Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for June 16, 2014

Yet another intriguing plot twist!

Good morning guys!

Is it from Annie, who’s held somewhere without stamps?

A long lost letter mailed before Zip Codes were used? A message from the distant past for Sparkle when she was a child?

I just looked. First Class letters now cost 49 cents to mail. B.O. said that 40 cents was due. When did a first class letter cost 9 cents to mail?

by the way, does the USPS even deliver postage due mail anymore?

The return of Chick Tracy, and …. a letter for Sparkle, who hasn’t lived there for years, with no “zippy code” and a postage rate of long ago. Intriguing. ZIP codes started in 1963. When I started to collect stamps in the late 1960s, the Canadian postage rate had just gone up from 5 cents to 6 cents.

Postage just went up to $1.00 in Canada if you pay for a single letter, though quantities of postage are something like 20% off that.

Where’s the color?

From an archived page at USPS:

“Mail of any class… that is received at either the office of mailing or office of address without enough postage is marked to show the total (rounded off) deficiency of postage and fees. Individual such pieces (or quantities fewer than 10) are delivered to the addressee on payment of the charges marked on the mail.”

I wondered if there was a fee in addition to the missing postage, but I didn’t see any evidence of one. W H H is right that there was never a 9-cent postage rate in the U.S.

Hmm. Wonder if it’s international mail? What character, good or bad, in Dick Tracy or in Little Orphan Annie, would choose to write to Sparkle Plenty? Might it be a radio fan? Why is it important? —I’m hooked; can’t wait for someone to open and read us the letter!

I had to explain to someone what “no such zone” meant in Elvis’s song “Return to Sender.” Large cities had postal zones like we have zip codes now. Midtown Manhattan was zone 19, and later zip 10019, as I remember from my DC Comics in the early 1960s.

I wanted to post here yesterday (though it’s a bit off topic) that Casey Kasem died. He was known for American Top 40, of course, but he also did the voice of Shaggy in countless Scooby-Doo cartoons. Here is a picture of me meeting him for an autograph in 1987:Here is a short clip of him doing Shaggy on Jerry Lewis’ MC telethon:and if you want a bit more, a longer video of all the main character voice actors talking about their characters:We now return you to your regular topic. (I didn’t post this yesterday, because I spent half the day getting my scanner working.)

Might this letter be from a relative, an uncle or cousin perhaps? Possibly one who has deceased? A real shot in the dark but what the heck.

Thanks for the Shaggy stuff Neil.

Perhaps the lack of color in today’s strip indicates that it’s a flashback?

It’s a letter from either Dondi or Winnie Winkle.

Postage Due. No zip code. I’ll bet the letter is from somewhere in the past. Back when they still only had black and white comic strips.

I don’t think the lack of color is of any significance. Over at Comics Kingdom, they have this in full color.

Why is today’s comic in black and white? And these writers are running about three different storylines at once. They’re all over the place?

Satisfying stories tend to be complex, with many moving parts. I am curious to see how the Plentys of Sunny Dell Acres fit in to the search for Annie.

Good morning DT and A fans. A retro color plot twist. Postage changed from 40 to 41 cents in 2007. I don’t think the USPS sometimes delivers postage due mail.

I can tell you this much.. the letter is DEFINITELY old, probably lost in the postal system somewhere because if “Postage Due 40 cents” is any clue, then whoever mailed it sent it out when postage was only EIGHT CENTS… so if anyone out there knows when postage was only 8 cents that might be a clue for y’all.

also, another hint that tracyville DOESNT exist in the normal universe.. any letter mailed out these days without proper postage DOESNT get delivered as postage due.. it goes right back to whoever mailed it for the additional postage ( i know this.. cause i work in a mailroom lol)

Chic Tracy reminds me of an episode of Seinfeld when Kramer had a chicken his named “Little Jerry Seinfeld”. He had the rooster on a leash on the streets of NYC.

Gee, I certainly hope all the complaints over here about the job the colorist does didn’t change his/her employment status! LOL! Is anyone keeping score; exactly HOW MANY different storylines are running simultaneously in Tracyville? I personally would consider stories such as Abners and the Sprockets magical vanishing act a still running story but that’s just me, what do I know!

.Happy belated Father’s day to all the dads out there (special shout out to morrow!). Thanks for the great job you do.

What? No box with an arrow pointing to the letter saying “Postage due”? That’s not the “Dick Tracy” way!

It would be interesting if Bill Waterson would do a “Tracer Bullet” story line with D.T..

No color today? My eyes!

The letter’s from the strip’s colorist—to say he’s gone on strike!

Love the Black & White…I’m intrigued…

Thank you Team Tracy for takin’ us to the past but leaving us fervent readers really some story to think about an enjoy the ride.

Re: Flashback? “Chick Tracy” is a very recent addition. Therefore, I don’t think so..Re: Black and white? Colorist strike? Why not? Has anyone kept track of how many complaints there have been about the color over the last year or so?

Pequod77 said, “Satisfying stories tend to be complex, with many moving parts.”.Yes, I agree. I’ve always thought intricate plotting was a sign of good storytelling. Apparently, though, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea..For those having trouble keeping up, perhaps moving to a strip with simpler story lines would help? Nancy or Peanuts maybe? Perhaps Marmaduke? Don’t mean to offend, but not everyone can handle complicated plotting like we see here, and I hate to see you guys getting so frustrated and bewildered. Just a thought.

thanx for the little tidbits. Heard about his condition last week and he dies this week. Very sad.

It was rather a sad situation, with his wife keeping him in an undisclosed place about a month ago and denying his children any access so that they reported him as a missing person. At least they got to see him again for Father’s Day.

I sure he’s hobbing with Don Messick now.

I’m sure he is. I met Don Messick too, and he was a very nice person. I asked him to do Ranger Smith for me, which he did without hesitation.

A nice touch that’s very Gouldian today is that little note to B.O. in the corner of the last panel. Gould did that all the time, speaking to his characters: “Tracy, you have no idea what you’ve started!” Or a variation, telling the reader: “Flattop doesn’t know it, but he’s going to get awful sick of that little WAC!” “Watch that magazine, it’s going to become very important!”

I posted Mr. Kasem’s passing on yesterday’s “Luann” strip. He was also the voice of Robin (Dick Grayson) in many of the TV “Batman” and “Super Friends (in their various formats)” cartoons.

Yes, he did Robin in all the various Batman cartoons from the 1960s to the 1980s, aside from that one 16-episode series that was voiced by Burt Ward.

Earlier today I found a site with a visual guide to all the cartoon characters voiced by Casey Kasem and all the voice actors who played Robin.

Kasem also did various voices on Transformers until part-way through the third season when he quit during an episode in which all the Arabic characters were evil. Born to Lebanese parents, Kasem was always concerned with attitudes towards Arabs and Arab-Americans.

Colors back! Just in time to say goodbye!

It’s in colour! The black and white was.. just a dream.

I feel like I’ve been part of the "Dallas: shower scene, or the last episode of St. Elsewhere!

Re: network television, the execs don’t want intelligent people as part of their demographic; people like that are considered far less likely to believe the commercials.

And that is the nature of the beast: the commercials are the reason for the shows. The programming is just the filler between the commercials.