Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for January 27, 2015

Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance …

Interesting twisty!

… because DICK TRACY went up on-time today!

…unless Kandi mentions here Vitamin Flinheart connection!

Good morning guys!

I stayed up and now I’m hungry. Popcorn?

The noose tightens …

Bad enough the Nitrates are scamming a co-worker of their previous mark, but involving Vitamin’s girlfriend, too?

Plus, Aggie has ties of her own to Dick Tracy via Gravel Gertie.

Not smart.

Good Morning, VistaBill …

That isn’t real butter, Gweedo. Who knows what chemicals are in it? Sprocket and Nitrate probably have iron stomachs.

Where did Sprocket find that broom? She’s stirring up a lot of dust while Nitrate wolfs down his popcorn and smokes a cigarette at the same time!

The Nitrate plot has been running off-and-on since at least the Gruesome story – with considerable overlap – as have the B.B. Eyes/Blackhearts interludes.

Been awhile since we checked in with Mysta, so I expect she and Diet Smith are about due for an appearance as well.

On TV Soap Operas with large casts, if characters are off-camera for too long, they tend to get written out.

Can’t have that.

The way things are being weaved right now, the summer arc should be nothing short of epic.

Speaking of soaps, the Patterson Playhouse explosion reminded me of this …

a girl “with the right equipment” has all she needs to get what she wants

I have never smoked so I really don’t know but is it possible to hold a box of popcorn in one hand, toss popcorn towards your mouth with the other hand while having a lite cigarette between your teeth? Just asking!

Bye the way, Silver’s box of popcorn somehow lost it’s flaps between panels two and three.

Vitamin thinks Kandy Kane has the right equipment. :D

The Nitrates want to use Kandikane Lane? I wonder if she’ll end up like the last actor they hired. If she mentions them to Vitamin, I believe HE’LL remember them…

Good Morning VB et al…

Silver nitrate is used to produce photographic film, and explosives. Silver the villain also has silver hair.

What is the connection with the word Sprocket? Is she a tech wiz/ is a sprocket a part of photography?

Ah dang it.. looks like Kandikane Lane is still gonna be around. I was hoping she would have rode off into the sunset by now.

And I can juggle popcorn with one hand.

Morning, Tracyville!

These are two of the dumbest crooks Tracy has ever faced. First, they’re trying to pull the same scam they tried before in the same city. Second, they’re trying to scam an associate of their first victim. And third, they want to hire their first victim’s girlfriend! What they should do before they get started is just a little research first!

Sprockets are the hooks on the wheels that line up with the perforations in the film that allow it to turn. When loading a 35 mm film camera you have to line up the sprockets with the holes.

I didn’t know this camera existed until now: http://sprocket-hole-photography.com/

Good morning my friends. Good comments all.

@AnyFace: keep those funny videos coming!

Have an awesome day y’all.

Now, maybe we’re getting somewhere, as threads start to interweave. Silver seems blissfully ignorant of just who Kandikane Lane really is, and Sprocket didn’t even hear her name correctly (instead, calling her “Kandi Kane”). So, Agate Aggie , Kandikane and her inseparable adjunct Vitamin Flintheart, the Nitrates, and the MCU are heading for a face-to-face, and we could also get Stiletta into the scene. What a glorious brawl it could become!

OK. Nitpick time (but what else do you do, Frank Black doll icon?). What exactly is Kandikane’s independent filmmaker status? She has “people” who book her work. That sounds like agency representation. But I believe in the past we’ve seen her under contract of some sorts w/ a studio a.k.a. the studio that commissioned Vitamin’s documentary.

And it’s also been established that Kandikane’s an up-and-coming documentary filmmaker. Which is not exactly studio work. Feature doc funding is precarious, to say the least. Unless it’s PBS or NEA funded work ie. Steve James HOOP DREAMS or crowdsourced ie. Steve James LIFE ITSELF, the Roger Ebert doc. Studio work would probably be more sensationalized cable, VOD fodder along the lines of reality TV or puff-piece shorter form programming like True Hollywood Stories.

The latter scenario I could see for Vitamin. He’s had a colorful life w/ all his Tracy adventures but as a serious actor, he’s hardly A-list. So I could see E! Entertainment or somesuch cable channel procuring young, cheap in-house talent to produce & direct such a program. But this is a far far far cry from more DIY indie filmmaking.

As for the film gear angle…if the Nitrates are trying to re-create an old commercial, then I’m sure said commercial was shot on either 16mm or 35mm bona fide film. Not digital.And as this old coffee commercial featured Gravel Gertie’s sister, I’d say the lady’s been on God’s green earth for several decades. So we’re talking old, bulky, heavy-duty cameras (in 90’s film school, I was still being “learned” on such clunkers as the Arriflex S 16mm & that was one of the more portable models).

So for a current, up-and-coming doc filmmaker to have this type of antiquated equipment…I don’t buy it. Kandikane would be shooting digital. It’s lightweight & you can shoot puh-lenty of real time footage. Joe drew something along these lines for the Arsenic & Old Lace rehearsal sequences, in which Kandikane was shooting footage of Vitamin in the seats.

If the Nitrates were trying to get their hands on older equipment & shoot on film, then their best bet would be to go thru a camera rental house. I’m sure they could rent under an alibi or illicitly acquired credit card so the rental order wouldn’t be traced back to them.

So there you have it. I don’t buy Kandikane as an indie filmmaker & I don’t buy she has old 16mm or even 35mm equipment in her possession.

Wonder if Sprocket has a friend named Doc …

Oh man, what a cheap double entendre: “If she has all the right equipment…”

And the beat goes on..

Syd, I checked out the original Posie Ermine story (July 1968-November 1968) and have found that Glenna was referred to by both her real name and the nickname Mindy.

So Posie Ermine may have had another daughter but Mindy and Glenna are the same person.

Well now I’ve seen just about everything! I’ve got to give my Tracyville stalker kudos for the chutzpa he’s showing. It’s truly amazing that he thanks and praises the new poster who’s been inundating us with countless posts containing gifs and youtube videos but the moment I post even the tiniest animated gif he gets on his soapbox, ranting about how selfish I am. It takes an extraordinary amount of scrambled eggs to be so blatantly hypocritical with a straight face!

Oh look, here’s a picture of him talking about me yet again!

I missed sister Margo’s connection entirely. Didn’t realize she owned the film production company. Only strip I remember referencing Margo was the one w/ Kandykane lying on the bed, chatting “boy talk” on the phone.

Ha! Serendipity! Just saw this IndieWire article on “Best of Enemies” doc playing Sundance. Showed up in my Facebook feed w/ the following director quote— “It’s not easy to raise money for a documentary about rich white guys.” I’d apply this real-world scenario to Vitamin’s doc (if he is indeed successful & affluent w/ his various ventures)—http://www.indiewire.com/article/20-feet-from-stardom-director-morgan-neville-returns-to-sundance-with-best-of-enemies-20150123?utm_campaign=Indiewire&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_content=1422058541

Sprockets sure are unlucky…..I mean, how many people live in that county – only 20 or 30? It’s amazing how everybody is connected to everybody there somehow, lol.

Mr. C, interesting that you comment about my posts YET don’t dispute the content of them! You Texas cowboys always ride side saddle! Who’s Sparkydog77???

Silver seems to have gone from being apparently happy in the second panel to apparently not being so happy in the third panel. Wonder what happened?