Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for May 01, 2017

Tracy’s on the right track – cash is a bad idea!

look on Tracy’s face says all….

That looks to be Ang, from ’Avatar, The Last Airbender,’ to Tracy’s left in Panel Two.

And Tracy says this story is about the missing $10,000 prize money

Good morning guys!

I miss Gweedo already. :(

Hope his trip is going well.

Hm, Honeymoon is removing herself from the scene immediately prior to the crime taking place.

Hope she has an alibi prepared, just in case.

When ya gotta go, ya gotta go!

There was some question yesterday about the wisdom of Honeymoon using her powers as part of her cosplay performance, and whether they are publicly known. Well, her parentage isn’t a secret, is it? I would have thought that the fact that her horns are fully visible settled the matter, and then she accidentally electrocuted a class mate in a mall. The Bellowthon storyline also made the point that she and Mysta were known to be lunarians.

Excuse me, Pop-Pop – I have to wander somewhere I don’t belong and risk being discovered by the crooks… you know the drill…

I’m kinda annoyed we didn’t get to see Astor’s costume. They’ve been talking about it for WEEKS now.. we got to see the robot suit but not his cosplay costume.

And excuse me for being a party pooper here but… The Margie’s scheme makes no sense. Theyre putting in $3k of their own money for the $10k prize, STEALING the $10k to get the insurance money AND their $3k back, right?

Well, I don’t know if this has been covered here or not but… I have a friend and former co-worker who ‘does the convention circuit’.. all the comic cons and chiller cons etc.. he sells comics and memorabilia, etc… and I know for a FACT that for the NYC COMIC CON he paid $1k for his table, and he had TWO so he paid $2k…my point is, if **EVERY**vendor at the CosUCon paid $1k for their table, as the PROMOTERS of the con, the Margie’s make MORE MONEY on the table fees alone.

Figure if there’s say, 200 tables and each table is $1k then they get $200k JUST on table fees…. deduct from that, say $10k for Svengoolie to show up, they STILL make $190k… and say that Locher Auditorium costs $100k to rent… they make $90K.. and if the fliers cost.. lets be generous $1k.. they STILL walk away with $89k, and if the other guy who’s fliers ended up with the Margie’s (I cant remember his name..was it dave?) let’s say ‘Dave’ gets $10k… that’s STILL a $79k profit for the Margie’s..

Divide $79k between the three of them and that’s a little less than $26,500 for each of them.

A heist for $10k makes ZERO sense at all.

I’m just sayin’

His tracy-sense is tingling.

Little Timmy (tsull2121), I’m with you! I thought the $10k heist was questionable from the get-go, though I was called out on that. In light of your experience, it’s almost as if the entire premise of this story is falling apart at the seams…

Svengoolie also gets hit with chickens in his opening scene, as well. His tie has a chicken design on it. At the end of the show, he holds up a shield that has a chicken painted on it, and his coffin also has a rubber chicken painted on it. In 2014, he received an entirely new coffin which included much of the same artwork on it. One new addition was that the pall bearer handles are attached to the coffin with hand carved chicken legs. // The rubber chickens go back to the days of Jerry G. Bishop, the original Svengoolie. The Berwyn jokes go back to Jerry, as well. // I suppose the really big change is that Rich Koz pays a bit more respect to the movies he plays, whereas Jerry pretty much made fun of everything. // I miss Jerry.

Tracy is alert! He immediately senses that a $10K cash prize is likely to be a target for baddies.

Maybe Sven’s Official Chicken Throwers will get a chance to pelt the Margies with rubber chickens! (Just kidding….)

A Brief History Of ‘Super Robots,’ Part Four: SHOGUN WARRIORS

For many of us stateside, our first exposure to Japan’s ‘Super Robot’ craze came either from Mattel’s late 1970’s toy line …

http://www.wildtoys.com/shogun/shoguns!.jpg

[ Pictured, front row, left-to-right: Raydeen, Gaiking, Great Mazinger, Daimos, and the primary ‘Dragon’ configuration of Getter Robo G. ]

… or the Marvel Comic of the same name:

https://d1466nnw0ex81e.cloudfront.net/n_iv/600/702921.jpg

Written by Doug Moench and drawn by Herb Trimpe, the series discarded the anime backstories of its robots – “Raydeen,” “Combatra” and “Dangard Ace” – in favor of a unified origin and a unique-to-the-comics set of pilots.

Licensing must have been a nightmare: In addition to securing the rights to the ‘SHOGUN WARRIORS’ umbrella title from Mattel, Marvel apparently had to negotiate separately with the holder of each robot’s individual copyright to allow for their inclusion.

What resulted was a motley crew, with little in common beyond the fact that they were – well – ‘Giant Robots.’

The robots most heavily promoted by the early toy line were the trinity of “Raydeen, Dragun and Mazinger” – which makes one wonder why Marvel opted to enlist ‘Combatra’ and ‘Dangard Ace’ – but such are the hazards of licensed properties.

When most of us think of “Shogun Warrior” toys, we think of the large ’Jumbo Machinder’ line of 24” figures, though Mattel also imported a wide variety of die-cast 5” and 3” figures as well.

I’ve already written about ‘Combatra’ – A.K.A. ‘Combattler V – as well as a number of their peers.

Now it’s time for the rest …

Brave Raideen [ 1975 ]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SloHs5O4S48

A semi-sentient relic from the ancient civilization of Mu, Raideen summons a distant descendent of the people of that nation – Japanese high school student Akira Hibiki – to merge with him in order to battle the resurrected forces of the ’Demon Empire.’

One of the most beautifully designed of the early Super Robots, Raideen broke fresh ground in a number of ways …

- Arguably the first ‘Transforming’ Mecha, Raideen is able to shift to ‘God Bird’ mode in a fashion just sane enough that some of the toys could do likewise.

[ The ’Jumbo Machinder’ toy shown here doesn’t transform, but that doesn’t make this guy any less excited about it … ]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9KT6AM6nJU

- At least partially bio-mechanical/organic in nature, Raideen was an early inspiration for later, more sophisticated mecha series, such as 1995’s ’Neon Genesis Evangelion.’

- Features some of the earliest character design work by future legend Yoshikazu Yasuhiko.

- Fortunate residents of the great state of Hawaii were treated to an early look when episodes were subtitled and broadcast by Honolulu television station KIKU TV-13 in 1976, with later airings in the Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco, Chicago and New York markets as well.

Stats, courtesy of Wikipedia, because why not …?

•Height: 50 meters

•Weight: 520 tons

•Armor: Mutronium

•Power Source: Pyramid Power emitted from the Star of Ra Mu

Planetary Robot Danguard Ace [ 1977 ]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tiUoS9-tCI

The sole venture into the ‘Super Robot’ genre for manga legend Leiji Matsumoto – better known stateside for his work on the seminal ’Galaxy Express 999,’ ’Space Pirate Captain Harlock’ and ’Space Battleship Yamato’ – Planet Robot Dangard Ace is an oddity in a number of ways.

For one thing, it takes a few episodes to actually get to the robot in action.

Serialized in Matsumoto’s familiar ‘Space Opera’ structure, there’s a fairly lengthy build to the launch, and it takes even longer before the crew actually ventures out into space.

Speaking of which …

Most ’Super Robot’ shows are about defending the Earth, but this one is more about venturing off-planet, a familiar theme throughout Matsumoto’s canon of work.

Ostensibly a ‘transforming’ robot, the process is … sort of clunky here … going from a flying battle cruiser to its more humanoid form.

Adding to the insanity, the pilot’s craft transforms into the robot’s helmet …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqhL5SonNk4

Alas, Danguard Ace did not receive a ‘Jumbo Machinder’ figure in the “Shogun Warriors” toy line, though a smaller 5” transformable figure was released.

And Danguard managed to secure the Monday slot in Jim Terry’s syndicated ‘FORCE FIVE’ anthology series.

Japan would continue to produce ‘Super Robot’ anime, but towards the end of the 1970’s the genre would begin to branch off and evolve into the ‘Real Robot’ sub-genre as well: With later series, it’s occasionally difficult to tell where one aspect ends and the other begins.

But if you had your own ‘Jumbo Machinder’ figure, you were ’probably’ a Super Robot.

… or a ‘SHOGUN WARRIOR.’

BONUS ROUND:

Most individual ’Super Robot’ series produced fewer than the 65 episodes preferred for syndication packages at the time, but Jim Terry came up with the concept of gathering multiple series together, with each airing once a week, as a syndicated block.

The result was ‘FORCE FIVE.’

Selecting 26 episodes per series for broadcast further boosted the number of episodes to 130, and allowed the production team to skip episodes which might prove difficult or impossible to edit for objectionable content.

Terry had originally intended to include ’Great Mazinger’ in the package, but for unknown reasons was unable to secure the rights.

As mentioned, Terry had also hoped to negotiate a deal to cross-promote the series under Mattel’s ‘SHOGUN WARRIORS’ title, but this deal fell apart as well.

Supposedly, the production staff and voice talent were made up primarily of Terry’s friends, relatives, and in-laws.

The five series ultimately selected for inclusion were …

MONDAY

’Dangard Ace’

[ “Planet Robot Vanguard Ace” ]

Created by Leiji Matsumoto and Dan Kobayashi

Number of episodes in original series: 56

TUESDAY

’Starvengers’

[ “Getter Robo G” ]

Created by Go Nagai

Number of episodes in original series: 44

WEDNESDAY

’Spaceketeers’

[ ’Sci-Fi West Saga Starzinger’ ]

Created by Leiji Matsumoto

Number of episodes in original series: 73

THURSDAY

’Grandizer’

[ ‘U.F.O. Robot Grendizer’ ]

Created by Go Nagai

Number of episodes in original series: 74

FRIDAY

’Gaiking’

[ ‘Divine Demon-Dragon Gaiking’ ]

Created by Kunio Nakaya, Akio Sugino, Dan Kobayashi [ Go Nagai ]

Number of episodes in original series: 44

ZZZZZzzzzzzzz…….

ZZZZZZzzzzzzz…… (copying Breathless)