Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for September 26, 2010

The perspective for the lettering on the Police sign does not match the perspective of the building or the awning in front of the building. It’s like something MC Escher would have created, if MC Escher had been completely lacking in artistic ability.

Wow! Mrs. 3D repeats her statement again. I thought Mr. 3D didn’t discuss his dealings with her. The “POLICE” sign has moved from the roof to a shelf on the front of the diner now. The light from the sign must be blinding!

Unfortunately, when I go to thee bank, it’s to put money in… not to take it out. Betcha 3D had a lot of counting to do when he withdrew his $100 million in $1000 bills!

Crimestoppers: If you just robbed the bank, don’t stop to count.

I may hurl….

When I withdraw money, I dance around outside and yell,”Whee, I got money here!”

I read today’s strip and for a moment I thought I had accidentally hit the link for the Dick Tracy Continuity Randomizer.

http://joshreads.com/images/10/09/Random%20Dick/comic-scrambler.html

Thanks to my fellow members of the DT Pan Club for sharing this link. It does put this strip into proper perspective.

Flight Suit said, “The perspective for the lettering on the Police sign does not match the perspective of the building or the awning in front of the building”

An isometric drawing?

PANEL-PANNER’S CRIMESTOPPER

–Suspect an elephant has been in your refrigerator?

–Check the jello for footprints.

And here’s more relevant advice than Slimedroppers gives today: Don’t enter your bank looking like you came in to rob it.

Now, Thick, why don’t you check D-cubed’s bank and ask what they have to say about the withdrawal, instead of taking the word of Scrotum Face, who is an obvious suspect in the murder? And why not ask Miss-Sue-Doko if her boss said anything about said withdrawal? As well as asking them, or anyone, about his plans and movements before he vanished? Or at the very least making sure he had a butterfly tattoo?

Kudos to Testicle Chin, who like the rest of us noticed that something stinks in this strip.

Flight Suit, there’s a perfectly sensible explanation for the building’s look. Someone has at last realized that the police building is like a Roach Hotel: people come in but they don’t come out. Clearly the blame lies with Neon Noodle who has disguised himself as the Police sign! But behold the clever trap laid for him! The right hand side of the atrium is in fact an arrow, cunningly disguised as a structural member. The next time he pounces on someone, Neon Noodle will find himself impaled! It’s too late to help all of those vanished Nappingville cops but it will finally pin him down.

Why did Tracy go to all the trouble of disguising himself as a homeless man when he could have simply asked the homeless guy (3D?) where the $1000 bills came from and why he is giving them away to neighborhood kids?

VistaBill:

Why aren’t you an editor at Tribune Media Services?

I’m afraid your observation is too rational. You should be reading this strip after sniffing airplane glue – like “Simon Penn.”

The culprit? Giving away money is illegal? Glad I don’t do it.

Here are the latest numbers, GoComics subscribers to Dick Tracy:

9/17/10 - 22824

9/24/10 - 22849

9/26/10 - 22855

Must be all the fluoride in the water.

VistaBill, do you want the logical answer or the Locherian answer?

The logical answer would be that Thick has reason to believe that Homeless Guy is a criminal who would flee the police; that Thick doesn’t know precisely where to find Homeless Guy, or even if HG is actually D-cubed. Thick has to resort to a cunning disguise because all other measures have failed … failed to be taken. So much for reality-based logic.

The Locherian answer is that Locher doesn’t get paid to make sense.

Well the Sunday strip has been posted Lord, I wish I were really toasted One hundred million in thousand dollar bills I should note Is 100,000 bills, 8.4 cubic feet and 204 pounds that he must tote I wonder if after exiting with the cash he was retrieving Did he count his money as he was leaving We see a warped perspective again The artwork sure does strain the brain Tracy exudes a certain fetid air A commonality that the strip does share What a muddled, mangled, putrid mess Where it is going is anyones guess A culprit Tracy seeks to find Locher must be out of his mind What crime has the bum committed Something that is conveniently omitted But that as we know is par for the course Sadly, Tracy is no longer a tour de force.

“You have a certain air about yourself” is Sam’s way of saying that Tracy smells bad in his disguise.

I am expecting one of these days to see something really, REALY different and a picture of the face of Dick Tracy drawn with words from the mind of Wndrthg by displaying his great poems to describe him. About the only reason to look at this strip is to see what other bloggers are saying.

Hey, which finger is Spacy giving us in the last panel? How did that one get past the gocomics Netnanny?

Good one as always, Wonder Warthog, and your words inspired this:

Facts and figures and motives we seek, which with logic we would hope to parse. But now we reach the end of the week and Locher extends his tour de farce.

Marg - I missed you in Vagabond City today. Tell me, what kind of leaf is that? It’s not oak or maple, I know.

Why is Dick giving the chief the finger?

Grimescrubbers Wrecksbook is brought to you by the Internatioinal Brotherhood of Short-Changing Bank Tellers, who remind you to never count the money you receive at the bank. Just trust us… we’re paid minimum wage and have no reason to skim…

Really, does anybody (aside from pimps and drug dealers, and this guy looks too shabby to be either one) still handle large quantities of cash? I thought everything was pretty much electronic these days, with cash reserved for those petty transactions–pick up fifty bucks at the ATM before you go to the garage sale, etc…

Tracy tries to pick his nose and misses.

where did Tracy scratch himself before sniffing at his finger?

Hey, I’d never noticed this before. Has anyone ever seen Dick Tracy and Michael Moore together at the same time? Huh? Coincidence? Well, yes, clearly, but still…

JCFremont, There IS a resemblance !

Perhaps the same way he had Anja Nu look like Nancy Palosi he wanted to imply through this medium that Michael Moore’s reasonings really made him a bum !

Spacy’s head has turned into Police Headquarters

‘Mexican Jumping Beans’ in Naperville’s Police HQ signs ?

As FlightSuit noted it’s now on a platform extending from the top of the roof of the building building. Two Sunday pages earlier it was immediatly above the porte cochére entrance and blocking windows on level 2 http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2010/09/12/

And the abreviation of “HDQTRS” -displayed on the sign in the Johnny Nothing story has dissapeared http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2010/04/21/

Also apparently gone are the 3 steps installed to prevent Traze-R from using the front entrance

Mrs. D’Buckworth : “What friends ? … all he had were enemies” !

That doesn’t SOUND like a man who would sit on a sidewalk - give kids $1000. bills and send generous contributions to politicians who helped the poor.

Seems out of character (?)

is the Guy counting the Money in the Crimestoppers Tracy in his disguise.. they look pretty similar .. so remember kids don’t count your thousand dollar bills outside the bank a detective may Mug you !

Its a well known crime solving fact that to catch a homeless guy giving away money you just have to disguise yourself as Rasputin and hang around in an alley.

scuttlebutt99 said, about 3 stinky fingers ago: Culprit? What culprit? There’s no law against giving away your money!

No, but if you’re caught with over $10,000 in cash on your person, the DEA can confiscate it and force you to go to court and prove it’s not illegal drug money (odd reversal of the standard “burden of proof” law, more like the Napoleonic code, but there it is…). So maybe Macy’s hoping to see the homeless guy flashing too many of those thosand dollar bills in one place, confiscate the whole $100 million, and cover the Naperberry PD’s budget for the next fifty years.

Hmm… maybe Thick’s not as dumb as we thought.

Macy’s wearing the same briches he had on when he was hiding in the bushes and in the tiger cage. Good nose, Sam! He could find Macy’s pants with his eyes closed!

“Never count your money while you’re sitting at the table–There’ll be time enough for counting when the dealings done”–

K. Rogers

Nothing but recap today. Yesterday he was already out n the street making a contact. We’re going backwards. Crimestoppers: If you withdraw a large amount of money in large bills, don’t keep them in a satchel and sit on the street.

I’m still waiting for a crime to be committed. The only time they were even close to a crime was the discovery of a body. And they buried the evidence. Maybe Macy will discover another way to exist, rather than being on the public dole.

OldTracy said, about 15 hours ago

“You have a certain air about yourself” is Sam’s way of saying that Tracy smells bad in his disguise.

I thought Sam caught a whiff of the “plot”.

Sydney Phillips, in a genuine mystery story, Mrs. Pruneface’s behavior would set off alarm bells. She laughed when she told Thick D-cubed had enemies, she forgot to mention his withdrawal until after Thick learned of it (and after she said hubby never talked business with her,)

You’d be suspicious of Sue Doko, too. She was very quick to point the finger of suspicion at We’re-Lyin-and-now-forgotten-twerprises. (And why suspect them? Murder is not a normal business tactic in the US).

Thick hasn’t done anything to clear those two obvious suspects. He hasn’t asked the obvious questions that could have brought him to the same point. Even now, it doesn’t occur to him to watch the streets for unaccompanied young boys and wait until Homeless Guy pops up.

And if Locher is trying to make a political statement, his ineptness will make it backfire as badly as it did in 2001’s “Mistress of Death” arc. That’s the one where Christianity is so weak that a ranting old hag can turn people against it and a renowned minister is easily corrupted.

Homeless Guy first appeared on 18 July, which by my count makes this Day 70 of the current lunacy. On HG’s second appearance Groundzero7 tagged him as the missing tycoon & entrepreneur, and we’re yet to see the Locher Mess Monster confirm or deny that.

Right now all Thick could do would be to ask Homeless Guy some questions. If Thick recognizes him as D-cubed, he doesn’t even have grounds to bring him in for questioning about the tattooed dead guy.

Another Wonderful All-New Dick Tracy comic strip today! FUN! Classy drawing of Mrs. D. in the first Panel.

More fun all-new Dick Tracy comic strips here tomorrow, CHECK OUT THE FUN!

Be back here tomorrow if you love today’s all-new Dick Tracy comic strip for further fun adventures.

Seriously Super Stuff! The BEST view of the Police Station so far, and a good city scene behind it.

If you love today’s fantastic all-new Dick Tracy comic strip, CHECK IT OUT tomorrow for more great comics!

CHECK IT OUT! More Fun Adventures Ahead! Love the clever transformation of Dick Tracy!

Be sure to be here tomorrow for America’s favorite comic strip if you love today’s adventure! Wonderfully creative today!

The last Panel looks like the ending to those old television programs where the main character could be seen as talking the audience. And the Chief also appears to be looking at the viewer. Positively COOL Stuff!

Here is video footage which not only identifies Simon Penn, but explains both his behavior and where he developed his fascination with plainclothes detectives:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0zgIzqgxFU

Sue Doko has been missing since 7 September, a fact lost on Thick. For all he knows she was offed by the same people who killed Butterfly McCorpse. You’d think he would want to check on her whereabouts. Instead he dresses like a bum and goes cruising for someone who has only a shaky connection to the case.

Eventually, one of the papers will report that she’s in Washington, hobnobbing with one of D-cubed’s politician friends who he hated so much.

looks like the guy in crimestoppers has just been sprayed with an ink pack or his money’s radioactive

see how the orange glow kind of goes in an arc around his face

Why is Macy flipping us the bird?

Bill Thompson:

Great link. I suspect that Blue Boy was the granddad to Simon Penn. Even thought Simon is clean, he inherited those twisted chromosomes caused by LSD use. Bad trip, man.

Remember when Walter Cronkite in those days reported that three men took LSD and burned out their retinas from staring at the sun? He had to be true – Uncle Walter reported it. Like all those enemy dead figures from Viet Nam; we were killing off Charlie like 10 to 1. After killing off so many, I don’t know how we lost that war. There should’ve been only 50 VC left by the end.

Panel Panner, I don’t remember that specific report, but I do recall an article somewhere saying that the story about eight Pennsylvania college students going blind by talking to the sun was a hoax. The same goes for Art Linkletter’s weepy talk about his daughter committing suicide because of LSD. At the time I was a grade-school science geek and put more credence in what Science New Letter had to say.

Growing up in deepest, darkest Orange County, I found that the best anti-drug information came from the LA Free Press. The Freak Brothers alone did a good anti-drug message, even when they were laughing at Norbert the Nark.

BillThompson:

It’s probably the same report that Uncle Walter delivered on live TV during the CBS evening news. I thought it was three but it could have easily been six. I remember Cronkite on the following evening retracting the story, saying it was a hoax.

As for the war dead figures, I don’t remember exact figures but they were something like:

US Troops - 30 dead

ARVN Troops - 100 dead

VC Troops - 1025 dead

My father who was a conservative would sit there during the evening news and say those figures were BS.

As for Dragnet, the 1960s version, check out the episode The Big High about the terrible dangers of marijuana over at hulu.com. My friends and I didn’t do drugs but we all thought it was BS. Now that’s bad propaganda.