Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for April 19, 2017

Tremendous art today. Honeymoon bookends the strip. She is a fabulous character with qualities we expect, given her lineage. Tracy is seen in classic profile, while Honeymoon’s question lands them in the diner in panel 2. The wide middle panel sports symmetry that pleases the eye. Grandfather and Honeymoon enjoy a tasty repast, as well as each other’s company. With Tracy sporting his trademark attire he is already dressed for the CosCon. The irony of his question in panel 3 seems to be lost on Tracy, while readers will smile at Honeymoon’s apt response. Tracy now looks to our right, his profile wonderfully stylized in shadow. This is excellent work and exemplifies why I enjoy the strip so much. Tracy will be attending the CosCon. Criminals beware!

They’re lunching at Mickey D’s????

The man is always in costume.

i used to call MY grandfather Pop-Pop also

Today’s strip is finally here

Yesterday’s strip has disappeared

Just as well we’d seen enough

Unfortunately today’s still filled with fluff

Show some manners Dick and take off your hat

And stop eating junk or you’ll definitely get fat

You’re teaching Honeymoon habits way bad

The bite she took between 2 &3 was quite sad

The colors seem dull I suppose there’s a reason

You can’t always have an award winning season

I hope more than 2 get to see this little ditty

Before it goes to that banishment city

Ah! The whines have been opened.

Things we know so far …

- There are three Margies – Big, Middle, and Little.

- The Margies live and/or work together.

- The three are involved in running ’CosUCon’ – Specifically, the Cosplay Contest, possibly additional aspects of the convention as well.

- ‘CosUCon’ is being held at the infamous ‘Locher Auditorium.’

- TV Horror Movie Host ‘Svengoolie’ will be hosting and judging CosUCon’s Cosplay Contest.

- The Cosplay Contest features a grand prize of $10,000.

- CosUCon’s ‘Program Books’ were sent to the ‘Margies’ by mistake, when they should have been sent to ‘Brian.’

- Harold Teen, Shadow, and Pop Jenks are aware of the convention, thanks to a promotional poster placed in the window of ‘The Sugar Bowl.’ by a young woman whose identity we still haven’t puzzled out.

- Honeymoon ‘might’ be competing in the cosplay contest – presumably in the ‘Junior Division,’ as opposed to the ’Adult Class’ – in her ‘Chimetra’ costume.

- Astor will be competing – presumably in the ‘Junior Division,’ as opposed to the ‘Adult Class’ – in his ‘MegaMan’ costume.

- Both Honeymoon and Astor’s costumes include working lights. Might these be used to startle someone at an opportune moment?

- Astor’s brother has a table/booth at the convention, where he will be selling complete cosplay props. This appears to be his specialty.

- Astor’s brother has a blog.

- Astor’s brother’s ‘Latest Build’ is heavy enough that Astor can only wear it for about 40 minutes at a time without taking a break.

- Astor will be wearing his brother’s creation at Astor’s brother’s booth off-and-on, to attract crowds and drum up business.

- Honeymoon has invited her ‘Pop-Pop,’ Dick Tracy, to CosUCon.

- Earlier, Sam Catchem and Lizz Worthington had gifted

Kinda’ says something about your wardrobe, detective…

Note how Tracy’s chin forms a tilted #7 in panel three.

Should Tracy wear ‘The Yellow Mask,’ people at the convention will assume he’s someone cosplaying as the great detective.

What A Twist~!! :)

Honeymoon’s ironic comment echoes something I have been thinking for some time.

Tracy’s overcoat and hat has become more of a Super Hero-like costume as opposed to "just the way a guy dresses.’

Gould tended to dress Tracy as the season required, suit only in the summer/overcoat in rain or winter. He even gave him a straw fedora and Hawaiian shirt on an adventure in Hawaii. I also enjoyed the hard-boiled look of the early Gould drawings of Tracy in shirt sleeves and vest (vests are still worn today so that depiction would not be out of style).

Fletcher often drew Tracy in a suit coat with open-collar shirt underneath. He also gave Sam a more modern Trilby-style hat and checked sports coat. I liked the variations used by both Gould and Fletcher.

During the Locher years Tracy was more often than not shown without the overcoat in suit only frequently with no hat. During Locher’s time, I yearned to see the old Tracy profile.

There is no doubt that the Tracy silhouette is as iconic as Sherlock Holmes in his Inverness and Deerstalker cap (though those items were never mentioned in the novels). But it seems to me that Tracy’s wardrobe has become too much like the Spirit’s mask; he never seems to take it off. Sure, Joe occasionally shows him working at his desk in shirtsleeves but when he leaves the office on a case it is almost like, “To the Batpoles, Batman!”

The classic Tracy silhouette should never go away (as it seemed to do during Locher) but nobody wears the same thing to work every day and I think it wouldn’t hurt to expand or vary Tracy’s (and the entire cast’s) wardrobe occasionally for the season or the location. (Where’s Lizz, the old high-fashion icon?)

Just my opinion.

I just found a Dick Tracy cosplay costume for sale.

http://m.milanoo.com/product/dick-tracy-yellow-cosplay-costume-p25865.html

It’s all wrong. The hat and tie are the wrong colour. There’s no way the suit jacket and pants (trousers for the British) should be yellow and I think the overcoat is the wrong style. I see from the description that the cosplay costume includes underwear, although I don’t know why. I have no idea what Tracy’s underwear looks like.

Such costumes are available in Tracy’s world, too. We saw Honeymoon and Astor wearing them a few years ago.

Just maintenance work. They have to do it sometime and late at night is best for it. Hopefully things will operate better now.

Who would ever suspect Tracy of going to a cosplay dressed as < gasp > Tracy ! http://image66amarillo.com/phpBB3/images/smilies/icon_e_surprised.gif

Good afternoon all!

Hey, Gweedo, Morrow, Vista Bill, and anyone else who remembers the Bad Old Days of the Locher years,

Every few years I go over what’s on Tracy in GC starting with the Kilian years, then skip to the point where comments were made in the Locher years (August 3, 2008). I’ve had some fun, and I began doing a bit of “restoration” for some famous commenters who sadly no longer comment here. I reply to some comments, the only ones you’ll now see with reply threads, largely to restore what’s been lost. I put Wonder Warthog’s poetry into the verse form it was intended. I found an html code for Margareitum’s adorable Pig on Wheels that I reply to everytime it’s clear she made them (I’ve also provided html for FormerlyFlightSuit’s Flooooms). Anytime someone posted html for a page that’s now broken, if I can figure out what the commenter was trying to get to (usually a youtube link) I post html for something similar/identical that still works.

Aaaannnddd…I also spent a bit of time arguing with a dead man who can’t answer back. The late Sydney Phillips (r.i.p.) would often slam both Locher and Kilian during this period. I don’t mind when it’s Locher, but I like Kilian’s stories so I don’t like it when he started bashing Kilian. One thing I noticed this year is that much of what Sydney had to say against Kilian…wasn’t factually true. So I’d reply to these old comments to set the record straight, where I often get a bit testy. I’m both a little proud and a little embarrassed about that.

So come check out my modest restoration of the Locher years from 8/3/08-3/13/11. Take your time (took me a few weeks), tell me what you think. :)

Where does one find the restoration, boboscar?

My restorations are in the past GoComics archives. I reply to the original comments to provide html to the pages, images, and videos the original commenters were original intending. For the poetry, mostly Wndrwthg’s, I repost the poem using GC’s current spacing to give the verses the proper look.

In chronology:

My first rebuttal to Sydney is in the December 27, 2008 strip. From then on I always made a point to comment on where my next major rebuttal was and from the second one on (3/5/09) where my last one is, so you should be able to find them all.

Wndrwrthg’s first short poem is in the September 3, 2009 strip. His next major poem is in the September 8, 2009 strip. Soon after, it became an almost daily occurrence.

Margareitum’s first Pig on Wheels is in the December 23, 2009 strip.

FormerlyFlightSuit’s Floooms began in the March 9, 2010 strip.

As for the restored links, that was too random for me to look up. If someone typed an html, I copied and pasted it. If it didn’t work, I tried to see if I could find an html that would lead to the same thing. If I could, I posted a reply that had the new html to go to. If I couldn’t, I didn’t.

Hope that helps you out.

A fast food lunch date between Pop Pop and Honeymoon leads to her asking him to come to the coscon. With his iconic yellow fedora and trenchcoat, all he needs to appear to be in costume is the convenient Chekhov’s yellow mask (Spirit-style) he now has. It will be a very interesting event!

Honeymoon and Astor cosplayed Dick Tracy in 2012 (while watching Themesong, who was also dressed that way):

http://worldofdt.info/img/cosplay2012.png

That wasn’t the first time that characters in the strip dressed like Tracy, either. Gould had all the regulars at the police station dressing up as Tracy in Dick Tracy hats in 1967, almost 50 years ago! Notice the dialogue about how iconic and unique to Tracy that Tracy’s hat was even then.

http://worldofdt.info/img/cosplay1967.png

Don’t forget, if you’re using my bookmarklet, you can click the image to make it bigger in another tab.

Things we know so far …

- There are three Margies – Big, Middle, and Little.

- The Margies live and/or work together.

- The three are involved in running ’CosUCon’

- ‘CosUCon’ is being held at the ‘Locher Auditorium.’

- TV Horror Movie Host ‘Svengoolie’ will be hosting and judging CosUCon’s Cosplay Contest.

- The Cosplay Contest features a grand prize of $10,000.

- CosUCon’s ‘Program Books’ were sent to the ‘Margies’ by mistake, when they should have been sent to ‘Brian.’

- Harold Teen, Shadow, and Pop Jenks know of the convention, thanks to a promotional poster placed in the window of ‘The Sugar Bowl.’ by a young woman whose identity we haven’t puzzled out.

- Honeymoon ‘might’ be competing in the cosplay contest in her ‘Chimetra’ costume.

- Astor will be competing in his ‘MegaMan’ costume.

- Both Honeymoon and Astor’s costumes include working lights. Might these be used to startle someone at an opportune moment?

- Astor’s brother has a table/booth at the convention, where he will be selling complete cosplay props.

- Astor’s brother has a blog.

- Astor’s brother’s ‘Latest Build’ is heavy enough that Astor can only wear it for about 40 minutes at a time.

- Astor will be wearing his brother’s creation at Astor’s brother’s booth to drum up business.

- Honeymoon has invited her ‘Pop-Pop,’ Dick Tracy, to CosUCon.

- Earlier, Sam Catchem and Lizz Worthington had gifted Dick Tracy with ‘The Yellow Mask.’