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

This just gets more & more interesting!

“To stuff in my ears so I won’t be brainwashed!”

Annie is starting to have trouble covering up the fact that she doesn’t listen to Belinda. This appears to confirm that Tracy does listen to Belinda.

I wouldn’t want to get a shave and haircut from a barber that’s drinking beer, especially a barber that’s wearing…an apron?

It’s not beer, people! It’s a shaving mug, full of soap or cream whipped up into a lather by a shaving brush. Wikipedia says,

Applying shaving cream by hand mats hair or raises it unevenly. Shave brush use, however, requires agitation of the soap or cream in a mug to form a lather suitable for a shave, before application of the lather to the face. Therefore, a razor does not need to be pressed to the skin in order to provide a close shave.Are there really so many people who have no idea what this is? By the way, the word barber comes from the same root as the French word barbe meaning “beard.” It was only once safety razors became really popular that the main activity of barbers became cutting scalp hair rather than shaving (with a straight razor, such as the one the barber in the strip is holding).

Tracy has seriously drunk the kool-aid. How will Annie free him from the Belinda spell?

Time for the daily dose of brainwash, but Annie cops a plea, while cop Tracy smiles at the thought (?) of Belinda. Tracy is under the spell, just as is almost everyone in Simmons Corners. Only Annie among Our Side is unaffected. It’s up to the plucky orphan to try again to get a message out without getting caught by Axel or any minions.

Now we’re getting downright creepy…

Annie looks really creepy in panel one.

Yesterday Ray Toler said :Yesterday Ray Toler remarked . . .

. . .

" . . .But, all comic strip characters seem to have their regular uniforms. Sam has reverted back to the green suit and derby (where are the plaid sports coats and trilby hats he wore during Gould’s last days?). It becomes easier to identify the characters if they are consistent. In a long shot, you always know the guy in the yellow coat is Tracy " -—————————————————————————

And quietly, largely UNNOTICED a strong recognition part of the Sam Catchem character has disappeared. It first became more pointed in the strip of July 14th, when Sam was seen twiddling a pencil between his fingers rather than his usual high recognition, smoke wafting cigarette, in a way, not unlike that Tracy Yellow Coat.

A closer check suggests Sam last smoking art presentation was on May 31st, Early June had 3 or so panels with unlit ‘cigs’ in the mouth but - no swirling smoke !Our green suited, sandwich eating character seems without fanfare - to have “kicked the habit” this past month and a half ?

It was noticeable in 1978 right after Gould’s retirement, that his smoking seemed censored. Max Collins ?It’s been that way even through the Kilian /Locher years until the new team arrived

..To my eye, it seems a distinctive part of the Sam Catchem character !

Sam smoking is like Captain America and his shield, Thor with Mjolnir, Iron Man with his suit of armor, Wonder Woman with her Golden lasso, Superman with his “S” emblem, and Batman with his nuerosis… they DEFINE the character.. why change it?

as for “Tracy drinking the Kool-Aid” I’m beginning to think that’s NOT entirely true… Annie mentions, in perhaps a slip fo the tongue.. “Your old uniform” and Tracy comments that “it feel strange to be wearing it again”… to ME this means Tracy does, in fact, know what is going on, and he “suddenly reverts” when the barber is around… more like putting on a show for anyone BESIDES annie to me… I’m thinking that somehow Tracy isn’t buying into the whole Belinda thing.

anyone wanna dig back a few days and see if there was anyone within earshot o Tracy and Annie previously when he mentioned listening to Belinda?

Hearkens back to the original Tracy before he became a detective. Cool uniform.

It seems obvious that Tracy is now a fan of Belinda. On July 10th, Annie exclaims , “Leapin’ Lizards! I was afraid of this…Mr. Tracy believes it all!” Today we see Tracy invite Annie to listen to Belinda with him: “He’s right! We can’t miss Belinda.” Tracy isn’t trying to get Annie out of earshot of the Barber, so they can figure out what to do. Tracy is inviting her into the Barber’s shop, so that the three of them may listen to Belinda together. Tracy is hooked on this radio show.

Nun’Ya Bidness said, about 10 hours ago

@avenger09

ok then.Please forgive my lack of couth in my choice of words. I’ll apologize to Morrow, too.

Perhaps I’m the one who needs a pamprine!

.

Nun’Ya Bidness, Just saw your post from the other day. Thank you. You are Da Man!!! We’re all one big happy family over here. (Some happier than others!) This is for you.

And for anyone who complained last year about Moon Maid transforming Dick Tracy into a sci-fi story, guess again..I think this Annie story is doing the transformation, quite nicely, thank you..And just as last year’s Moon Maid story got a Tommy Westphall ending – not the real Moon Maid, but a badly butchered and altered Mindy Ermine – so, too, do I think this story is going to end..At least, with the hints given so far that everything here in Simmons Corners is an elaborate hoax…

Good morning fans. Who is Belinda and what happens on her radio program?

“You want to listen to Belinda in my barber shop?”How could Tracy decline such a kind invitation, especially from a man wielding a razor?@ purpledog39: He’s a barber, so his name would be Hairy Mudd.

Curiouser and curiouser…A fake village?Mass hypnosis?Time travel?More than one of the above?

OK, so we’ve not only mashed up (VERY early) Dick Tracy with Little Orphan Annie, but thrown in The Prisoner and “Mudd’s Women” or “I, Mudd” from the original “Star Trek.” I think the Tracy Team is having some SERIOUS fun with this story arc.

From IMDB: “Harcourt Fenton Mudd is a scoundrel. If there’s a way he can take advantage of a situation he will. In his first encounter he was smuggling drugged up mail order brides to miners on a distant planet, making them appear to be goddesses with the aid of the Venus drug; and on the second encounter he became ruler of a planet of androids mostly inhabited by female androids of a somewhat sensual nature.”.“Roger C. Carmel, who was born September 27, 1932, was named after his grandfather, Roger Charles, who carved the horses for the carousel in New York’s Central Park. He became an actor and won television immortality by appearing as Harry Mudd in two classic “Star Trek” episodes, “I, Mudd” and “Mudd’s Women.” Carmel was one of the few actors, other than the regulars, to appear in two episodes of “Star Trek” as the same character.".Yes, Team Tracy is having fun! Fans of the strip are richer for the creativity of Team Tracy.

We need the Asp to the rescue…Tracy makes a funny cop..

Nah…..Harry Mudd had very expressive eyes. Not empty sockets. Could be his “good twin,” I guess.

If this strip was written a few years back, I’d bet the farm that it was a crossover with the Keystone Kops. Appropriately so, I’d say.

“My barber shop.” Yup, he’s a baker, all right.

jpuzz, not only did it jump the shark already, it ran face first into the…. SHARKNADO!!! (both of ’em! lol)

Obviously, in this arc there is more that we don’t know than what we know. When we found Tracy in this unusual situation he was awakening from being unconcious. How was he knocked out and how long was he unconcious?

If he did not travel in time, then he apparently was unconcious only a short time since Sam and the MCU noticed him missing the next morning. If he traveled in time, he could have been unconcious for a considerably longer time.

If he did not travel in time, then it would seem that if the Belinda program was a method of mind control (there are suspicions that Germans experimented with mind control during the war google project Monarch) is very powerful considering that Tracy seems hooked even though he could only have heard the program a couple of times.

If he has not traveled through time, why hasn’t he contacted other members of his team for assistance or at least attempted to do so?

One way or another, it seems that Tracy’s mind has been screwed with.

This is a fascinating and compelling story line. I don’t know if it will contain a “sweatbox ending” as tsull calls it but I know I can’t wait each day for another 3 panels.

Good morning everyone!

As for Tracy being brainwashed by Belinda and the short period of time it took. He was medicated while in the hospital remember.

Sydney, he’s back in 1944 (or at least he is being led to believe that he is), so what he wore on the boat and what he used to wear in the history we know is irrelevant.

We have switched to a different persona. In this instance the story (whether true or fabricated) is that Tracy was the entire police force in the town of Simmons Corners before he went off to war and now he is resuming those duties.

When he left the hospital, he was wearing ordinary civilian clothes, because he wasn’t “on duty.” It’s only us who read that as the clothes that a plainclothes detective might wear, just because we remember seeing him dressed this way. The yellow fedora is a decision of the GoComics colourist and may not necessarily be “canon.”

He didn’t have those clothes with him on the boat. Presumably, they were at “his” house where he used to live before going off to war. I’m assuming that someone fetched them (or pretended to fetch them) from “his” house before he was discharged from the hospital.

We don’t know whether anyone else is in his Simmons Corners house, but I’m presuming he lives alone, because that would make things much simpler.

The police uniform was presumably the one he supposedly wore in Simmons Corners before he went to war. There was no Brandon in Simmons Corners, so that doesn’t even enter the picture.

How does he know he has to be a uniformed cop ?He’s a police force of one in a small town. Are there small towns where the police don’t wear uniforms? It seems unlikely to me. He’s been told that he is the police force of Simmons Corners and that’s all he knows.

It seems he has amnesia about how he got to the island (if he is on the island) in his boat. There’s a convenient fiction that people who get conked on the head lose their memories. That isn’t how amnesia actually works, but it seems to work that way in fiction. I think there was an I Love Lucy episode with this trope.

Whether a blow to the head started this or not, he was subsequently drugged in the hospital, which made his mind kind of fuzzy, and then it seems that he has been hypnotized by listening to Belinda in the meantime. I agree with tsul2121 that he may be putting on a show, but if he enters the barber shop and listens to the program, I’m not sure how he can resist it, unless, as JPuzzleWiz says, not being a willing subject is enough. If it is, though, why does Annie flee from the situation, rather than listening in an unwilling state?

the fact that BOTH tracy and annie have *"slipped"** today are hints

How you do figure that they both slipped? Maybe I’m missing something.

If tomorrow Tracy offers to walk Annie to the “newspaper stand” remember you heard it here first!!! LOL!!!

It’s definitely a mug of beer with a big frothy head on it and a straight razor in his other hand.

The asp is going to set it all strate…no worry..

even though Tracy seems to under the “spell” of Belinda,,,,I have to give him latitude and say that he’s playing along…I’m still not convinced though, Annie may become the shining knight(light)..at least we know she’s not under the spell, I reserve my right to waffle

I’d noticed several days ago that Sam wasn’t smoking, but didn’t want to say anything because some people go crazy when he isn’t puffing away, and start seeing censors in the shadows.Aside from the artistic license of having Sam smoke in places where it’s now illegal, the one reality Mike and Joe can’t dodge is that fewer people smoke than used to.There are still smokers in the Tracyverse (such as Diet Smith and Silver Nitrate), so fear not tobacco junkies, you are still represented.Cough. Just open a window, will ya?

“How about a nice close shave?Teach your whiskers to behave.Lots of lather, lots of soap.Please hold still, don’t be a dope.Yell and scream and rant and rave!It’s no use – you need a sha-ave!”— Bugs Bunny in the "Rabbit of Seville

Whell, I’ve never seen a barber in an apron, just smocks and jackets. And Floyd never wore an apron. ;-)

The 2014 Harvey Awards final ballot is out (for works published in 2013) and Dick Tracy is nominated again! These are the nominees for Best Syndicated Strip or Panel

DICK TRACY, Joe Staton and Mike Curtis, Tribune Media Services

FOX TROT, Bill Amend, Universal Uclick

GET FUZZY, Darby Conley, Universal Uclick

MUTTS, Patrick McDonnell, King Features

THE PHANTOM, Tony DePaul and Paul Ryan, King Features Syndicate

I may be late to the party here, but I get ominous feelings about this radio show.

I just found an interesting page at http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/mc1_current_situation3.htm talking about “Russian Experiments in Hypnotism and Radio Control of the Mind” and “US Experiments in Radio Control of the Mind.”

Why a newspaper?