Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for September 16, 2010

Oh, look, Homeless Guy is still giving money to kids! What’s the mystery here? How many times he’ll do it? Or is the question how that kid manages to raise his left foot so high and grasp the envelope with his toes?

Notice he only gives money to little boys. Hmm.

Hey, I qualify.

Hey, I helped a blind and crippled old lady, but then I’m not a little boy, so I guess that it doesn’t count…

Maybe I can get on my knees with a Cubs cab, or shirt & he will surely feel he should give me 2 of those bills then.

Maybe it’s time for Thick Travesty and Testicle Chin to give up the detective work and start giving safety lectures at the local schools. Or for Crime Stoppers to give useful real-world advice like “Kids! Don’t take gifts from strangers!”

How did the kid get the bill out of the envelope without opening it? OK, 3D (or whoever he is) has $100 million in $1000 bills in the satchel plus enough envelopes to put ‘em in. Perhaps Flight Suit (or someone) can explain how he managed to get all that in the satchel… some sort of compression thing? Like we use .rar and .zip on our computers?

I’m too busy trying to figure out why all of 3D is in silhouette except for one hand.

Also, do you know any handicapped people who actually require help crossing the street? Generally, disabled people tend to have those types of issues pretty well worked out before they leave the house.

VistaBill, in a non-Locherian logic system, I would say that only a small fraction of the hundred-megabuck withdrawal was taken in the form of thousand dollar bills. It’s also possible that Locher has forgot about that transaction, and the K-notes come from a wall safe in D-cubed’s office. My guess right now is that Homeless Guy doesn’t have a lot of money with him. We’ve seen someone give him money, so it’s possible that Sue Doko is visiting him.

Flight Suit, the silhouette baffles me, too. Does it mean that Homeless Guy is lurking in the shadows? Or that Locher was in a hurry to finish the panel and skipped as much detail as possible?

Yesterday I guessed that Homeless Guy might be an image based on D-cubed’s 3-D projection technology. I don’t know how a projected image could hand out physical cash, unless Locher posits that D-cubed has come up with something like a Star Trek holodeck. Or if D-cubed is dead and the projection is used to make someone else look like D-cubed as part of a cunning scheme that defies Earthly logic.

And what is the meaning of that kid’s expression? It doesn’t look like amazement, delight, gratitude or any other emotion I’d expect when a kid sees the backside of a thousand dollar bill. It looks more like horror at seeing something unwelcome with Homeless Guy’s frontside.

The word gets around the old bum’s got cash Someone’s about to go and take all of his stash Giving thousand dollar bills to kids on the street May seem like an great idea, one that can’t be beat But avarice and greed is the order of the day He’s about to learn that good deeds do not pay Muggers, thugs and thieves, they do abound They’re going to beat him deep into the ground Will defective Thick respond in the nick of time And save the bum while he still has a dime Or will he dither, glower and finally snap Surlily telling Sam to “go shut his trap” The reports of the bills being passed comes to us late And will Thick be able to link them to Trey-Ds’ fate Such an easy thing to trace, these bills surely would be A valuable clue that even a blind man could see A cursory investigation at the beginning of this story Would have pointed Twacy to the true nature of his quarry But that would cut down the time here that we have spent And wouldn’t you agree that would be something heaven sent.

It seems like the same kid keeps getting the money.

Yes … I’m beginning to see a pattern here, my fellow duck! We’re told that D-cubed was a billionaire who had perfected a 3-D imaging technology. But how can even a billionaire make it economically viable? You need a huge audience that’s willing to buy expensive tickets, and how long will that last? People soon get bored with poorly-told stories and the market crashes. The 3-D craze of the Fifties ran aground on the same rocks.

So 3-D had brilliantly decided to create his own audience. He’s secretly engaged in the development of human cloning! First he experimented on himself! Yes, that’s right, the body in the grave and Homeless Guy are both D-cubed. So is the missus (the cloning experiment had some tragic missteps). D-cubed was literally beside himself with the problems of cloning, but once he worked it out, he found the perfect fan for 3-D entertainment (young, naive and clearly not too bright) and mass-produced him!

Alas, there was still one flaw in the plan: where does an idiot get the money to pay for a 3-D theater ticket? “Here, kid, a thousand dollars will buy you a ticket to Avatar! Or at least get you into the matinee showing.”

Must be something in the water the way all these kids have deformed fingers

To my DT pals, I am currently reading the Complete Chester Gould’s DT and I finished vol.6 1939-41. The case is about Krome and Kitty. Jr. gets seriously injured in an explosion caused by a toy kangaroo he gets for Xmas. His mother Mary Steel is missing from the story. What happend to her? Something Chester Gould rarely ever does to have characters vanish with no reason. I’ve not read further yet but I’d like to know does Jr.’s mother reappear later? I think she does when he is grown 20 years after.

This story arc is so slow it’s going backwards.

ZZZZ ZZZ ZZZZZ ZZ Z ZZZZ etc

Can this strip become any worse?

And 436rge, I’ve been reading the Complete Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy as well and when you read Gould’s work, It makes you realize how horrible Locher’s work on this strip truly is. It’s a travesty!

436rge, The injury Junior recieved was from a reversing truck owned by bicycle thief Deafy and he is seen hospitalized at the start of the 1941 Krome story.

Prior to that, mother Mary Steele was last seen in June 1938 - and, you are quite right, she did reappear in a 1961 in the Pardy (aka Tommy McConny) tale as Mary Smith where she died, having been struck by a golf ball coming through a window. Tracy recognized her - keeping it from Junior, but he eventually found out.

“Can this strip become worse?”

You’d think it couldn’t but Dick Locher has defied that expectation with each new story. And most note how the quality of ART gets worse.

Locher’s last story comes up next - and I can’t wait for it to pass ! TMS must soon make a decision on who does the strip.

The potential horror beyond is that untested “INKER” Jim Brozman, may take over the the writing and the the art.

See : “Major Crime Squad” http://www.plainclothescomics.com/

Mike Curtis and Joe Stanton (art) are currently doing this “tribute” story with the hope of doing the job when Locher retires at the end of this year

The $1,000 bill was last printed in 1934, however there are still over 165,000 in circulation, so I guess it’s possible…

if 3-D is as smart as I think, he’s got a fully-loaded .44 Automag in that satchel for when Chicago’s thugs show up. Locher snuck in a plug for the Sox, I see. He probably saw the Cubs standing in the NL Central this year and went for the White Sox.

morrow, you’re probably right about D-cubed packing a gun. Not because it would be sensible, but because it would give Locher an excuse to draw some of his geometrically-challenged bullet trajectories.

It would be more fun if Dork-Dork-Dork used his 3-D imaging technology for his defense, say a holographic projection of Thick Travesty arriving to scare off any muggers, but that would be fun and creative.

I halfway expect Thick to meet D’imwit tomorrow, skipping any explanation of how he located the guy.

That boy is quite remarkable. You don’t see a boy with a prehensile foot every day, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a boy who’s so nonpartisan about baseball. He doesn’t care if the Red Sox win or the White Sox win – he’s just rooting for Sox, indiscriminately.

-Cougar :{)

Hopefully the fact these are $1,000 bills is a plot point and not another example of Locher messing up.

Bills above the $100 have not been printed since 1945 and were formally discontinued in 1969 so if these are not counterfeit the next question is WHERE are they coming from–no bank as even seen these bills in nearly 40 years.

and that handicapped man, i think his name is locher, didn’t even want to cross the street.

morrow,

The shirt isn’t for the Red Sox or White Sox. It just says that this whole boring plot Sox.

Sydney: Mike Curtis and Joe Stanton story and art are so much better than this idiotic strip. Thanks for the links that you give us. I cast my vote for them to be hired.

Hey, guess who’s back?! Yes, me!

“Major Crime Squad”

wow this actually looks great, thanks for the link !

Imagine a Dick Tracy strip with real looking people and gasp action !!!

Does 3-D vision allow him to read “SOX” as “SUCKS” (?)

What an advertisement, what a reward ! (?)

Another wonder, WW!

Another Fun Dick Tracy comic strip.

Not so much a mystery why the hand and envelope in the first panel are not in shadow. This shows the passing of the envelope from first to second to third panels. Really enjoying this Brand New D’Buckworth Mystery! Cool Stuff!

Another Wonderful Dick Tracy comic strip. Just an Excellent comic strip. Keep up the GREAT work!

Rock On!

So, CougarAllen, you’re saying that the kid knows how to change his Sox?

@wndrwrthg, If this story arc were shorter, we’d have fewer of your poems and they are heaven sent’