Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for July 15, 2010

“Lovely?”

And how, pray tell, would Johnny Nothing know all this?

I can’t argue with the logic, however. Who could ever think of a better way of launching oneself into fame and fortune than shooting somebody dead and then claiming it was an accident?

Worked wonders for Johannes Mehserle.

She would certainly be in the spotlight. Heck, she is anyway.

Leaky, if what you said on last night’s entry is correct:

“I realize that I am in the minorty here, but I find it rather remarkable that Mr. Locher has the verve to do this cartoon considering he has Parkinsons disease.”

Then I have a great deal of sympathy for him. My father died of complications from Parkinsons. It is a horrible way to go for an active person with an active mind. Anybody coping with Parkinsons has my respect and sympathy.

I am sorry for your loss my friend. :-((

If I had a face like that, I’d avoid the spotlight as much as possible!!

It was 10 years ago, but the memories of what he had to put up with still linger.

Flight Suit:

Johannes Mehserle? Shouldn’t you cut that poor guy some slack? After all, it’s so easy for a well-trained police officer to mistake a taser for his gun, especially with the suspect on his stomach. And it’s understandable that the other officers would want to confiscate the cell phones of BART passengers who recorded the event. And it’s also understandable that one officer used a racial slur towards the suspect before he was shot…

Ahh, but by whom, PP?

It’s been mentioned before about Locher dealing with Parkinson’s disease; someone had a link to an article. Also the topic of Locher’s age has also come up.

As I’ve said before, I personally have no ill will towards Dick Locher. I would never attack him for his age or health problems. I try to avoid ad hominem attacks.

But like they say, a work should speak for itself. It’s the work that I am commenting on. leakysqueaky712 is right when he says about Locher and this strip: “Maybe, just maybe, this is what keeps him going.” But that doesn’t change the opinion of many commenters here who find so many problems with DT.

It depends on how much of the artwork is his. With Parkinsons that could take up much of a day and leave little time for plot.

BTW Slim,

“Arlo and Janis” is pretty good tonight.

SmithRA;

I’m wondering if Tribune Media Services is being kind towards Dick Locher because of his Parkinsons. Maybe TMS signed a contract with Locher and it’s locked into that for a while. The cynical part of me thinks that TMS is getting talent on the cheap and those running the company believe this stuff is good enough for readers. Whatever the case may be, the strip still suffers. It might suffer to the point of cancellation like Annie.

While I sympathize for what Locher is going through, the fact remains that the work lately could be killing off a legacy strip.

Parkinson’s doesn’t explain why Tracy is consistently shown as a coward, a detective who rarely has a gun and then never when he really needs it, why the police are always shown as ineffective and semi-comatose even when a murder is happening right in front of them and so on and so on. That isn’t Parkinson’s talking, that’s contempt for police. When you get right down to it, the real problem is the writer’s desire to always display the police in the worst light possible.

Perhaps Locher’s extreme right-wing politics needs to be considered in explaining his destruction of the Tracy strip.

Yes, ‘killing the great Dick Tracy’ meant something once, but bumping off running-sniveling-hiding-whining Tracy is hardly a thing any self-respecting criminal would brag about

Wait a minute, I thought you’re the “Nothing”

How was this supposed to work? I’m sure that she could have “accidentally” bumped him off any time, though there would be serious questions about why she had a handgun loaded with real bullets. But once he’s hiding in the plane, and she’s up there having already killed one guy, she could have been famous for saving Dick’s life. But the pretense of an accidental shooting evaporated once Dick got himself stuck in the Stuka.

Michael and Anthony - you both took the words from me. I could not agree more. He may be so far out on the right wingtip, that he wants the police to look like The 3 Stooges to make a point. Maybe this is his way of protesting life today. Sadly, a lot of oldsters let bitterness take over.

So Anja Nu wanted to become famous by “accidentally” shooting Tracy? Sounds at least a little reasonable… until you look at the strip from July 3, in which she has shot Nothing off of the wing of the plane and is threatening Tracy. ”Now, before the crowd arrives… I get my sweet revenge, and we can pin it on the blank!:

http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2010/07/03

Nothing’s description of Anja’s motives sound nothing like revenge to me!

All she really needed to be happy was mouth surgery.

Lovely? In the 1st panel, her mouth resembles a mini-USB connector!

Lovely?

Great?

I don’t think politics or Parkinson’s has much to do with the quality of the strip

Given the above discussions, I have to wonder: can anybody point to an example of a comic strip story (not necessarily DT) with a coherent narrative, consistent characters and plot, created by DL? Given the very poor construction of the DT stories (inconsistent behavior of the characters, plots that require one or more characters to be clueless, constant changes in motivation and actions, etc.), I have to wonder if this is new, or if DL’s never been particularly good at telling coherent stories.

Concerning Locher’s Parkinson’s, compare his editorial cartoons to DT and you will see that the editorial cartoons are better drawn, consistent from day to day, and have some reality to the subject. If DT is supposed to be drawn by Brozman, even if Locher pencils it in, Brozman has to take some blame for the final result. Is he afraid to tell Locher that the museum and the plane changes from one panel to the next? Will Locher fire him? Doesn’t he know that this kind of trashy “artwork” will not help him land any future positions? I am an architect, so art is one of my loves. I would not want my name associated with such poor drawings.

SmithRA, Expressed some concern about Dick Locher coping with “Parkinsons” Here is an excerpt from his Interview on the issue :

Alan: “A couple of last questions. As far as Parkinsons . Is that something you are comfortable letting people know about.?”

Dick: “Oh, absolutely, I have to laugh about it”.

Alan: “How long have you known andhow long since you were?”

Dick: “Five years.”

Alan: “Oh really? And you’re still drawing though. Right?’

Dick: “It steadies when I go to the drawing board. It stops”

Alan: “That’s amazing. Because everything still looks as it always has.”

Dick: “Well I’m a lucky guy. Very Lucky.”

The complete interview might be available at the Daily Cartoonist site.

Regarding Locher wanting the cops to look bad…as a middle-right person myself, I have to say that we conservatives do not want that at all. We are generally on the side of law enforcement (sometimes to a fault, I’ll admit), and would not want police, FBI, military, or others who are charged with defending us with their lives, looking stupid.

Whatever age or health problems Locher has do not seem to impact his editorial cartooning…I’m not a big fan, but it is definitely much better than the work on this strip Remember, Locher was never supposed to be the writer here, he just took that chore on after TMS fired (very good writer) Max Collins, and (much cheaper but still competent writer) Mike Killian died. When he retired from drawing, TMS really ought to have brought in a new creative team to revitalize the strip (as King did with Prince Valiant some years back). Letting this exercise in sloppy mediocrity continue is just sad.

…or even, just brought in a better artist. To be fair, I can’t imagine Jim Brozman is being paid enough to take much time, and he seems to be stuck following Locher’s style. But the number of continuity errors, repeated compositions, anatomical oddities, and eternally repeated exterior shots do nothing to make this strip more enjoyable.

I agree wholeheartily jumbobrain. The Prince Valiant panels are so well drawn, following the Hal Foster legacy. I still can’t imagine any artist allowing this kind of juvenile work to have his name attached to it. If Brozman is being paid so little, why doesn’t he just walk away? No amount would justify this work. I’ve said this all along, he doesn’t have to follow poorly drawn penciled work. Locker’s editorial work is not this sloppy. What is the real deal? Who is really at fault, other than TMS?

Repeated Scenes have shown up many times in Brenda Starr also.

Fusnr commented on the repeated scenes in Brenda Starr. If you compare all of the panels, most of them are repeats. It seems that they draw some good panels, then recycle them over and over. Some are slight modifications. But they at least don’t have the cabins expanding, then compacting, then changing their looks. As far as their story line, that’s another discussion.

I wonder who the speaker of the house is gonna be, since Nancy is gone.

I’ve decided to cut Locher some slack. I stopped at the convenience store on the way home and got a gallon of Mad Dog (MD 20-20). As the level dropped over the course of the evening, Anja got better ‘n better looking. Now, I’m 2 inches from the bottom (of the jug) and 6 inches from the bottom of the room. I’m here to tell you, she’s a hottie! Matter-of-fact, I’m gonna get one of those inflatable dolls and paste up a pic of her face on it and be the envy of every guy on the street as we go out for a drive! Woo-hoo!

while i respect locher and how he has to deal with parkinson’s, i’ve got epilepsy and diabetes that i didn’t get treated until age 35 due to my mother’s way of bringing me up

that said - i know i sing badly and will not force others to listen

i love the comments gould was gold - this is not as good as brass