be seen facing the wall. His body posture, arms, etc, would be very distorted if that’s supposed to be his front, facing us. I’m fairly certain he is facing the wall, which means the gun is in his left hand in panel 2.

That’s the good old ultra-violent Dick Tracy that we know and love!