Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for December 07, 2014

Onstage, Agate Aggie makes a grim discoveryOpening the window seat reveals the dead bodyOf Otis, the late janitor, no longer drawing breathTried to blackmail Gruesome who rewarded him with death.Trapped here in utter darkness, backstage at PattersonSam had the drop on Gruesome: his hand it held the gun.Yet Gruesome is a criminal of shocking strength and speedBefore Sam knew what hit him the fiend had done the deed.Gruesome most disarming, took the Wizard off Sam’s wristCatchem let him slip the hook, apprehension with a twist.Catchem stunned to be subdued, stuffed inside a trunkRecriminations now won’t help, nor brooding in a funk.Sam’s colleagues they depend on him to have their backs and moreMustering strength of a dozen men, he flexes with a roar.Knows Dick and Lizz are now at risk, exposed to vile attackBursts through confines of the trunk, ready to fight back.

WAY TO GO, SAM!

Good morning everyone…

Another winner, Pequod77!

And, way to go, Pequod77!

Featuring Sam in his breakthrough performance.

Looks more like “Kill Bill” to me.

Go, Sam, GO!

Catchem SMASH! Now, Tracy and Sam will be attempting to apprehend Gruesome, from two sides. And Lizz is out back, in reserve (and Tess may provide backup in the house, too). But Christopher Gruesome Cushing still commands the stage, and has several potential hostages/victims ready-to-hand. Who will live, who may die?

Don’t make Sam angry, you wouldn’t like himcwhen he’s angry.

I love it! In my personal opinion, what this story lacks in action, it more than makes up for in literary richness. First of all, thanks so much to Pequod for your wonderful poetic summary of recent plot developments, and now onto my analysis of today’s strip and its literary references.

We’ll start with the introductory narration at the beginning, which is a reference to the famous lines from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet

“The play’s the thingWherein I’’ll catch the conscience of the King.”

Hamlet is perhaps the most famous example of the play-within-a-play or story within-a-story format that the present Dick Tracy story is following. In the play, Prince Hamlet stages a play about killing a king so that he can watch the reaction of his uncle, the current king, who he suspects of killing Hamlet’s father.

The lines spoken by Gruesome in the first panel refer to the action in Arsenic and Old Lace wherein men are murdered, kept in the window seat temporarily and eventually buried in the cellar by Teddy. Teddy (played by Vitamin Flintheart) believes that he is Teddy Roosevelt and is digging the Panama Canal in the basement.

Whenever a man gets killed, Teddy is told that he died from yellow fever (as many canal workers in Panama did), and the body needs to be buried in the cellar. Thus, in the play, all the bodies eventually end up buried in the cellar, so the same method of disposal should work in real life. The audience won’t be at all surprised if Teddy picks up the body and takes it away, because something similar is expected to happen in the play.

Sam is in a trunk hidden away behind some old scenery flats where he wouldn’t be obvious to anyone looking for him, but he gathers his strength and breaks free, paraphrasing some lines from the 1966 TV Christmas special Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

And what happened, then? Well, in Whoville they saythat the Grinch’s small heart grew three sizes that day.And then – the true meaning of Christmas came through,and the Grinch found the strength of ten Grinches, plus two

This is depicted in the animation as the Grinch’s “two sizes two small” heart bursting out of the frame of the magnifying glass that lets us see it, in much the same way that Sam is bursting out of the crate in today’s strip. Here is the clip. Skip forward to about 40 seconds if you don’t want to watch the whole one minute:

The significance of this quote from The Grinch to the present story is that the narration (and the voice of the Grinch) in the Christmas special was done by Boris Karloff, who Gruesome now resembles and who Gruesome’s character in the play also resembles.

Give ’em hell Sam-u-el!

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer TV special. All the voices were recorded in a studio in Toronto, Canada in 1964. The stop-motion animation was done in Japan. I never lose a chance to mention Canada’s contributions to popular culture.

That hit was followed the year after that by A Charlie Brown Christmas and the next year was Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas completing the three big early Christmas classics on TV.

Sam’s line in the last panel about “ten Catchems, plus two” was paraphrased specifically from the TV special and didn’t appear in the book.

Karloff received a Grammy Award for “Best Recording For Children” for the audio version of The Grinch. Karloff did all the narration for the special, but the song, “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” was recorded by Thurl Ravenscroft (voice of Tony the Tiger) who didn’t receive credit. June Foray, the voice of Cindy-Lou Who, is 97 years old and is still doing voice work.

One more thing for now: that Grammy Award was the only major performing award that Karloff ever won, although he does have two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (one for movies and one for TV).

Morning, Tracyville!Great job, Pequod! Always good to see a recap of the previous week in verse, and you always reward us with such excellent work!

Good morning to all my friends. Excellent comments all. Another winner Pequod. Y’all have a blessed day my friends.

I guess Gruesome is a method actor and ‘become’ Jonathan; he’s so wrapped up in the part, he stayed when he should have taken off after locking Sam in that trunk.Tracy and Stanislavski would approve.

Nice connection between The Grinch voice over and the actors on stage. Neil!

Cue the Fleischer Superman theme! :D

With every panel Tracy,Gruesome, Sam and Tess have light and shadow as it were a film being watched,Go Go Team Tracy.

Do appreciate and respect Neil’s (and that of others) admiration, his/ their likely Acclaim and Applause for the stories - reach, and connection to Literary Richness !

Neil too, kindly reminded, of Shakespeare’s famous lines from Hamlet*. . .*

(i.e) “The Play’s the thingWherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King”

And as we read on today, Sam’s “struggles” - suggest he may soon be FREE, and for readers - a necessary “step back” into the reality, (feet on the ground) - in the current (2014) world of DICK TRACY, right there in the Patterson Playhouse ?

And as Mr. Catchem - “pulls himself” together to face REALITY (perhaps those words - above - from William S, ring in his Ears) - and, as he reaches forward … with the Handcuffs, might it not be appropriate for the following further thought, to quietly cross his mind ?

*" Yet Murder, that’s the Sin,And here, the face of culprit Gruesome lies within …

. . . Duty – that’s my thing "*

Perhaps colloquial, but aside from rhyming, it seems entirely germane from Sam’s perspective

“You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry!”Sam CatchemThe GrinchThe Incredible HulkThey all look good in green.

Nice to see Sam get a bit of the “hero” treatment for a change!

Nice to see Sam hasn’t lost his hat. I’b beginning to suspect it’s glued on or an alien symbiote ;)

“The secret compartment of my smokes pack I fill with a Catchem Super Energy Pill…” (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

Actually, the trunk is a leftover prop from the Popeye arc we all witnessed. Sam found a can of spinach and that, boys and girls, is what happened!

Excellent recap, PQ. Every time Mike & Joe try to get a little tricky, you straighten them out! Thanks!

“Pow”

Never a good idea to underestimate Sam Catchem. Gruesome briefly had the upper hand, but Sam has more heart than the Grinch on Christmas morning. Tracy has been able to count on Sam in countless jams since before Tracy and Tess were wed.

Kudos to Neil Wick for the excellent posts. While How the Grinch Stole Christmas indeed boasts the wonderful narration of Boris Karloff, I can’t let the reference to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) pass without a shout out to the very talented Burl Ives, whose narration and tunes are essential elements of this high caliber holiday fare. Add Scrooge (1951) with Alastair Sim, and you have the holy trinity of essential holiday viewing. .Just as we caught a glimpse of Vitamin as King Lear last year, the nod to Hamlet is duly noted. Great use of the on-stage panel. Aggie looks stunned at what she has seen, while Vitamin holds his bugle at the ready, fingers poised. What a trooper. After playing Lear, the role of Teddy is a walk in the park…make that a charge up the stairs. We shift to the audience, as Tracy springs into action. Knowing the cast is way off script, Tracy plans a rewrite of his own. I like the way Sam thinks outside of the box. The shift to his predicament backstage sets the stage for a showdown with Gruesome, who is certainly a cool customer. .Thanks to VistaBill, cpalmeresq, Gweedo, Night-Gaunt49, Neil Wick, davidf42, Starman1948, Jonathan K., Morrow, mzkdad and Ray Toler for the kind words. Very much appreciated!

Tracy must be thinking “Thanks honey. I’m certainly glad one of us is always ready for action”. By the way, is this Sam’s version of “Hulking Up”?

Hello everyone!Rookie poster here, but have been reading the posts here in GoComics since stumbling into the site about a year ago.

Haven’t been a fan of Dick Tracy myself, but since reading the online comic for a year, I have enjoyed the storylines, the pacing, and wonderful artwork.

I also enjoyed reading the forum, the insight and knowledge of other posters, and the witty banter. Many of you amaze me of your comics’ knowledge, and others, you make me laugh.

I have particularly enjoyed the poetic recaps of Pequod77—it always had amazed me how quickly he can come up with such witty prose! Keep it up and much thanks, Pequod!

The parallels in this arc has intrigued me and I hope to see “Arsenic and Old Lace” sometime soon. Thanks to all of your input of the matter.

Hokey smokes indeed! June Foray is still with us and STILL doing voice work! Bless her heart!

Glad to see some attention to today’s date, the “day that will live infamy.”My father was one of many teenagers who lied about their age to join the service during the war, and was part of the invasion of Normandy.--I read some time ago that US intelligence knew when the Japanese fleet had sailed, and thought it may be heading to attack Midway Island, which had a small US garrison, and was completely dependent upon outside supplies for everything (including drinking water).Figuring the fleet’s speed, intelligence knew when it would reach Midway. When no attack came, the next likely target was Pearl Harbor.A warning was sent to Pearl, but the Army commander there disregarded it. Instead, Army aircraft were pulled from their hangers and lined up on Hickam Field, wingtip to wingtip. (My guess is to show his contempt for the warning.)The Navy didn’t think an attack likely, but – just in case – had the carriers moved out of the harbor.The precaution spared the carriers.The Army couldn’t launch a single plane. Their commander was Douglas MacArthur.

In my youth I wanted to do animation. I have always been a fan of animation and today’s subjects leave me with so many things to say. June Foray is to female cartoon roles as Mel Blanc was to the male ones. If you don’t know who Mel Blanc is please look it up, you can feel like an idiot later.

Of course this means that I have become increasingly aware of Japanese animation (never would have guessed from my avatar). Today’s discussion has made me think of two animated feature films I want to recommend to anyone who may be interested.

The first is what has become an instant Christmas classic in our household, Tokyo Godfathers. If you have time I highly recommend watching this movie by the late Satoshi Kon. All of his movies were great, but this is my favorite. Be prepared for an emotional roller-coaster ride, of the type Kon was famous for.

The second film is one from the Walt Disney of Japan Hayao Miyazaki. All of the films that have come from Studio Ghibli are must see movies. That is pretty much the way of it for this animation powerhouse that even has an academy award winning film in the US, Spirited Away. That is not the film I wanted to mention though. The talk of the attack on Pearl Harbor made me think of this film. Miyazaki has always had a fascination with aircraft, you can see many fanciful creations in his movies, all of it brought about by his youth. His father was director of Miyazaki Airplane, which made rudders for A6M Zero fighter planes during World War II. The last film Hayao Miyazaki directed for Studio Ghibli, and said to be the last film he will direct he is retiring, for real this time, was The Wind Rises a fictionalized biopic of Jiro Horikoshi (1903–1982), designer of the Mitsubishi A5M fighter aircraft and its successor, the Mitsubishi A6M Zero. I think the most memorable part of the film is at the very end when he is standing in his dream landscape surrounded by the wreckage of countless Zero fighters and says to Caproni, “Not a single plane returned.” Of the 10,939 aircraft built, there are only 4 zero aircraft with flyable airframes, and only one of those has an original engine. Most of the Zero planes you see in war movies and TV shows are single-seat North American T-6 Texans, with heavily modified fuselages and painted in Japanese markings, because there were no real Zeros left to use.

Due to all the “iron block” type border tactics I no longer hit the Canadian/Canadien shield.

Technically, Americans can come to Canada without a passport, but in practical terms they can’t because the U.S. requires passports for them to return to the U.S. now, so Americans have to have them to enter Canada so they don’t get stranded.

Wheels within wheels so-to-speak. Layers upon layers! This is the best one yet in my opinion.

If there were deficiencies in the Annie story, I think this more than makes up for it.

The first showing of “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” was a little different from the next and following version. One scene was changed after the first run.

I wonder if if the the original ending is available on DVD. I’d be interested in seeing it. I don’t have that DVD.

It’s unfortunate and hasn’t been easy for the Canadian tourism industry either. There is actually a “passport card” available for Americans to do land crossings and it’s half the price of an actual passport book, but it’s still a deterrent.

Your forgetting today marks the 45 anniversary of Frosty the Snowman.

We can’t forget Frosty although that one came three years after the three I mentioned. I also featured June Foray doing many voices, though her spoken parts for the main character were inexplicably dubbed over by another woman’s voice in 1970. Even June doesn’t know why.

Onstage, Agate Aggie makes a grim discovery

Opening the window seat reveals the dead body

Of Otis, the late janitor, no longer drawing breath

Tried to blackmail Gruesome who rewarded him with death.

Trapped here in utter darkness, backstage at Patterson

Sam had the drop on Gruesome: his hand it held the gun.

Yet Gruesome is a criminal of shocking strength and speed

Before Sam knew what hit him the fiend had done the deed.

Gruesome most disarming, took the Wizard off Sam’s wrist

Catchem let him slip the hook, apprehension with a twist.

Catchem stunned to be subdued, stuffed inside a trunk

Recriminations now won’t help, nor brooding in a funk.

Sam’s colleagues they depend on him to have their backs and more

Mustering strength of a dozen men, he flexes with a roar.

Knows Dick and Lizz are now at risk, exposed to vile attack

Bursts through confines of the trunk, ready to fight back.