Recent Comments

1. about 13 hours ago on Dick Tracy

   Sounds like the jury did its job. I’m not sure how well I’m articulating my thought (or even if my thought makes sense). I’m wondering if more of the burden of securing a conviction has fallen to lab work which doesn’t make good visual narrative. But the police are still doing things like chases (the MCU not so much), canvassing the neighborhood for witnesses and video camera that might have picked up images, searching the crime scene for evidence for the lab to evaluate. etc. I’m not really sure what I’m saying except I feel like I’m not seeing the MCU being terribly active.

2. about 15 hours ago on Dick Tracy

   Sigh, we all knew. We weren’t saying anything, we were waiting for Tracy to slap the cuffs on him.

3. about 15 hours ago on Dick Tracy

   I wonder if part of the problem(?) is the changing nature of criminal investigation since the strip began a century ago. Before all the new-fangled technology police detectives had to use their brains to piece disparate clues together and come to a solution to the crime. It was procedure based on action. Now, I’m not saying that modern detectives don’t use their brains, but the methodology has changed. Now there is a lot of taking cotton swabs to everything, sending collected materials to the lab, and the lab creating a DNA profile then comparing it with genealogy sites to find individuals who are a near genetic match who can say, “Um… On my father’s side? That sounds like Uncle Chuck. Yeah, he lives on the next block from where the murder took place.”

4. about 17 hours ago on Dick Tracy

   Good philosophical question. IMHO “clue” is rather an amorphous term. It might be simply positively, or negatively, suggestion of something. (“Well, that tells us the killer had to be under five feet tall.”) Which shades into circumstantial evidence – enough of which can get you convicted. (“The facts we have about the criminal are all consistent with Firestrike1.”) And, of course, can become hard evidence (“The murder weapon has the DNA and fingerprints of Another Take.”)

5. about 19 hours ago on Dick Tracy

   No, we haven’t had a clear crime yet. There is a hint of insurance fraud, and we haven’t had tiddly-squat said about embezzlement or murder – too other excellent options (and I’ve been complaining about the lack of a clear crime for weeks now). The mighty powers of the MCU were ordered to be brought to bear on a bungled body snatching that had all the appearances of the college prank gone wrong.

   They’ve since been tasked with identifying the body. Which isn’t their job, it should be the job of the coroner. The coroner has been shown as massively incompetent.

   However clue are not restricted to crimes. You can have clues to all sort of non-criminal activity. The muddy paw-prints in the front hall are a clue someone let the dog out this morning.

   The MCU has had a bunch of clues that something shady is going on with two people missing, one body, new dental work, location of body, suspicious activity in regard to the body, suspicious activity in regard to behavior of one of the missing persons and his wife and relatives.

6. about 21 hours ago on Dick Tracy

   But that might have been seen as the strip showing some sort of action.

7. about 23 hours ago on Dick Tracy

   They’ve had a number of clues. A clue is a hint. The MCU has simply not been able to put the clues together. This is a more of a neon sign screaming, “HEY, REMEMBER THE BODY HAD NEW DENTAL WORK?”

   The bad news is, it will simply remind Liz she needs to call her own dentist for an appointment.

8. about 23 hours ago on Dick Tracy

   In real life, what are the odds of crooks being as careless as dumb & dumber? 1 in 100.

   In DT, what are the odds of crooks being as careless as dumb & dumber? 10000 in 1.

   However, given the shoddy police work the only hope the MCU has of discovering the perp is either coincidence, ESP, or a combination of the two.

9. about 23 hours ago on Mother Goose and Grimm

   A lot of places don’t expect guests to need the desk clerk during the night, and don’t assign their sharpest employees to the shift.

10. 1 day ago on Crabgrass

    No, which is why I said it wouldn’t be my first thought. Probably not in the top ten.