What’s Going On In Dick Tracy? Why was that library woman killing people? October – December 2023

Well, she was a serial killer, so if Xaviera “Ex” Libris weren’t killing people she’d be failing her role. But we never did get a direct explanation of her motives in the just-concluded story in Mike Curtis, Shelley Pleger, and Shane Fisher’s Dick Tracy. Instead, we got a solid story of detective work, Tracy and gang going over what they knew and what they could tease out from that until it pointed to, admittedly, the character who people talked about a lot more than she seemed to contribute to the plot. We do get a few bits, at least. Theft of rare books is right there; most of the murders we hear about were to acquire rare books or to kill someone who was leading the cops to her. There’s the hint there may be some ancient family relations tied into this. We never get a deathbed confession of Libris having been after, say, the one book her great-grandfather wanted and could never buy. There’s room for that, if you want that rationalization, though.

So this should catch you up to late December 2023 in Dick Tracy. If you’re reading this after about March 2024 I should have a more up-to-date plot recap at this link. I’ll also bring news about the strip there, if I get any. And now, on to what’s not going to be one of my longer plot recaps, if all goes well.

Dick Tracy.

1 October – 23 December 2023.

My last plot recap came as another of the mayor’s old friends got killed. It was the start of this story, where people turn up with pinpoint stabs to their chest and ancient, rare manuscripts missing.

As promised above, this is a fairly direct story of detection and deduction. If it ever lagged, it’s because Dick Tracy and his team, all of whom did stuff, reached the legitimate ends of what they could figure on one path. And my opening told you who did it. It was clear enough from a bit after her introduction that Ex Libris was the villain, but we had to read along to figure how she was doing it, how she was going to get caught, and what was supposed to be so ugly or weird about her. You know, that Chester Gould theme where people look as horrible as their morals are. She never does look bad, though, just uninterested in the people demanding time away from her from her pharmaceutical-industry ownership and her antiquarian-book library. And the killing and robbery, she wants to get that done too. But you empathize.

The threads that get us there. Sam Catchem learns the teacups at Wilhelmina Caxton’s murder scene have a small saliva sample from an unknown person. He eventually goes undercover as a waiter to snag drinking glasses that Ex Libris was using, which provide the samples to place her at that scene.

Lee Ebony finds an informant within the world of Tracytown’s bookbinder community. Half a year ago Xaviera Libris came in wanting the early-20th-century binding on a 13th century book replaced. But wanted the previous owner’s book plate discarded, something rarely done as you need those to show provenance. The informant has the old cover, just in case. And keeping his promise that she wouldn’t see him again, he gets murdered right after. Stabs to the chest.

Lizz Worthington-Grove finds a case from months ago, just across the state line, of someone murdered with the same stab in the chest. Electronic toll records place Libris’s car over the state line when that murder was done.

Mike Curtis and Shelley Pleger’s Dick Tracy for the 10th of December, 2023. I wonder if fencers are ever bothered by how whenever they’re in pop culture they’re either Captain Picard or a killer. I guess they have it better than ventriloquists and wax museum owners do. Ooh, you know, a wax-museum-owner who fences and does ventriloquy at open mike nights would be an unstoppable pop culture villain.

Sam finds, in security camera footage, a hooded figure with two cases approaching Caxton’s place. One’s the sort of rare book case that Libris explained to Tracy a competent rare-book thief would need. The other is a long, slender carrying case of unknown purpose. And he has later footage of Libris carrying the same two cases

And Tracy has the final insight, checking just what sport it was that Libris was an Olympics alternate for (information given way back in October, reader time). It was epee fencing, Now there’s a plausible-enough-for-the-comics explanation of how she’s killing and why it’s by pinpoint chest wounds. All that’s left is to confront her in her impossibly fabulous library.

She’s ready to attack Tracy with sword and rare-books case. But he’s wearing a blade-proof vest and a case-resistent hand. She’s only foiled when she runs up the spiral staircase too fast or something and falls to her death. Problem solved, including the need for a trial.

We do get a week of Tracy reflecting on the waste of all this, of people hurt and professional lives ruined and knowledge lost. Even the sadness that the heirless Libris’s library, one almost as good as The Phantom’s rare books collection, will be auctioned off and broken up. It’s more somber reflection than I’m accustomed to in these stories. It’s not a bad note to have, though.

And this wraps things up in suspiciously good time for my plot recap here. On to the next adventure!

Next Week!

We’ve had ghost cats in the sky and real cats on the boat. What’s on the agenda now? Selkies and hobgoblins? We’ll have more details on Mark Schultz and Thomas Yeates’s Prince Valiant sometime early next year, if the scrolls are speaking to us truly.