Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for June 14, 2023

“I thought those were kind of politically incorrect these days. Amusing though.”

Good morning™, everyone!

There’s something out on the lawn. Is it real? (or is it Memorex?) Keeping us in suspense still until we can see for ourselves.

wow, that was fast…

did Dick call Barry Allen and ask for a lift to the Smith residence?…

wow, how trim, lean and mean and mobile and agile Dick seems in comparison to our resident millionaire (or BILLIONAIRE?) chubster…

I suppose this means the conversation between Tracy and Adam Austin is over

Why am I thinking of a Space Coupe?

So I was right? ;P

Good morning™, stupefied gents !

They have a subtle look of awe in their eyes. Did someone drop in one of those leftover flying garbage cans ?

I know. They were all destroyed, just going out on a spindly twig with this.

Surely, if the object is a lawn ornament Diet would have remembered purchasing it. Ah, he probably delegated that task to a staff member.

Whatever the thing is, I don’t get this Tracy for your eyes only bit. Lizz and Sam can’t be counted on anymore to keep secrets?

Do my eyes deceive me, Tracy came to Diet’s residence in a unmarked car? Maybe it is his own private vehicle, although when I read the strip through the years, I never Tracy driving his own car. He and Tess might be a one car family. She might use it more than he does.

Those movement lines in panel 3 seem to indicate Dick has pulled back from what he sees. Mild shock or big surprise? Hence the joking?

You’re the detective Tracy so you tell me !

No, it’s an artificial lawn ornament.

But why did Tracy need to come alone – emphasis original?

UFO!!! Ugly Fountain Object!!!

Has our missing time traveler reappeared?

The wandering Space Coupe?

I don’t know if it’s an ornament… Tracy don’t seem too bothered by it, wonder why Diet is. :\

That darn neighbor’s dog!

“What’s so important that I had to end my conversation with an author at a book signing and change from casual to work clothes?”

Apparently we hit the end of the conversation between Austin and Tracy. (That reminds me – there was once a teenage tennis sensation named Tracy Austin LOL)

“Pretty sure I never put in an order for a 60-foor pink bunny lawn gnome, Tracy. I’d remember something like that. Unless it was back-ordered form the ‘60s. Don’t recall much of that period. Wild times, detective. Wild times.”

z z z z z z z z . . .

Another priceless wall sculpture in panel 2: ‘The Happy Bananas’, by Chiquita Del Monte.

Perhaps an alien space ship!

Some time has passed. Tracy is on the job apparently done with what must have turned out to be an inconsequential conversation with Adam, and Diet has changed out of his robe and into a suit, and has cleaned up the mess he made yesterday.

Someone dumped the mortal remains of hitchBot over Diet’s front wall.

It’s Chick Tracy’s newest mode of transportation: the Space Coop.

This strip jumps around like a mad grasshopper .

maybe it’s the inconsequentially over-rated, intensely inept and overblown blowhard nannybot that’s on the lawn that some fear while others don’t…

perosnally, I am known to mock said bot…

MOCKMOCKMOCK…

and for good measure, a ‘NYYYYAAAAHHHH’ thrown into that bit of righteous and well-deserved mockery…

ka-flamingo

1-DOIT: TRACY? What are you doing here?? DT: You called in a medical emergency. Knowing that it was probably just you overreacting to some imagined malady, they just sent me.

2-DOIT: Yes. It turns out Skim Milk isn’t deadly. Who knew? But there’s something on the lawn I need you to see.

3-DT: You mean Tess? Nude sunbathing on your lawn? DOIT: What? Oh. I thought Clifford The Big Red Dog had taken a Big Brown Dump in my yard. AAIIIIEEEE! IT’S MOVING!

DT: CALM DOWN! IT’S JUST TESS I TELL YOU!

Giant escargot?

A U.A.P.?

“First 90-foot statue of Don Knotts in a tutu and juggling fish Ive seen this week.”

Golly, citizens! It’s time for show-and-tell. What is on Diet’s lawn that provokes such a reaction? The “lost” space coupe would certainly be an interesting possibility, maybe with some techno-babble to explain how a temporal distortion (or the like) had brought it back, complete with Drs. Zy Ghote and S. Tim Sail.

But this, alas, seems improbable. I can’t imagine what else would have prompted Diet Smith’s reaction nor Tracy’s remarks in panel 3….