Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for May 20, 2010

Much more action and suspense will stop my heart! Who is that woman? Charlie Brown must have entered: “Good grief.”

“Good grief” says it all….

“Good Grief” Suddenly I have the urge to look for Snoopy… “Curse you Red Baron!”

Action and suspense? Where? From what I’ve seen of this strip, all the action and suspense has been extracted, sucked dry before the words and images hit the page.

Does anyone else miss Moon Maid? There’s just something about a woman with giraffe horns on her forehead discharging electricity…

There we go with the arms again.

For this strip, we should coin a new term:

“Bad grief.”

how do I change my password

how do I change my password

Bigg1666, just e-mail me your password and I’ll change it for you. I’ll also need your social security number.

The artist is using one panel over and over. Constantly. In this and other stories. It’s like being in school and forced to write a 3 page book report. And using double or triple spacing to do as little work as possible.

I miss Mattie………. (sigh). At least he kept the interest going.

What more could you ask for as far as action and suspense? We have the flying scarf.

The action and suspense part I missed. Are we still in the same comic strip?

LOL@Flight Suit.

“Good grief.” For once, a remark we can agree with.

Oh, now I see! Locher has rewritten Gould’s story to have moooooooore action and suspense. Riiiiiiiiiiiiight.

As we all know, Locher’s idea of suspense to have nothing interesting happening for weeks on end, thus keeping the reader in suspense as to when something will happen, if ever. But … what is Locher’s idea of action? I suspect he got that from George Orwell: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH – now BOREDOM IS ACTION?

-Cougar :{)

CRIME …. “CHASE” …. and …. CAPTURE !

That was the simple track that all Gould’s stories followed.

Early **crime (usually in first 72 daily panels)

Chase (hunter) sequence with a miriad of variations which consumed aprox. 70 percent of story … and

Capture of death

Max Collins followed Gould in using this formula. The next writer Mike Kilian (from mid 1993) dropped the CHASE sequence, on his death late 2005 Locher the Artist commenced the writing and followed Kilian’s style.

RESULT: Modern stories are “afflicted” with several dull, “Drawn out - GAPS”, seasoned with verbal REPETITION and little discernable story MOVEMENT !

We are in one of those gaps NOW (every ‘modern’ story carries this FLAW) … slow pacing and the writer despite his unique association, simply never “got it”, or is distraced by his Editorial Cartoons to realize what blights the strip.

He worked with both Gould and Collins, he picked up some ideas on the ART side but learned little in other the areas where it counted (artistic “attention deficit disorder”?)

Locher will be age 81 in early June and his “contract” on Tracy expires this year end.

TMS would be well advised to use Jay Maeder, now out of a job as they are closing down Annie. Maeder wrote the Official Biography of Dick Tracy, and knows the strip and it’s original style as good as anyone around.

Brozman needs to get a pink slip, and TMS needs to focus on getting the DT future in order … or it will go the way of Annie soon.

And that would be a great SHAME for a great property.

Tracy’s looking a bit swishy in the first panel with that hand up on his hip and the little pout! Perhaps he can be renamed Donna Prima as his stage name? :)

I cannot believe it. Can it be that after all of this time rehearsing, Tracy has FINALLY read the script?

Anja Nu’s arms are getting longer! It’s probably because she has to reach up to the top of the museum wall to pull herself up to the stairway.

LONGER ? Yes ! Now I’m begining to understand why Nancy Pelosi (panel 3) likes her arms stretched out, she is in a ‘rehersal mode’ to try FLYING up, and over, those difficult Brozman steps to the Science Museum.

Went to the local library and found a couple of old books about Dick Tracy’s comic strips from the 30s and 40s, and boy it was great!! Villians like the Brow, Mumbles, The Mole, Flattop, Vitamin Flintheart, 88 Keys, and others.

morrow, I appreciate the sentiment, it’s always good to have a Locher drum to beat on ;-)

Silly Kitty…Vitamin Flintheart wasn’t a villian! Although I think he did kill someone. He was a great character though. Very edgy. Compared to him, Liberace looked straight.

Y’know, if Locher and/or Brozman had any brains, Flintheart would be in this story!

Creative license CAN be a good thing…but I’m thinking in this case…no. Sigh.

Creative license CAN be a good thing…but I’m thinking in this case…no. Sigh.

If any human alive uses the word “transpired” in daily conversation, I’d like to meet him.

Mostly to laugh at him.

As Dick Tracy takes a closer look at Anja Nu, he remarks… “Good Grief”:…