Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for August 24, 2014

Good morning, Tracy fans!

I’m lovin’ it! The story, the art work, EVERYTHING !!

Look up to see Hotshot Charlie ‘neath a waning moon this nightWarbucks called in a favor owed for a daring recon flight.Fritz Ann has set the record straight: fly-overs not allowedHotshot cool to others’ rules: will not be stopped or cowed.Annie missing for many moons; Tracy’s fate unclearWarbucks, Asp and Punjab wish to find what they hold dear.Tess and the crew of MCU know to never count Tracy outCourage and wiles, diverse combat styles, crime fighting what he’s about.Panic in Simmons Corners! There’s an airplane causing dreadTracy glasses the B-17, sees that it’s painted red.Assuring Axel it’s flown off course, sends townsfolk back insideChuckles underneath his breath, “That’s how the Hotshot rides.”Axel thinks the coast is clear, it was merely pilot errorSneering to himself he plots escalation of his terror.A devious mind, his conduct unkind, a villain without restraintAxel will use, manipulate and abuse, upon his heart foul taint.

☆☆☆☆☆ Five stars to Mike, Joe, et al

Good morning fellow fans… worth staying up for!

Red Camo! Woo-hoo! See that Stilldamatt?

Mornin’ VistaBill and everyone else who had to stay up to read today’s episode!

Woo-hoo indeed!That first panel of the plane in front of the moon – beautifully done, especially Shane’s colors, with that fuzzy effect the moon sometimes has.And we’ve learned —Charlie has a vintage B-17! (Red, no less!)And Tracy isn’t in 1944 (unless Charlie flew through the Time Tunnel). So there’s no time travel.And Axel sleeps with a cigar.

I’ve always wanted someone to call me “Master.” Just sayin’.Love how Hotshot Charlie is rattling “Master” Axel! I’m just wondering how much longer Axel is going to buy Tracy’s charade. Will he ever catch on to Annie and Dick’s scheming?

Great recap, PQ! If I had my way, I’d look at the pictures and then read your analysis! No need to read the tripe in the balloons! That just confuses me. Nitey-nite all!

FYI, we have a B-17 stationed nearby where I live, and it circles overhead sometimes. There is no noise like those 4 huge radials! Deadly to some ears.

Don’t you mean wanted to !!!?-—I meant, everyone who “couldn’t resist” staying up to read today’s strip!

Warbucks has probably steered a lot of business to Hotshot Charlie. That is why he was willing to take on this dangerous and unlawful mission. Also, I bet the people on board the plane are scanning the island with Nigh-Vision binoculars!

If you live where I think you do, it’s the same B-17. Owned by the guy who owns Service Corp Inc. They have been keeping it at the Lone Star at Scholes Field.

PS: I’d like to plug the fact that on September 12-14, The Air Force’s “Blue Angels” aerial squadron, will perform over Baltimore City. It is in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of “The Battle Of Baltimore.” During which, The “Star Spangled Banner” was written!

It seems like Annie’s Junior Commando meeting about how to identify airplanes might have been more useful than I thought (although I don’t think she actually had that meeting). It was good of Emil to hand his binoculars to Tracy for the spotting. If Emil had looked himself, he might have thought the red colouring was strange.

Axel seems very calm on hearing Tracy’s assessment, but I really wonder what can be going through his mind. Assuming they are really in the present day, he has to be panicking inside. He has to know someone is on to him. It seems like it would be quite surprising that a B-17 would just happen to appear over restricted airspace in 2014.

Good morning to VistaBill and an excellent poetic synopsis, Pequod77.I agree… top-notch rendering of the plane in the upper right.My only disappointment… no time travel. Or is there still that possibility? What then was Diet Smith’s Blue Image project?

Neil, Axel is calm because he thinks that Tracy is still under the spell of that Belinda program. Also, the plane has the USAF’s star symbol on the side. We all know that planes do get off course once in a while.

Woo hoo! An all-red Flying Fortress! What a ride, Hotshot Charlie! I wonder if it’s armed and crewed? (An action-ready WW II B-17 had a crew of ten and was armed, besides bombs, with thirteen .50 caliber machine guns.) As some of you no doubt know, back when Tracy’s print home, the Chicago Tribune, was a major newspaper, its editor-publisher, Col. Robert R. McCormick, had a converted B-17 as his private plane in the post-WW II years.

So, it is a vintage ’40s plane, and everyone is cool with that. Well, alMOST everyone…

Great work, Pequod!

It seems to be quite a coincidence that Hotshot Charlie is flying a B-17 when the villagers are all living the fantasy that they are in 1944. Did Charlie or Warbucks know that the village has a 1944 theme? If Charlie had flown a modern plane, Axel would have been tipped off that something was amiss. Did Warbucks somehow figure out the 1944 thing, or is he just lucky?

Axel might still think something is amiss, just because there’s an unexpected plane flying over an island that nobody (except those working for or captured by Axel) ever visits.

Good morning DT fans. No doubt the B-17 crew are taking photos of everything.

Restraint / Taint? Maybe in Axelville! LOL!

Dang. I love the color but panel after panel in B/W would be sooooo Noir. P.Q.77. Sir once you sent me a link.Could I trouble that again from you?

I think that if Warbucks and the MCU wanted photos, they would have sent an electric drone. which makes no noise and wouldn’t have woken up Axel. I agree wholeheartedly that Axel must know something is up because he doesn’t believe that 1944 trance. Good point, avenger!

Hotshot Charlie must be an outstanding pilot, to fly a B-17 at night. The type was designed as a day bomber.

Unfortunately, 12 O’Clock High was just cancelled on MeTV.. I was so enjoying it. And it’s not on DVD

No, I didn’t read all the comments, so apologies in advance to those who may – and should – have noticed this before..This story is over..All hints of time travel have been totally dispelled. This is all a fake..Including Vitamin’s comments toward the beginning of this story..(Most) readers have already known what was going on all along. Now, all characters in the story know, as well..All suspense is gone..It’s just a matter of time to see how the good guys get the good guys off the island..The only mystery left, if there is one, is what Axel was doing on the island. Not to mention, where all the other people came from..A premise of Gould is that, eventually, the bad guys make enough mistakes that the good guys catch up to them. The bogus calendar, and other glaring errors, show that Axel is already making mistakes..Will the unexpected flyover cause him to make even more?.Perhaps the primary purpose of Tracy assuring Axel that “it’s one of ours” is to keep Axel thinking that “Officer Tracy” is still under the Belinda spell..Final note:.As a fan of old time radio, I admit to being a bit miffed that Curtis and Staton would parody an old time radio show as they have: Little Orphan Annie becomes Belinda and is perhaps the most sinister thing happening on this island!.More dangerous than television – from the fifties until today?

Morrow, hope I didn’t make you vomit! I saw your most recent profile! (I am that liberal that just slithered into the room!)

My father JR sr. was a B-25 Mitchell Bomber pilot during the 2nd W.W. There is a B-17 & a B-25 that comes to Morgantown West Virginia every year in the summer. When they fly over it is an awesome sound.

Is it possible the moon panel is a hint someone we know and love will appear soon?

Sailor Moon? That would really mess up Axel’s head!

Annie and the folks on Thunder Island are in a tight spot. Tracy improvises with aplomb. He knows a Hotshot, even from a distance. Good eye, Detective. Axel may think this is merely a hiccup, but I suspect Hotshot’s recon mission is the just beginning of Axel’s undoing. Wonderful art again, with the B-17 panel an especially fine piece of work. Caniff also liked to ink a little night flight action. I’ll wager that some of our aviation buffs can name these planes.

Even a sliver of moonlight can trigger thoughts of Mysta. What a co-pilot she’s be. Thanks to Gweedo, Morrow, Neil Wick, Jonathan K., T.R. Gunn, davidf42, JPuzzleWhiz, mzkdad and Chris Sherlock for the kind words. Much appreciated!

I agree, N-G. The story is far from over.We don’t know what Axel wants with Prof. Kenyon, and how it fits into a recreation of Simmons Corners. And the how and why everyone is acting like they believe it’s 1944, and the town’s incredible detail, right down to the inventory in Lum and Abner’s place (gosh, hope they aren’t Nazi spies, too). There’s a lot of story left.

You are right! I never thought of that! Google Earth ought to have some bang-up photos! Good thinking!

Also, it is inconsequential, but how did Tracy decide the B-17 was red. At night, and under such low lunar light, colors aren’t distinguishable.

Has anyone else noticed the barber pole? There were several comments weeks ago about the dark stripe in the B&W version was representing the red stripe and that the weekday colorist had missed it. Well, the real DT Sunday colorist has the pole blue, black, red and white.

Notice the guy in the next to last panel? He’s wearing a hat pulled down over his eyes. At night time?

We don’t know what Prof. Kenyon is working on or why this elaborate charade….True..My point is, at this point, wouldn’t be anti-climatic?.The point of this arc was to find Little Orphan Annie. Annie was found pretty much at the beginning. Then Richard was abducted – perhaps a poor choice of words, but it will do for now because Axel didn’t do the most logical thing – and that would have been to kill him..And clearly, Tracy was vulnerable for a period of time..Information on Annie and Tracy’s location were leaked to us, the readers. Now, it appears that it’s finally getting around to the MCU..Most of all, we (the readers) know that Vitamin was the red herring in this story – there was no time travel, at least for the main characters in the story..Though it could be argued that Dietrich (Smith) and Warbucks may have cooked something up..But that’s my point once again..Other than what Axel is covering up, there are no mysteries left in this story. And, if the point of the story was to find Little Orphan Annie, well, she’s been found..And all that’s left is to get Annie and Tracy off of the island.

Yep, that’s me! I don’t know who the guy in the hat is, though!

If you have or can get COZI TV, Antenna TV,THS, you can get old TV shows. And if anybody else is interested enjoy.

The EAA owns and flies a shiny B-17G named: “Aluminum Overcast”. I have flown on her once (but they would not let me “drive” . . . :-( . . . OK, no surprise there – “Regulations”.

My RVN Crew Chief is part of her intermittent crew. They do rotating 2-week tours during the annual city-visit tours.

I can tell you the B-17 is a young man’s airplane. The only place I could stand up straight was at the Waist-Guns and behind the Flight Deck, which one had to crawl under and through a hole to get to the Bombardiers nose seat.

An Airliner, it isn’t !

Again, my hat is off to the how-many-hundreds of men and women of the “Greatest Generation” who built, flew and maintained them and other like-type aircraft and helped save our freedoms in those days.

SG15

Gweedo, the fun is yet to come. My hobby is wild hog hunting and this one turned and charged me. I am having his head mounted to put in my office and I can hear my wife now – chasing both of us out of the house! I’ve got about 2 more months before I spring the news on her.

Neil, Team Tracy could meander this story out for the next six months or more. Or, they could “Sweatbox” it, as my good friend and sometimes critic tsull says. Either way, I wouldn’t be surprised. Either way, I’m standing by my statement that Axel isn’t buying the flyover as an innocent navigational error.

Look up to see Hotshot Charlie ‘neath a waning moon this night

Warbucks called in a favor owed for a daring recon flight.

Fritz Ann has set the record straight: fly-overs not allowed

Hotshot cool to others’ rules: will not be stopped or cowed.

Annie missing for many moons; Tracy’s fate unclear

Warbucks, Asp and Punjab wish to find what they hold dear.

Tess and the crew of MCU know to never count Tracy out

Courage and wiles, diverse combat styles, crime fighting what he’s about.

Panic in Simmons Corners! There’s an airplane causing dread

Tracy glasses the B-17, sees that it’s painted red.

Assuring Axel it’s flown off course, sends townsfolk back inside

Chuckles underneath his breath, “That’s how the Hotshot rides.

”Axel thinks the coast is clear, it was merely pilot error

Sneering to himself he plots escalation of his terror.

A devious mind, his conduct unkind, a villain without restraint

Axel will use, manipulate and abuse, upon his heart foul taint.