Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for June 29, 2014

Oh, THIS is GOOD!!!

HOLY Censored!!!!! I will be MOST interested to see how THIS angle is booked! (my guess…..going off in the darkest of night, Dick was lost in his thoughts and hit something in the water….and now he is in hospital and this is a set of ‘fantasy ideations’ in his mind since he WAS so obsessed with the Annie case…..)

Well, he’s found Annie. Problem solved. Next! But wait, what happens now?

Good morning guys!

What creativity Curtis and Staton possess! Where do we go from here?

As Flinheart said, not where but when Tracy has gone back in time memmory wise to when he first met Annie this is not the present !

Good morning VistaBill,I just figured out why I never liked LOA, having just holes in her head where her eyes should be REALLY creeps me out.

Quick Google search shows Annie in Simmons Corners (Tucker County) in the past. Did not know that. Nothing on Nurse Pardene, yet.

And Thank You, Jim, for another interesting Hall of Fame.

June 1 WWII: The BBC transmits a coded message (the first line of the poem “Chanson d’automne” by Paul Verlaine) to the French Resistance, warning that the invasion of Europe is imminent.

Kudos to Officer Doherty on the Tracy HOF. Good brief on an act of heroism.

Here we go!!!!! I love this!

Whoa-hoh!! Now this is cool. Loving the daring in this story development, so kudos to Mike and Joe. Can’t wait to see where it goes from here!

I did not expect this! Wow!

WOW!

But is it really 1944 or is something else going on…. :)

Bravo team Tracy!!!

This story sure took a quick jump! But I don’t know if we jumped forward or backwards!

Look to see at Smith Industries research none can predictAudacious new experiments: “Top Secret” an edict.Inside the singular chamber, dubbed the mystery shipA camera traveled back in time on an astounding trip.A holy grail of science, to master space and timeTo be satisfied with ignorance would be a shameful crime.Smith bankrolls development of wondrous innovationTheorize, hypothesize, experiments and creation.Smith’s team sworn to secrecy, Blue Image on the Q.T.Time travel an outlandish dream or true possibility?Vitamin takes to the stage, the applause makes quite a dinAsk not, “Where is Tracy?” The right question being “When?”Tracy decodes Annie’s letter: longitude and latitudeSeems she’s mailed it from the past; he likes her attitude.Coordinates: Thunder Island, where once was a mishapIn building an Atomic Bomb, creating a time trap.Leased now to the private sector, likely deregulatedTo go there uninvited is a trip fraught and ill-fated.Tracy takes a solo cruise, a boat ride back in timeAwakes in 1944, having dreamt of violent crime.A girl has brought him cookies: orange hair and a red dressBefore him now ‘tis Annie: Daddy’s Little Princess.So Tracy now knows where Annie is, the tricky part is whenTrouble with going back in time is reliving it again.

My guess is that something like the so called Philadelphia Experiment was somehow connected to the Nuke? accident at Thunder Island, & that has put Annie, & now Tracy back in time, & Diet Smith will have to perfect his time machine & go & rescue them. Maybe it will take a post card from Tracy this time, to get the message back to the present.

hmmm, wonder if Joe Corntassel from the radio show will turn up…

OMG! Tracy fell overboard and into 1944’s Little Orphan Annie comic strip land! (Nurse Pardene has LOA blank vertical oval eyes, meaning “Officer” Tracy is the only one around whose eyes have pupils, distressingly visible at the shocking entry of Annie herself in the last panel.) I’m at a loss for an explanation. Did the nuclear accident of 1944 [has it happened yet?] leave a Time Vortex at the site of Thunder Island? What in fact has just happened in today’s strip?! Can’t wait to find out. I hope we get a an explanation that doesn’t overshoot the Willing Suspension of Disbelief!

Annie is offering cookies. I think Tracy is still full from the brownies he ate on the boat! (If you know what I mean…..)

Freaky, man! The best part is that I don’t know what’s coming next.

The calendar page is correct for June 1940 or 1946; not 1944.

It’s a dream…

Another anomaly – Annie was in Simmons Corners in the early thirties, during the Great Depression, not the forties, during World War II. The Simmons Corners story arcs represented that time when Annie stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Silo.

After reading through the previous posts, I think it’s safe to say, I am confused. lol All the same, great story so far!

And what’s the significance of the sign that says, “Loose Lips Sink Ships” in this context?

You see I was right! If that washed up ham Flintstone didn’t waste our time yesterday maybe we would have seen how we got to today’s interesting strip. LOL!

Maybe someone is attempting to make Tracy think he has traveled into the past, but the calendar page is a slip-up on their part.Because, if Mike and Joe are telling us that our Tracy really was in the Army at the start of our entry into WWII, they will be messing with known canon – Tracy was a Navy officer, working in civilian clothes. Besides, getting too specific about past dates in Tracy’s life opens up the whole “Tracy is now 94 years old” can of worms. This almost has to be some sort of anomaly!

I know it;s part of the original style of the Little Orphan Annie comic, but just seeing people that are not Silvestri and Tracey having no pupils creeps me out. I hope this is a dream.

First class surface letter postage was 3 cents between 1932 and 1958.

I know it’s only a comic, but June 1944 started on a Thursday.

“Leapin’ Lizards, Officer Tracy — you got some funny-looking eyes…”

I notice there’s a little extra help in today’s panel. Might these new folks be the team working on a new “Annie” strip?

Good morning Dick Tracy and Annie fans. Quite a plot twist today! Is Tracy dreaming or has he gone back in time?

Does Diet Smith’s “Philadelphia Experiment” have something to do with this?

Tracy’s in the past? This is what I’m talkin’ about!

A wrong June 1944 calendar page might very well be a clue to Tracy that it’s not the “real” past he’s in.

This reminds me of the BBC TV series, “Life on Mars,” in which a detective was injured in a car accident in 2006 and wakes up in 1973. (The ending of that couldn’t fit into this story.)--Since Annie and the nurse “know” who Tracy is, his memories would seem to them like he’s been having hallucinations.

I just realized – some people here complain when the story jumps from one plot thread to another.Jumping back 70 years should have their heads spinning like a lathe!

This is like the Twilight Zone. Tracy wakes up not only in 1944 but in Harold Gray crosshatching.

The nurse seems to recall Tracy from 1944. She remembers how he tried to enlist after Pearl Harbor. Is there a disconnect between the past Tracy (60 years ago?!) and today’s Tracy. How could Annie be a little girl in 1944 and still a little girl today?

We have often discussed “comic strip” time on this board and everyone has a theory of why Tracy is not over 100 years old—comic strip time runs slower than real time consequently everything in Dick Tracy happened only recently; the Tracy universe is a conglomeration of all past time periods; etc. But here we have a modern Tracy confronting his memories from 60 years ago when realistically he couldn’t have existed. Trying to come up with a reasoning to justify the canon of long-running characters (Dick Tracy, Superman, Batman, Orphan Annie etc.) has stumped writers who rarely provide a satisfying explanation. Just ignoring the fact that realistically Tracy is either dead too old for the force is one of those comic conventions that is generally ignored. But here, Mike has confronted it directly.

I speculated on the Yahoo board several days ago that perhaps Mike has come up with a solution to the problem facing “old” characters still operating in the modern world. Perhaps Diet Smith’s time machine has caused time dilations that have merged and combined events of the past, present and future into one shortened time line. Perhaps that is why in Tracy’s world modern computers sit on desks but the popular form of entertainment is Montana Joe’s radio program.

To me, this is all playing out like an audition for a future revival of the Little Orphan Annie strip possibly set in its original time period. If so, I wouldn’t mind. I only sporadically read the Annie strip when Gray did it and rarely looked at it under Starr or Maeder. But with my respect for Joe Staton and Mike Curtis I would definitely become a reader of the new strip if that is their plan. I love the Harold Gray art style today.

This is the Best….I’m addicted..

This going to be a “Perchance To Dream” -typestory arc.

You know, it all makes Sunday Mornings with the funnies good again, thanks.

If I remember my Pink Floyd history correctly, Anzio was where Roger Waters’ father was killed. It became a subject for some of Floyd’s songs in The Wall and The Final Cut. “And the Anzio bridgehead Was held for the priceOf a few hundred ordinary lives”From the song ‘When the Tigers Broke Free’I wonder if some connection will be made by the writers?Or maybe they will need some special ‘Influence’ to help him remember.

great stuff — wow!

Wanna bet that Joe Staton is having ball drawing this story line?It is a shame that Dick Tracy, as with all other adventure strips, is no longer in as many newspapers as he used to be. The general public is really missing out on some good stuff.

Interesting color choices. I suppose that may hint at this being a dream, but I think there’s more. The Blues Project, for example. The Mystery Ship that may have been sunk by loose lips. The no-pupils nurse. VF’s staged comments a few days ago. Wow….just wow….

My dad fought at Anzio. Wish he was still around; I would show him this and ask if he knew Tracy. He’d get a chuckle out of it!

Hmmm, I wonder if those cookies have those little bits of green in them like they bake in Colorado. Tracy needs to get in the right frame of mind.

I just remembered that Annie dealt with Axel in the forties, so it will be interesting to see how this fits in.

Fantastic! Good to see Tracy and Annie together. Historic crossover goodness. A calendar on the wall dated 1944 does not in and of itself make it 1944, but I like the audacity of what has been implied. That the calendar is in error marks it as a clue. Ray makes a good point about the problematic nature of comic strip time. A stickler’s insistence on realistic passage of time places a strip on a dead end. Time compression is required to avoid getting bogged down in unnecessary concerns over aging. Literalism just gets in the way of fun possibilities, and I see no good reason for the creative team to tie their hands..I like the shift in style from Friday’s strip to today. Mr. Curtis is a very versatile and talented artist with wonderful support. Kudos to Sgt. Doherty for today’s Hall of Fame. A good friend was in London when the 2005 bombing took place (on the street, not in the Tube), and she was absolutely terrified. Hat’s off to DC Silvestri..You never know who you might meet in 1944. This fellow was around back then:

It sounds like Flattop has gone forward in time to meet the luscious Venus. “She’s a honey.” Nah. That kind of fun only happens in the comics..Yes, Annie has dealt with Axel before. Here she is tied up and overhearing Axel’s plans for her demise. Despicable.

Thanks to Neil Wick, Gweedo, JerryH, VistaBill, Ray Toler, Bobarion, JPuzzleWhiz and Night-Gaunt49 for the kind words. Very much appreciated!

Well Dallas got a whole season from “Pam’s Dream” so I guess a cartoon story can do it too. J.R. probably shows up next.

In three weeks… three weeks… three weeks…

Seeing note about the time slip-up reminded me of the final scene in the movie Captain America where he wakes up in a hospital room from the 1940s listening to a baseball game on the radio, that he attended before the Super Soldier experiment. He breaks out realizing the illusion and eventually is stopped in Times Square talking to Nick Fury.

JPuz,.Re you comment:.“That’s Gallantry, not Gallentry.”.I’m not the letterer. .Although, it’s certainly possible (I’d have to check) that it WAS my error, and that Shel just relied on my spelling.

Since that calendar is part of the panel that really never is a true part of the Sunday story, maybe the ‘wrong date’ significance is being exaggerated by us.

Gweedo, be careful not to spend time in the penalty box. Your host has a penchant for it!

Far out!!!

Someone say they need a Time Machine??? ;)

Holy crap, we missed something BIG.

Look to see at Smith Industries research none can predict

Audacious new experiments: “Top Secret” an edict.

Inside the singular chamber, dubbed the mystery ship

A camera traveled back in time on an astounding trip.

A holy grail of science, to master space and time

To be satisfied with ignorance would be a shameful crime.

Smith bankrolls development of wondrous innovation

Theorize, hypothesize, experiments and creation.

Smith’s team sworn to secrecy, Blue Image on the Q.T.

Time travel an outlandish dream or true possibility?

Vitamin takes to the stage, the applause makes quite a din

Ask not, “Where is Tracy?” The right question being “When?”

Tracy decodes Annie’s letter: longitude and latitude

Seems she’s mailed it from the past; he likes her attitude.

Coordinates: Thunder Island, where once was a mishap

In building an Atomic Bomb, creating a time trap.

Leased now to the private sector, likely deregulated

To go there uninvited is a trip fraught and ill-fated.

Tracy takes a solo cruise, a boat ride back in time

Awakes in 1944, having dreamt of violent crime.

A girl has brought him cookies: orange hair and a red dress

Before him now ‘tis Annie: Daddy’s Little Princess.

So Tracy now knows where Annie is, the tricky part is when

Trouble with going back in time is reliving it again.

In retrospect I have to wonder if the calendar in the first panel was a clue as June, 1, 1944 fell on a Thursday not a Sunday.

Morning, Anniephans!