Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for December 17, 2013

Great looking alligators, well drawn.

Good morning everyone…

This gets better every day! Is Rikki watching?

“Come to think of it, that Schlak is the sound the doors made on board Enterprise T.O.S.”There’s some fast food place I visit around here (I think it’s BK) that has the identical sound of the TNG door announce for their deef fryer!

…and little fishies!

It only looks empty! The alligators look kind of angry.

Kadaver says “FIRST PERIL” as if he knows Tracy will escape. He wants to enjoy each moment for all it’s worth.

Boy, Kadaver really spared no expense when it comes to these death traps! Milies and Venus must really pay him well. I wonder if they’re watching from home?

Tracy already has a fedora. He just needs a bullwhip to become Indiana Jones.

Pitfall? Any other favorite games coming up in the additional death traps?

A gracious good morning all.

Lunging fiercely from the waterTracy they seek to slaughterWill the crocogators take their tollAnd give Tracy that deathly roll?Hungry little beasties they do appearThreatening to bite Tracy’s rearBare handed he must fight the beastEre he end up as a reptile feastNo gun or knife, not even a stickSurely up his sleeve he must have a trickPerhaps the Wrist Wizard will save the dayAnd Tracy, the beasties will not slaySo gather round kiddies and hold on tightWe are about to see one whale of a fight.

Thank you for your kind words the other day.And to Pequod 77, a very nice poem as always.

And, as Tracy backs up from the edge praying, he bumps into Gossamer. But he knows how to handle it: “My stahrs! Where did you ever get such an AWFUL hair-do…”

Coulda been worse.

Coulda been SHARKS.

With frickin’ LASERS on their heads! .

Wonder if Abner has Panda’s barracuda somewhere ;)

I understand Kadaver’s artistic drive and all, but wouldn’t it just be easier to shoot Tracy?

Or angry Bass.

It causes me wonder, how these Lone Wolf archvillains have the resources and manpower to build these elaborate single-purpose (and maybe even single-use) death traps in or near a big city with no one knowing anything about it (they can’t just kill off the whole construction crew, as in ancient times; nowadays such a disappearance would be noticed, documented, and investigated). And where did Kadaver get the full-grown ’gators?Oh; and how does Tracy evade the beasts? Onward, to Trap Two!

It could have been worse, like a room full of frenzied chihuahuas. It would be a slow and painful death for Tracy. His ankles would be the first to go.

Once he gets near the water, he will contaminate it, as he already started! The gators (crocs) will get a whiff in a second. Right, SDM?

Looks like there’s a glass floor in between Tracy and the alligators, doesn’t it?

Disappearing stairway? There are three stair steps, apparently going up, visible to Tracy’s left in panel one, which disappear in panel two. Is this an intentional or unintentional “easter egg” by the new cartoonist team?

C’mon Tracy, didn’t you learn anything from your fishing trip with Popeye? Eat’s your spinach so you can get through these deathtraps!

The deathtrap is a classic comics storyline. But it’s never been one of my favorites—the whole situation feels so elaborately contrived.

The question is whether Curtis and Stanton can breathe some new air into this musty contrivance—or, alternatively, can coax ironic laughter from it’s gnarly cliches. From the looks of today’s installment (crocs under a moving floor), they’re opting for irony.

Current theory has velociraptors closer to chickens than crocs or gators. Mean a55 chickens but chickens none the less,

Crocodiles, IMHO

I can’t wait to see how Dick gets out of this

Watch out for that first step, Tracy. It’s a DOOOO-ZIE!

O’Toole was outstanding in “Lawrence of Arabia”, “Becket” (with Richard Burton, playing off of each other so brilliantly), and my favorite, “My Favorite Year”, doing almost a parody of himself as a fading matinee idol.

And I was surprised to hear that Tom Laughlin was 82. Still pictured him looking like he did in “Billy Jack”. Makes me feel REALLY old.

Wouldn’t it be funny if Larry the Croc from Pearls before Swine was in there with the others? These writers are campy enough to do something like that!

We all know Tracy will survive these death traps, the fun part is seeing how he’ll do it against seemingly insurmountable odds.