Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for April 16, 2016

I can’t wait to see where this is going (and what it has to due with Notta, Blaze, Putty Puss, etc..)!

.Good morning guys!

Matty is disoriented by the modern world, but he knows that Bribery needs him for something. I think this is just a preview of preparation underway by Bribery for an upcoming storyline and this may have nothing to do the Notta, Blaze, or Putty Puss.

Bribery had better watch his step….I’m thinking this computerized Matty may blow a few circuits if it ever figures out exactly what’s going on.

Culture shock will abound if/when Matt you finds MM dead and the moon people gone. As for what he’s needed to do I’d suggest he’s there to virtually rob the banks while putty puss tries to ruin Tracys rep. All they need is to have the real detective grabbed.

Gweedo suggested,Matty will feel better once the tubes reach full operating temperature.-——————————————————————-.There’s static in the air! Pleased that you are up and running, Gweedo. Computer woes take a lot out of a person.

My first Saturday “State of the DT World” report:

I have finally completed my “plot map” for the story just completed. I’m giving a shortened version of it just below this paragraph, but I recommend you check out the fuller version (with very fancy formatting) at my new site http://dt.canadatoyou.com. I haven’t got the legend all written up, but quickly, red is for bad guys, blue is for good guys, grey is both together and the circled numbers can be clicked to see each strip on GoComics. My first report on the current story will be “soon.”

The Three Detectives (Specs and Spicy)

December 26, 2015 to April 6, 2016 (105 days)

Act 1: The Headaches are Getting Worse

The first act introduces the main villains, X-Ray Specs and Spicy Condiment, and Tracy’s two collaborators, Francisco Wunbrow and Porfiry Ivanov. Specs’ quest to relieve his migraines becomes a quest for riches once he discovers glasses with a remarkable ability. (15 days)

EXPOSITION/INTRODUCTIONIntroduction to Specs and SpicyIntroduction to Ivanov and WunbrowExperimental glasses fix Specs’ headaches but he can also see through solid objects!Specs tells Spicy, “It will make us rich!”

INCITING ACTIONHis headaches gone, he has a new goal: making money using the glasses.

Act 2: Spicy’s quest to “be their own boss”

Spicy thinks that their good situation would be better if they set out on their own. They could get rich even faster and nobody would push them around. Act 2 mainly follows the point of view of Specs and Spicy, except for a stop at the detectives conference. (14 days)

Act 3: The police respond to stop the crimes

The three detectives form a team to stop Specs’ crime wave in its track before it spreads to Cuba. Act 3 is mainly concerned with the point of view of the detectives. (21 days)

Act 4: Find the criminals/Stop the detectives

In Act 4, scenes bounce back and forth between Tracy’s viewpoint and the viewpoint of our main villains, Specs and Spicy. The goal of the detectives is to track down Specs and Spicy. The goal of Specs and Spicy (following Mendoza’s plan) is to kill the detectives so they can continue with their plan to get rich. (23 days)

FALSE CLIMAXAll appears hopeless for the detectives. It appears that Wunbrow and Ivanov have been killed, Tracy is about to be killed, and Specs and Spicy have triumphed.

Act 5: Kiko’s Revenge/The Casino Job

In the final act, the detectives are again separated from Specs and Spicy, so we alternate between the two viewpoints again until they come together again in the climax and everything is resolved. (30 days, including 7 days for Mole’s wedding)

CLIMAXThe safecracker sees wire and dynamite through the opening into the safe. Seconds later, the casino explodes. Specs and Spicy have failed in their quest to become independently rich.

FALLING ACTION/DENOUEMENTThe three detectives arrive at the casino

RESOLUTIONIvanov reveals the X-ray specs hidden in his bandages. The stolen glasses are recovered. Diet understands Specs’ migraine condition and has ordered new glasses without the X-ray ability. Specs’ quest to solve his constant migraines (which started the plot in motion) is now permanently solved!

I’m off to bed. I have a brunch get-together in the morning, but I’ll be interested to see any comments you have on my story map tomorrow.

Okay I went to the website, which I should’ve checked out before I asked my question as you put in more detail there and clearly label it as an aside as you did other events that were not directly related to the main story. I appreciated the dates being used in relation to the action described as that makes for quick and easy cross referencing for any future research. Again, thank you for the amount of time and work you have put into this.

Sounds as if Bribery is going to have his old pal rob a few virtual banks.

… for starters.

Matty looks fuzzySo his actions are as wellProblem on the moon?No Bribery is very clearBanking for now only job

Banking business…Okay!!

Gweedo made me curious,I tried a cleaner free trial program-——————————————————————————.**Trial of what, Gweedo? A new operating system? A “cleaner” (like C_Cleaner: https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download)? I hope you are not considering using a “registry cleaner”! (I personally do not like registry cleaners).

Matty² is clearly moon-minded.

Perhaps Cyber Matty will be used electronically to loot bank accounts online.

Good work, Neil.Matty asks good questions.“Is Moon Maid knocking off [Bribery’s] gunmen?”No. But Mysta disarmed his pilot, disabled his helicopter and put a zap on T-Bolt, understandably believing her to be his bodyguard.“Is the Moon Governor up to no good?”Curious minds want to know the location and deeds of the Governor. I speculate that he is unsettled, sensing that his daughter’s DNA is decidedly active.

Matty may be sent to tamper with Tracy’s bank account, to make it seem he’s been taking payoffs for years. This could all be part of Notta’s plan.By letting people see her temporary tattoos, it would establish a timeframe when the video would have been shot. Even though Tracy has a solid alibi of being in Cuba, some people will still insist that it was all faked (by Diet Smith or Oliver Warbucks) to protect him.Tracy is going to be in deep trouble, if my hunches are right.

@Mike Curtis

Does TMS (or I guess now Tribune Content Agency) have complete archives of past strips back to the beginning? If not, how far back were you able to read when you took over the strip?

Thank you, they are called tankas, similar to Haiku but allow me a little more depth. I recently started this style and enjoy, glad that you do as well.

First off, thank you Neil Wick for that insightful map of the previous story. Thank you also for your compliments the other day on my survey of every Curtis story where no deaths occurred.Some here have expressed a wish to continue an analysis of stories where Wichert’s Dick Tracy Encyclopedia left off. As it happens, I have made notes on the complete post-Gould stories in this strip. I could post my notes here if anyone’s interested. I think I’ll start where the Archives in this GoComics site starts in April 2001, if people want me to put this up.

My question is whether the Matty Squared story is related to Notta’s scheme, or is this is a setup for a future story?

By popular demand, here are my notes of the stories you can find on the GoComics archive. My notes are fairly simple. Just my name for the story (usually the name of the main villain or villains, unless they just aren’t the emphasis) followed by the dates the story began and ended. If someone was the main villain for more than one story, I add a “II” and so on to emphasize this. If more than one villain from a past story are in the same story committing major crimes, I include them altogether. Finally, for the two cases of more than one villain with the same name (Chameleon, Mr. Crime) I add, “The Second” in front of their names.I’ll be doing three posts on this, one for each writer. At the start of the GoComics archive, the writer was the late Mike Kilian. Personally, I like his work on Tracy and think he’s very underrated. At the very least, he knew how to tell a story in the daily strip format where every day, something happens that moves the story along, a quality his successor sorely lacked. I recommend anyone here who hasn’t read these stories to check them out.2001The Airplane Murder Mystery (March 29-June 20)The earliest strip on GoComics is Sunday, April 8, 2001. GC then skips a week to the next Sunday, April 15, then skips the next couple of days to Wednesday, April 18. Sadly, this means GC doesn’t have every strip from this first story. Happily, GC has every strip from Tracy from 4/18/01 to the present.The Mistress of Death (June 21-September 13)Snails (September 14-December 5)A Detective, 2 Gunmen, and a Kitty (December 6, 2001-January 13,2002)G. R. Eed (January 14-February 24)Pinhead (February 25-April 26)Percy Brillig (April 27-June 27)Heartless Mahoney II (June 28-August 23)Hawk (August 24-October 16)The Abduction of Tracy’s Granddaughter (October 17-December 15)I believe this is where Junior and Sparkle’s daughter (initially named Sparkle Plenty Junior) was renamed Jewel.The Second Chameleon (December 16, 2002-February 7,2003)The Revenge of Hard Case Harry? (February 8-May 3)Hard Case Harry was a bitter ex-con who served time for a crime he didn’t commit. In an earlier story, he initially sought revenge on Tracy, but got a chance to reform. Here, he and a family go missing, and Tracy’s left to wonder if he’s decided to become a criminal after all. This leads to reprinting the entire original Hard Case Harry story that ran from December 13, 1993-January 23, 1994, before this second HCH case is solved.Hawk II (May 4-July 2)The Filligree Murder Case (July 3-September 22)Dr. Beau Tox, Heartless, Mahoney, Prune Hilda, Dab Stract, & No Face (September 29-December 18)All of the above villains were recurring villains except for Dr. Tox, the main villain. By the end, Prune Hilda is killed, Mahoney and Stract testify against Tox in exchange for freedom, but despite their testimony, Tox is acquitted. So Tox, Mahoney, and Stract were all legally freed (and Locher later confirmed that Stract reformed). No Face, as always, escaped without getting caught, and is still at large. ARGH!Sal Monella II (December 19, 2003-March 10,2004)Mousse (March 11-May 30)Piggy Bank VI (May 31-August 27)Yes, this was Piggy Bank’s sixth story as a main villain. And he escapes and remains at large. ARGH!Flunke (August 28-December 22)Airport Sabotage (December 23,2004-March 14,2005)The Manipulation of Moonrock (March 15-May 27)Dick Tracy in the Southwest (May 28-August 11)Cellphone (August 12-November 3)This is the last story Kilian lived to complete.Oily II (November 4, 2005-March 22,2006)Oily was a villain who debuted in a pre-2001 Kilian story. Sadly, Kilian died in late 2005. The last Sunday strip with his signature on it was January 15, 2006. The last Daily strip with his signature on it was over a week earlier on January 7. Up to that point the story had been moving along at Kilian’s usual brisk pace. He’d even had the story largely wrapped up. Too bad his successor, Kilian’s friend and longtime Tracy artist Dick Locher, stretched out for over two months, that feels like over two months just reading it. A sad omen of things to come.Coming up: Locher’s abysmal run as writer.

Here is the death of the original Matty Square, Oct. 22-23, 1965. Matty was hiding in a barrel, waiting to ambush and kill Tracy, when everything went horribly wrong. Interesting that the new Matty² mentioned Ugly Christine, since she was the one who inadvertently caused the death of his namesake. I wonder if Matty² has been programmed to know about this event?

Matty undressed….

And now, here’s my coverage of Dick Locher’s run as writer. In fairness to Locher, he’d been a good, regular artist for decades. And stepping in at the crisis of Mike Kilian’s unexpected death probably saved the strip and kept it afloat. And earlier, when Max Allan Collins left, Locher wrote and drew one story before Kilian stepped in (which sadly, isn’t on here) that’s actually pretty good. That said, his writing here from 2006 to 2011 is Bad. Really, really Bad. Excruciatingly Bad. I list the stories here, where you can find them, but I really wouldn’t recommend reading them. Although halfway through, the experience starts to become worthwhile on this site, but not for anything Locher is doing (at least not intentionally).2006Al Kinda (March 23-August 24)Dr. Figment Froid (August 25, 2006-January 21,2007)Queenie (January 22-May 19)The Brainwashed Baron (May 20-October 14)The Haunted House (October 15, 2007-January 22,2008)Cole Lector (January 23-May 15)Baskerville & Shirl Locke (May 16-August 27)And this is where it (sorta) becomes worthwhile. When Tracy first found the Internet, TMS published it’s Tracy website, complete with a forum. In early August, 2008, the site and forum were completely shut down. Which is when GoComics took off. On August 3, fans began to post here, and with nothing good going on in the strip, the fans resumed what they’d done on the old forum, mocking and making fun of just how awful the strip had become. If you like Riff Trax and its predecessor, Mystery Science Theater 3000, you might get a kick out of these comments, many of which are clever, witty, even hilarious at times.There’s one caveat however. There were a couple of ugly flame wars started here by Locher’s friend and supporter, the other Matty, Matthew P. Hansel. He would rudely insult anyone who didn’t appreciate Locher’s “genius”, namely just about everyone else posting. It got so bad several times, that the GoComics administrator would have to step in and put a halt to it. Eventually all of Matty’s posts would be deleted, which was no big loss, but several fun commentators would get deleted, too, which was a big loss. Going over these old comments now, while still often amusing, can be a bit odd, because the remaining posts include reactions to comments that are no longer there.Be that as it may, there’s some entertainment value in the comments section of the following strips, even if there’s none in the strips themselves.Braces (August 28-December 10)Angelorious (December 11, 2008-March 2,2009)Big Ace & One-Eyed Jack (March 3-July 10)Murder at the Circus (July 11-November 24)The Maestro and His Son (November 25, 2009-April 6,2010)Johnny Nothing (April 7-July 21)D’Buckworth (July 22-November 13)Dr. Mordred (November 14, 2010-March 13,2011)And after five years of darkness, there was light.

Nice symmetrical composition today: close-up portraits serve as bookends for the scary super-close-up central panel. Very effective….

And now my listing of Curtis’ stories. I have the least to say here, but’s all good and often great. Anyone looking for past good stories can find them here. Highly recommended.2011The Fifth & Flyface III (March 14-April 30)Hot Rize (May 1-June 2)Doubleup (June 3-25)B-B Eyes II (June 26-July 30)Morning Gloria (July 31-September 17)The Retelling of Tracy’s First Case (September 18-October 23)The Second Mr. Crime, B-B Eyes, Blaze Rize, Mumbles, Doubleup, & Abner Kadaver (October 24-December 2)Abner Kadaver is in a unique position among Tracy villains. As a profession hitman, he’s always taking orders from somebody, and they’ve always been main villains in their own right. So technically, Abner is never the “main” villain. But there are stories where he is the main focus, and whenever that is, I boldface his name.Putty Puss III (December 3, 2011-February 2,2012)Thunderchild (February 3-March 7)Blackjack (March 8-April 24)The Second Mr. Crime, B-B Eyes, Blaze Rize, Mumbles, Doubleup, & Abner Kadaver II (April 25-July 20)Mrs. Flattop (July 21-August 20)Phishface (August 21-September 28)Measles II (September 29-November 16)Broadway Bates II (November 17, 2012-January 5, 2013)Sweat Box (January 6-March 3)The Jumbler (March 4-April 16)The Return of Moon Maid (April 17-October 19)The Blackhearts, Mrs. Flattop, Abner Kadaver, & Blackjack (Octobr 20, 2013-January 4,2014)Silver & Sprocket Nitrate (January 5-March 19)Tabby Angus (March 20-May 31)The Search for Annie (June 1-October 12)Gruesome (October 13, 2014-January 18, 2015)Silver & Sprocket Nitrate and Mrs. Flattop (January 19-March 21)The Great Train Robbery (March 22-June 13)The Downfall of the Blackhearts and the Return and Rise of Mr. Bribery (June 14-October 11)Where it’s revealed that Mr. Bribery was the secret leader of the Blackhearts, making him the unseen main villain behind the Return of Moon Maid, Abner Kadaver’s second “solo” story, and the Great Train Robbery.Midnight Mirror Mystery (October 12-December 25)Specs & Spicy and the Return of the Ace of Spades (December 26, 2015-April 6,2016)

Excuse me, but I think you left out Bardoll…

I don’t think it was meant to be a comprehensive list of all the characters, just a list of each storyline. Since the stories are not really given names that we know of*, he has used the name of the principal villain(s) to name each story in most cases.

Bardoll was a fairly minor peon who Dr. Sail hired. He only appeared 16 times over the course of 31 days, and was only an assistant to the main villains.

*Mike has recently publicly mentioned the working titles of many of his storylines, but the format of the strip doesn’t really lend itself to announcing any titles in the strip itself.

There is a fairly complete list of Dick Tracy villains on Wikipedia.

Thanks for the thanks, guys. :) Of course you can use my lists, Neil, that’s why I put it up. To give people who want to go over past stories a guide to find them.As for the Yahoo Board’s death spiral, I think the main reason, (other than some bad decisions Yahoo made) is that it’s been largely replaced by the Dick Tracy Fan Club on Facebook. It already has more members than the Yahoo Group, and people post there far more frequently. My only complaint with it is that it’s a lot harder to find past messages there.

Gweedo warned,YOU can be banned for porn, Buddy Bill !-———————————————————————-.Yikes! That didn’t occur to me! Thanks, Gweedo!

Thanks in advance for tomorrow’s poem, Pequod!

Gweedo remarked,Well, that undone Matty is one-a spicy meatball, Bill !-———————————————————-.Sucked the air right out of you, did it, Gweedo?

Gweedo further remarked,I would have slipped 32 leg I.C. chips down his G string if we were at a club, Bill !-——————————————————————-.Vacuum tubes and ic chips do not get along together, Gweedo.

Thanks to Pequod, boboscar, Gweedo, capt mutt, Willy007, Ken in Ohio, Ray Toler, Chris Sherlock, Sisophos, and Vista Bill and Comet for your compliments on my new website. I hope that this is just the beginning. I have lots more content in various stages of completion, so it will progress.

Gweedo continued,I’ve got 2 Farads of “capacitance” in my pants that he might get along with, Bill !-——————————————————————-.You shock me, Gweedo!

Sunday is always busy in the comments section here, so I think I’ll wait till Monday morning to start posting items about the current story. After that, I will try to post updates on the current story on Saturday mornings.

With you and others posting the long bits it is a good idea to do it on days that are normally “quiet” and don’t have Moon Maid in the story.

I think we’re pretty safe from Mysta until about the fall maybe.