Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for August 26, 2018

Good morning™, Doctors and Professors!

There’s only one now whose real name we don’t know now.

Good morning™, hot seaters !

Fake F.T., he don’ look so good !

Dr. Hall, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard and Dr. de Rita.

Moses “Moe” Howard, Larry Fine, Joe de Rita as a latter day fill in for the 3rd stooge. Now as for Dr. Hall I am at a loss. Monte Hall seems out of place in this list of names.

Another possibility is that all or most of them were in on it.

I do. I am – Flattop

Our guest artist has certainly been capturing some Gouldian images with the way he has posed Tracy and Sam. Friday he had Sam indicate something over his shoulder with his thumb, which was a very “Sam” thing, especially in the early days of Sam’s introduction to the strip. Today we have Sam’s perpetual half-grin as he calmly surveys the situation and listens to the interview, and we have Tracy with his hands in his pockets, trench coat opened and pushed back just a little as he talks to a suspect. These poses helped Gould convey his characters’ personalities, and it is very cool that Rick Burchett has paid attention to those details.

I love it when the day starts with Dick Tracy doing a shout-out to Curly Joe.

Good morning Go Comics citizens. To those who comment and those who don’t. Have a blessed day.

Night-Gaunt49 about 6 hours agoDr. Hall, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard and Dr. de Rita.

Moses “Moe” Howard, Larry Fine, Joe de Rita as a latter day fill in for the 3rd stooge. Now as for Dr. Hall I am at a loss.

I automatically thought of Huntz Hall.

Where’s the other “Dr. Howard?”

Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard!

(giggles) I couldn’t resist.

Our group cosplays villains… for duty and humanity!

Couldn’t be Charley Hall (of Laurel & Hardy fame), could it? Nah……to obscure.

I’ll be the first to admit I know nothing of the Cosplay universe.

Is it normal to have an event with just 6 people?

What exactly would they be doing, following a role playing script?

Is there an audience watching?

Mrs. Pruneface cameo in there! I’m going to go w/ DeRita as the killer. Mike loves Shakey & there may be a telling clue that said suspect is the only Professor amid a multitude of Doctors.

I love that no one has to “guess” who Chaplin is, since it has to be Charlie Chaplin :)

Am I the only one to notice Dr. Chaplin? Or is it so obvious that it’s not worth commenting?

Note that despite that the fact this is a murder investigation, Sam can’t help but be amused by all these people in costume as classic Tracy villains! Actually, Flattop and The Brow are before Sam’s time :)

Okay, maybe the picture of Mrs. Pruneface, along with the “All in Family” address of 704 Hauser, is a clue that one or more villainous “relatives” are involved, since Flattop, Pruneface and The Brow all had relatives who became villains.

I believe Flattop did it. He seemed surprised when he opened the door and saw Tracy back at the beginning of the story. He even said “Dick Tracy? What are you doing out here?” He left him dead in the study.

So, if there is a next time for the Rogues Club, they could have as a theme “Other Heroes’ Villains Who Have Met Dick Tracy”, including the Dragon Lady, Octopus, Mr. Carrion, Mr. Axel and (heh) Evil-Eye Fleagle!

Huntz Hall and Charlie Chaplin have to be correct. I’m guessing the so far unseen Staff Sgt. Gorcey dunnit

So it’s okay for the Flattop character not to answer Tracy carefully if Mabuse is not his real name? I don’t think Tracy can afford to waste time here.

We have our six rogues of the Rogues’ Gallery, starting with “Flattop” Mabuse, or whatever his real name is. Tracy is right to suspect that “Mabuse” is just as much a pseudonym as “Flattop” patently is. But it would be unlikely plotting for the first line of questioning to reveal the murderer straight-away. Maybe “Mabuse” has something else to hide rather than the murder of Eugene “Tracy” Roche….

Besides being a reference to the fictional doctor, could Mabuse also be a form of the French word for “mistaken”? As in si je ne m’abuse… (“if I am not mistaken…”)?

Over on CK today, the strip “Intelligent Life” has a nice riff on the very thing we have been discussing here – Tracy’s yellow coat being the exact opposite of what you would expect an unobtrusive detective to wear.