Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for April 30, 2016

Good for you, Pat! Somebody needs to stand up to that harpy! (Just hope it doesn’t come back to bite you in the a##!)

Chief Patton could take no moreInto Mayor Armstrong he toreGave a piece of what he feltAbout the hand the Tracys were dealtThe entire act smelled like dungHe wished her bell was finally rungIf only his job he didn’t needHer orders he certainly wouldn’t heed

Chief Patton should now consider retirement…. I am very sure the boss does not appreciate being lectured.

Weekly state of the “DT World”

I have updated my plot map/story map for this story at http://dt.canadatoyou.com/nottafallarmove. I have tentatively placed an new act heading where the video became public. That’s when the story setup was finished and complications began. I also added a prologue, because the scenes of Blaze and Notta that appeared in February actually contain the inciting action for this story arc — before the introduction of the story.

Where do we go from here?

I will have more to say about the main characters a little later, but we have mainly Notta, Blaze, and Putty Puss on the villain side and Tracy and Sam on the side of the police. Sam (officially) Tracy (unofficially) will want to track down Notta and identify the Tracy impostor. Notta has left her previous location, presumably with no indication as to where she went. Of course, Blaze is with her, but she’s still not on the police radar, so to speak. If they can identify the Tracy imposter as Putty Puss, his last known address (Happydale) would be a good place to start looking.

Second panel is from Mayor Armstrong’s P.O.V.

Nice job, Chief Patton.

Weekly state of the “DT World,” Part 2The “bad guys”

Notta Fallar, Blaze Rize, and Putty Puss are the main characters on the villain side of the equation. Of course, Notta is the instigator of the whole thing. It’s her goal that set everything in motion, but she seems kind of laid back. She’s willing to leave most of the hard work and consequences to Blaze and Putty Puss, so they may actually turn out to be quite significant. We have yet to see what happens when Screwball gets to Putty Puss’ address. As for Blaze, she was already unhappy at Blackhearts HQ and she wasn’t being abused as she has been at Notta’s.

The “good guys”

Tracy and Sam are generally the team-up on the MCU, but this time, Tracy is no longer on the force. Officially, Sam will be in charge. I can’t see Pat going out on the road. Tracy does have The Asp to help him out, but they can’t really interfere with the official police investigation.

More up and coming bad guys

The other trio that we’ve seen is Mr. Bribery, Matty Squared, and Ygor Glitch. I’m pretty sure that they are not tangled in Notta’s plan, at least not at the moment, but they are laying the groundwork for important happenings that are coming up later, perhaps after Notta’s plan fails. Again, Mr. Bribery is the one who put all this in motion, but Matty Squared and Professor Glitch are left to implement it, especially Matty, who has been ordered to “do some banking.”

That’s really good, Neil. Thanks.

I’ve often wondered the past few years if Mayor Armstrong is corrupt. She always seems ready to think the worst of Tracy and to give him grief. Good for Chief Patton to give her a tongue lashing.

.Good morning guys!.Nice summation Neil!

If she keeps up with trying to keep Tess from talking, they could get her for abuse of power. Maybe enough to get her recalled.

Good for Chief Patton, as far as this goes. But, I still wish he had called the mayor on her high-handed decision to suspend Tracy without pay before any investigation had taken place. That’s just wrong, as many of us have said. But, in the strip, no one has even suggested that she over stepped her authority.

I’m wondering if Screwball will get away with killing Putty Puss.There’s several possible outcomes, including Screwball giving up Notta for the info on Putty. And with that, her location.And I can’t wait to see Tracy in action on his own (and with the Asp!).

And SBN News sought out Tess in an ambush, remember?

Mayor Armstrong’s appearance reminds me of a certain presidential candidate…

. . .“THAR SHE BLOWS !”*In Chief Patton’s Office a ‘Tantrum Fit; she Throws !New orders, crudely displayed in “pushy” Walrus prose …The Chief must respond through his New (Now)_ ’exaggerated’ NOSE …

Police protection - his duty, his logical game and aimSeeing that coming ‘Family’ Dagger residing in her maneShe’s “judged” the issue from an “unverified” SBN SpreeLike in “BELIEVING” Brian Williams of NBC (?}

Will talking to the Mayor like this have consequences?

You tell her, Pat!

Tess is tough. she’s got a lot of tough experience in the DT universe since the 1930’s. She will give Notta, Blaze and the Strong Arm and good run for their money..

Here’s a thought…Mayor Tess Truehart-Tracy :)

Way to go, Chief Patton!!!

Well done, Chief Patton! Mayor Armstrong needs somebody to stand up to her.

Gweedo complimented,I was really diggin’ the good times at the graveyard bash. It was a graveyard smash !-——————————————————————-.It was a howlin’ good time for sure!

In Chicago, generally accepted as the prototype for Tracyville, the mayor is “strong” and the City Council is ’’weak," mainly just a rubber stamp for the party machine that the mayor controls (in the case of Chicago, Democrat Party). The mayor appoints the police Superintendent, who takes the heat whenever anything goes badly and is fired and replaced. The whole situation then repeats, again, and again, and again, while the machine continues its merry ways….

Chief Patton bravely faces down Mayor Armstrong, in a private setting. As long as this does not get out to Wendy Wichel or other “journalists,” Armstrong may not fire Patton. But she will undercut him at every turn and generally make his life miserable, hoping he will get the message and resign. How strong can Pat remain at this point in his life?

Is there any miracle Neil can’t do ?

I can do miracles? Why didn’t anybody tell me this?

I don’t think that Mr. Bribery would appreciate being called that — he considers himself to be “at the top” already! ;o)

Maybe he does. He was gloating when he escaped capture using the air car, but I notice he’s no longer insisting on being called Mr. Bigg.

Panel 2 is stunning. Kudos to the artist. Love the weekend recap by Neil. Looking forward to seeing how the two villain groups end up together. And the Mayor just keeps getting more and more ludicrous from instantly suspending Tracy, which is illegal everywhere, to now trying to trample all over Tess’ 1st Amendment rights. In a world full of amazingly well-thought out characters, she’s a lame one-note one. Hopefully, one of the other great good-person characters will take the opportunity to run against her to get rid of her.

The Mayor is upsetWants everyone to be quiet nowPatten won’t stop TessEveryone has some rights nowDon’t we all want that for us

Jerryjohn52 said, about 17 hours agoI think there is a tendency in TV and movies to have characters who can be either good or bad determined by the circumstances. For example in Tracy we have Sprocket Nitrate, Blaze Rise & Blowtop who could go either way. Plus several criminals who reformed like Mole, Influence & Littleface.

This is very true about the circumstances. It might better be treated on the basis of a storyline, rather that a permanent attribute, though it tends to be long-term. I don’t think that characters often switch back and forth between good and bad. Some have switched to the good side, but I don’t remember any switching back.

I agree that Blaze and Blowtop could potentially be turned from the dark side. They have both recently been mixed up in crimes that they didn’t want to be involved in. Other characters are just pure evil and don’t seem to be redeemable at all. Blaze is becoming a very interesting character. She is frequently conflicted. Notta, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have a conscience at all. Her motivations are generally selfish. I don’t know how she can keep looking after her brother, but she has Blaze to do it for her now, yet she still plays the victim.

Chief Patton reading the riot act to his boss. Love it! The middle panel is really good too.

Hooray, Pat!!! Can’t abide the mayor! I know I’m repeating myself, but she is the spit image of a boss I had and I swear she gave me PTSD !! I read this strip everyday and it really brings back memories. I love the story lines and the art work. I don’t often comment, but I really enjoy the posts you all make. You seem to really be friends and like one another. Some of the message boards are so cruel and mean not only about the comics but to each other! Yikes! It’s supposed to be fun!

Are the finger-pointers saying “guilt by association”?-————————————-No, just that it reflects badly on his decision making (assuming he even had a hand in choosing her). Especially important given that he’s 79 and running for re-election.

People look for ANY excuse to sling mud.-————————————-Any excuse? This isn’t a pile of parking tickets. She and her husband were running a meth lab, for cryin’ out loud, (plus all the other goodies) in a quiet residential neighborhood.They were caught when her husband signed for a package of illegal drugs sent from Europe.Her two kids are (I think) 10 and 4.I’m not on McCain’s case, but don’t minimize what they’ve done, either.

Many thanks to 60sFan, Vista Bill, Willy007, Jim in CT, JPuzzleWhiz, Ray Toler, Gweedo, smartman, Pequod, and Sydney Phillips for your reactions to my Saturday report. I appreciate all of them.

@smartman, I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for the two villain groups to come together. Notta did ask Mr. Bribery for some help setting her scheme up, but I think that might be where his involvement ended. We will see, but I think his struggles with Matty Squared are going to be entertaining.

Late today, I noticed that I accidentally typed “Cueball” on my story map where it should have said “Screwball.” That’s fixed now and I was getting too wordy in places, so I tightened up the descriptions. These always take some refining and correcting as we go along.

I’ve been refining my character thumbnails over recent days. I already had all the characters for Midnite Mirror but many of the file sizes were too big to suit me. They were as much as 53 KB in size with an average of around 15 KB, but I got them down to an average size of around 5 KB, which will help with speedy loading of pages where they appear. That’s one of the main reasons they are black and white rather than colour.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to let me know you liked my poem.

Please please please, add the word Bitch to your final words Chief.