Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for November 20, 2010

  1. Warthog
    wndrwrthg  almost 14 years ago

    The thousand dollar bill didn’t matter no more When Lizz got naked and lay on the floor Er, wait, that’s another poem altogether It involves whips, chains and lots of leather Are we a finally to see The retirement of Dick Tracy For many years now he has been a dick Once intelligent and young, now just old and thick Many innovations he has seen through the years It has been the most remarkable of careers But now he is in the winter of his discontent He looks back on it with a silent lament All those years spent in the name of the law Now he’s heading for his last hurrah Oh, the trials and tribulations he has seen They pass before him like a movie projected on a screen A plethora of villains march before his eyes All seeking to bring about his untimely demise But of all the threats that he has had to face One that stands to leave him in disgrace Comes at the hands of one he would never suspect One who has caused others for him to loose respect One against whom he never could put up a fight Was the one who could neither draw nor write.

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  2. Josette   13 march 2016   c
    Bill Thompson  almost 14 years ago

    Panel #1: In other words, she doesn’t know Dick.

    Panel #2: One word, Thick: Ex-lax!

    Panel #3: Superman doesn’t change that fast!

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  3. Emerald
    margueritem  almost 14 years ago

    The sun rises, and the werewolf becomes Dick Tracy! It’s magic, I tell you!

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  4. Bill 1960
    Vista Bill Raley and Comet™  almost 14 years ago

    Aha! Tracy was a werewolf after all! The Sun came up and he turned back into the Dick Tracy we know and respect!

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  5. Bill 1960
    Vista Bill Raley and Comet™  almost 14 years ago

    How do you create so quickly, wndrwrthg? Amazing! Betcha collect fonts, too!

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  6. Emerald
    margueritem  almost 14 years ago

    Good morning, Vista Bill!

    Another moving poem, WW.

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  7. Josette   13 march 2016   c
    Bill Thompson  almost 14 years ago

    “Say the magic woid and win a thousand dollar makeover!”

    Plus a good poem from Wonder Warthog, although it’s far better than Locher deserves.

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  8. Bill 1960
    Vista Bill Raley and Comet™  almost 14 years ago

    margueritem said, “Good morning, Vista Bill!”

    Good morning margueritem.

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  9. Bren suit
    FLIGHT SUIT  almost 14 years ago

    Ah. Locher is wetting our appetites for Tracy’s swan song, for the final story arc.

    This is going to be epic.

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  10. Bren suit
    FLIGHT SUIT  almost 14 years ago

    If you haven’t already seen today’s Frog Applause, you’d better go have a look right now.

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  11. Missing large
    Wiseking  almost 14 years ago

    Long time lurker, first time posting… Have to admit that was the fastest shave on record,,,(Panel 3)

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  12. Josette   13 march 2016   c
    Bill Thompson  almost 14 years ago

    rightwingmoron, he can solve it, but it will keep him wrapped up until the spring. At that point he’ll bust the Easter Bunny, who has a similar MO to the Christmas Sneak.

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  13. Js
    FourthBear  almost 14 years ago

    Rough case? Look Liz, don’t be an enabler to Tracy’s whining. He spent a few weeks ambling about asking questions on a missing persons case, had Sam tell him who to investigate next, disguised himself and almost immediately found his target by sheer luck. He then confronted his target only to have the entire case explained to him by a horde of other law enforcement agents who beat him to the punch and have the target captured by a convenient homeless person. Oh and the target handily confessed. It’s not like he was being starved to death by Mrs. Pruneface…..

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  14. Green lingerie   003
    riley05  almost 14 years ago

    Wait, where’d those whiskers go???

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  15. Josette   13 march 2016   c
    Bill Thompson  almost 14 years ago

    Continuity, shmontinuity! This may be Locher’s signal that he’s starting a new arc. Either that or Thick is a werewolf and the full moon just set.

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  16. Rick
    davidf42  almost 14 years ago

    Thanks, Wonderwarthog, I can’t get the image of Liz being naked out of my mind.

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  17. Tracy
    coratelli  almost 14 years ago

    tracy it’s a transformer!

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  18. Odd spots 002
    sydney  almost 14 years ago

    Yesterday, safeway674 asked the question :

    “How did the people who he (3-D) gave the money to manage to deposit (counterfeit) money in their bank accounts. The Banks would have spotted it right away”.

    Sound observation ! This activity has been occuring from the begining of the story, and particularly when that logic is applied to th huge CASH sum paid to the Senator in September - and reported in the newspapers.

    Wouldn’t that huge CASH deposit _ immediately_ set off an ‘ALARM BELL’ that all was not WELL ?

    http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2010/09/19

    http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2010/09/18/

    And what’s the logic of telling yourself, you’re ‘rewarding’ the Senator for helping the poor, when you send him counterfeit bills (?) Balderdash !

    Revealing yet AGAIN, that Locher makes this up ‘day to day’ as he goes along without any conscience or professional ‘respect’ for the twists and turns he laid in stone earlier.. In this case, 2 months ago !

    And marvee — I’ll BET (knowing Locher’s propensity for never having an “all points bulletin”) — he’ll leave a bunch of gaps in the refuse barrel along with his dirty clothes ! And readers won’t hear one more word about Sue Doko OR the missing $100 million withdrawal

    NEXT CASE ! (ie after one more week of repetition and stalling)

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  19. Josette   13 march 2016   c
    Bill Thompson  almost 14 years ago

    What is the “something very special in the works”?

    We’ll learn it at the rate of one revelation per week:

    City Hall has reviewed the cost-effectiveness of the Nappingville Police Department.

    They don’t like the way that Thick’s bungling led to the dismissal of all charges against both D’Buckworths.

    They’ are impressed by the way D-cubed exposed the PD’s many shortcomings, not to mention the generous campaign donations he made to the mayor and city councilors.

    The Nappingville PD will be privatized and run by D’Buckworth Industries.

    Thick is the prime candidate for phase one of their cost-reduction efforts.

    “But don’t think of it as being fired, Thick,” Horn Hair says throughout the last week of December. “Pistol Packin’ Penny wants to hire you as her personal bodyguard.”

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  20. Odd spots 002
    sydney  almost 14 years ago

    “Better lie low for awhile” !

    http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2010/09/17/

    ”However, I don’t have to curtail my PLAN”.

    PLAN ??? ‘I’m caught up in a web of CONFUSION here- trying to figure out what the “plan” was ! (?)

    Can anyone help ? It just doesn’t make sense.

    Every thing this man did, served to draw attention to himself and ALERT the Authorities. Was that the ultimate plan? A sort of death wish ?

    A ‘Crapaud’ Author could have done better ! Striving for weekly “SURPRISES”, he’s only managed tie his story into messy knots

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  21. Odd spots 002
    sydney  almost 14 years ago

    As one looks back at the inconsistencies rife in the storyline, the most telling lines came from Fred Wehreli - Which one could say were an ‘APT’ description of the whole plot line one loaded with ‘accusatins’ and no proof :

    It’s all hearsay, and GOSSIP !

    and then, he laid out a precient statement by telling Tracy -

    You have no case detective !

    http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2010/09/12/

    And essentially, he was right on all the major issues !

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  22. Wimpy1
    China60  almost 14 years ago

    I can’t read this garbage anymore…it’s insulting.

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  23. Odd spots 002
    sydney  almost 14 years ago

    But lets take an earlier look at Mr.Fred Wehrli’s frightened ‘CONFESSION’ of GUILT, closeted with his Associates. The newspapers had accused them, of “Grand Theft, Extortion and deceptive practises. You don’t print that without a ‘charge’ or some PROOF, otherwise it could be, a libelous stuation.

    Wehrli said in panic :

    ”We are finished ! Who nailed us ?”

    http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2010/09/08

    Readers of course know that was just a CLUMSY effort to “wrong foot” (as they would say in - ‘tennis’) - the reading public. But it does seem a crime was committed there … and Tracy sniffing around has plumb forgotten about it

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  24. Odd spots 002
    sydney  almost 14 years ago

    Another loose end :

    Wiil we have a panel saying that the bribed and ‘dishonest’ Funeral Director who substituded a fake body with a deceptive tatoo has been arrested and charged ?

    Again, I don’t think so

    So many story knots so many loose ends !

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  25. Missing large
    JCFremont  almost 14 years ago

    wndrwrthg - Any day’s a great day when it starts out with some Zappa and well crafted poetry. Bravo!

    (Do you think I could interest you in a pair of zircon-encrusted tweezers?)

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  26. Missing large
    dag8686 Premium Member almost 14 years ago

    Dick sure did clean up quick…

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  27. Ca avatar patch
    CougarAllen  almost 14 years ago

    I dunno. Maybe he cleaned up quick … or maybe she talks very, very slowly….

    -Cougar :{)

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  28. My boys
    woodworker318  almost 14 years ago

    WW, another great poem. You should have them all put in a book.

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  29. Armlegs
    DatBigGuy Premium Member almost 14 years ago

    I think panel 2 was just a flashback to the “homeless disguise” Dick was in….

    Back to loose ends and inconsistencies…for whatever reason, the coroner could not determine much from the body except for the tattoo. It was never said why …of course, we now know a crooked funeral director supplied the body, since they are awash in extra dead bodies at most funeral homes…

    I can’t even call this a story line, arc, or much else. It seems it was several weeks’ worth of random panels kinda stitched together to kinda look like a story. Kinda.

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  30. 1937
    billdi Premium Member almost 14 years ago

    macspacy is much more than $1000 poorer – and what rough case? he didn’t have to run and squeal and hide in terror or get beat up or anything. he just stood around jawing for weeks.

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  31. Josette   13 march 2016   c
    Bill Thompson  almost 14 years ago

    Sydney Phillips, the points you raise are the same ones that made me think we’d see more of Sue Doko and the ex-partners, that D’eranged would turn out to be someone who looms large in Locher’s mental landscape and his wife would turn into a competent evildoer.

    In the hands of a halfway competent writer, all the pieces would have fit together. And so far Locher has shown that he’s a perhaps tenthway competent hack. The museum debacle began with someone throwing a stone and note through Thick’s window. Nothing came of it, but at least at the end Locher remembered to shrug it off.

    I still think he was trying to editorialize with this arc. Maybe, partway through the arc, he got into an argument with whoever controls the rights to the DT franchise and had to shift course. But even so he still contradicted himself from the start. When the wife recited his complaints about the world, she said he hated Washington and he had many friends in politics. See

    http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2010/08/01/

    and near the end she contradicts herself on that in the space of one panel. Thick didn’t take notice. And a few days later

    http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2010/08/05/

    an executive who has the exact same chin as Mrs. D’apostrohe says he could have killed D’cubed. Nothing came of that. In the same day’s strip, a building asks how D’cubed knew so much about the ex-associates and their “product.” Huh? Industrial espionage aside, they used to work for him and were still in the three-D movie business … and what’s with the “product” talk?

    Spotting the flaws is an endless game. Everyone hates D-cubed, we’re told, yet the one person who knows him best, Sue Doko, is utterly loyal to him. When we see him, he talks and acts like a saint. or a messiah. In a real story things like that would have been clues, not loose ends.

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  32. Scan2023 01 23 153155a
    Midnite  almost 14 years ago

    Easy come easy go Dick, thems the breaks.

    BillThompson, I was just thinking. If, say, Dick Tracy were to be retired and this whole thing ended, wouldnt there be something about it online? I remember when For Better Or Worse ended and rebooted there was an article, Annie, an article, Cathy, an article, most of them months before they happened with the date of the final comic strip written so that everyone would know to check for the last strip. Theres nothing of the sort here with Dick. So, that said, Im going to hope that with Locher gone we get a new writer and artist, one who knows what hes doing that can make this detective somewhere near if not better than the old days when Gould was writing it.

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  33. 1937
    billdi Premium Member almost 14 years ago

    very good point NVash – i did a brief search and found nothing about locher’s retirement or the future of the strip. has there been some official announcement? are we engaging in wishful thinking? i did find this bit from August: http://mikelynchcartoons.blogspot.com/2010/04/video-dick-locher-dedicates-dick-tracy.html

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  34. Scan2023 01 23 153155a
    Midnite  almost 14 years ago

    I checked that out billdi, thanks for that link. I had no idea Locher was so elderly. I almost refuse to believe that he does the artwork and writing for the story daily but that might explain all the errors. I cant believe he has so many fans. Are we reading the same strip? Maybe he was good once and just had a steady decline. Guess Ill have to wait until the Chester Gould Archives get up to his run to know for sure. Volume 11 has 1947-1948 in it, that comes out towards the end of February of next year. IIRC, Locher started around 1955 so it should be coming up soon.

    Now that I think of it, how do we even know hes retiring to begin with? I havent found anything online about that either. I found this, http://dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2008/08/22/dick-locher-approaches-10000-cartoon-retirement/ , but thats from 2008 and talking about his retirement on his 1000th strip. But then we have this, http://dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2008/11/14/rumors-of-dick-tracys-demise-are-premature/ , where its denied and obviously proven by the fact that hes still writing many years later.

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  35. Josette   13 march 2016   c
    Bill Thompson  almost 14 years ago

    I hope I haven’t been circulating a rumor that started here about Locher’s retirement. I really hope he goes, and that an actual writer and artist take his place. I’ve searched and found nothing about Locher’s plans or the strip’s future. Frankly I don’t see how either of them even have a recent past, much less a future.

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  36. Missing large
    buildingbridges  almost 14 years ago

    Tomorrow’s strip: #1: (Chief) “Turns out …” #2: (Tracy) “Yes?” #3: (Chief0 “Penny was in on the plan the whole time!”

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  37. Scan2023 01 23 153155a
    Midnite  almost 14 years ago

    From that video it seems that Tribune Media may not be aware that Locher is so horrible. Did you see all the fans? The people with the signs reading We Love Locher? They might just think the guy is quite the talented artist and writer.

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