Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for January 13, 2011

Whatever it is, it looks like the storm is about to take it away!

And what is an old granary doing in the middle of a big city?

How is it that in panel three, Dick is running, yet he’s connected by the chain to Mordred, who is standing still?

Flight Suit said, “How is it that in panel three, Dick is running, yet he’s connected by the chain to Mordred, who is standing still?”

Running in place… marking time.

Still looks like a house to me. I see a porch, and a second story window. Maybe Mordred is a second story man, along with being a killer. Wow, a man of many talents!

Wouldn’t it be something if Tracy has happened upon his own house? “Throw another log on the fire, Tess, and a fresh pot of coffee for me and my friend.”

How is it that in panel three, Dick is running, yet he’s connected by the chain to Mordred, who is standing still?

Isn’t it obvious Mordred is on roller skates?

This killing each other thing wasnt funny to begin with and it isnt now. Dick should slap Mordred with the pistol to shut him up. Wait, then hed have to carry him. Guess he has to deal with this pathetic excuse for banter just like the rest of us.

At least Sam and Lizz and the gang are dry back at HDQTRS! Maybe we’ll see them soon and find out more about how they are dealing with this situation.

They woulda got there a lot faster if Thick hadn’t stopped to get that weird tattoo he sports in panel #1.

In panel #3, it looks like Thick is dancing around a May pole. either that or he’s running in circles like a puppy on a leash.

A granary? That’s an interesting response to Locher’s Rorschach style of art. What else do you see, Mordred?

I will repeat a comment I made at the end of the posts the other day - Mordred says Dick is a dead man and this comment has been repeated over and over.

Well, we all know that Dick is dead, that is -

“Dead from the neck up”

Now, why hasn’t anyone contacted Tess to tell her that Dick is missing or could be in danger.

This is Sam’s chance to make a “Booty Call”

What is this word “Murk” all about? It sounds like something out of Sherlock Holmes and the “Hounds of the Baskervilles”

Now this old Granary might be a “Meth Lab” hidden outside the city.

Tracy and Mordred are blown up and the only body that can be identified is Mordred because of the chains.

Film at 11:00

safeway674, they can’t tell Tess that Thick tain’t there.

1: He hasn’t been missing long–the strip has dragged on for weeks, but this is still all the same night of the road trip.

2: Communications are out. I probably shouldn’t mention this, because by now Locher has forgot all about it.

3: If they could let Tess know her husband is missing, she would scold Horn Hair for getting careless with him. Then she would demand they do something. Horn Hair, who doesn’t have the brains to refuse an insane request to help transfer Mordred, would immediately run out into the storm and perish, probably with Testicle Chin in her wake. This would be a Good Thing, unfortunately Horn Hair knows it wouldn’t be good for her.

When you look at the shape of Thick’s head in panel #1, it’s obvious that instinct has led him home to Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory. Frankenstein and Mordred will confer, and when the storm is at its height they can connect a lightning rod to the electrodes in Thick’s neck. The next lightning bolt will jump-start his brain. “It’s alive, alive! … oh, all right, it’s comatose, but that’s still an improvement.”

BillThompson- You are right, it is the same night.

It has been going on sooooo long , I forgot it was the same day.

I remember Johnny Carson having an actor that went back to the radio days as a guest on the Tonight Show.

He said that one character entered a revolving door and went into a flashback in her mind. Six weeks later, she exited the revolving door on the other side.

I wonder if her last name was Locher???

Meanwhile, back at Police Hooters, we see Horn Hair and Testicle Chin discuss the weather while they put on their all-weather gear:

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

Hmmmm….. Maybe they’re not in the middle of a big city????

Just a thought, it seems that Locher isn’t the only forgetful one hereabouts. I remember reading something about a fifty-two mile trip between the sheriff’s office where Thick picked up his passenger and the city jail where Thick was supposed to deliver him to await sentencing. Here in the Chicago area, that kind of trip will have a fair mix of built-up town and open country, with everything else thrown in for good measure. Check any halfway decent area map.

Locher just might have one point of his storyline halfway right— hard as that is to believe.

VistaBill said, about 3 hours ago “… Running in place… marking time.”

That describes this storyline precisely.

Michael McMillan, I’m sure it’s been mentioned before that the Dipsy Duo is out in the boondocks, but I’m not going to wade through a thousand or so posts to find the references.

If Locher has a point, I wish he’d reach it soon. I don’t want to spend a week watching Thick and Mordred squabble over how to approach and enter the building, and spend another week getting introduced to whatever is inside there. (What? The storm causes the building to collapse, impaling Mordred with a broken timber? “Ironically,” Thick says, “he died the same way he killed his victims, turned into shish kebab!”

With Mordred standing still and Spacy running, the only thing that can happen is that Spacy is spiralling into the physical encounter we expected. Looks kinky and romantic.

Bill, the reason I brought this up is that we’ve got at least two other posters who have forgotten that “The Dipsy Duo” might not be in the middle of a big city.

Side note: In my travels, I’ve seen one old country house that would terrify me to approach it in daylight, with the sun shining. At night during a bad storm—- forget it. I’ll chance the storm rather than that house. Problem for this arc: That house is some ninety miles or so away from Naperville. I doubt that Locher even knows it exists. But, otherwise it could be the model for the house that appears in the gloom of this arc.

I see your point, Michael. This arc is so badly written, it could be an episode of “Star Trek: Voyager.”

I grew up in a part of southern California where, circa 1960, there were several miles of open land between the towns, and floods were common during the winter rains. Plus there were a few derelict buildings you’d avoid during a storm. So I can imagine a situation like this one, at least to the extent of travellers getting caught off-guard.

Locher should have taken some of the panels he wasted on chatter and used them to fill in background. Thick should have thought “Drat, this detour will take us into the countryside.” He could have looked in the rear view mirror and seen someone following him. Officer Crossing Guard could have been placed at a strategic spot and said “This road runs alongside the Whoopsydaisy River and we expect flooding soon,” with Thick saying “I have to risk it.” But Locher … sheesh. He has to do everything the dumb way.

Or water skiing. Maybe Mordred’s water skiing.

“Faster, Tracy, faster! Weeeee!”

And of course there’s a porch on the old granary. That’s where the grain entertains their guests. Very sociable, those grains.

“Like grains of grain through the hourglass, so are the Grains of Our Lives.”

ANNIE FANS

Today’s strip is at

http://www.gocomics.com/annie/2002/01/13/

It appears Dick is going to use Mordred as a kite. With those chains, he might be trying to replicate Ben Franklin’s experiment to prove lightning is electricity.

the REAL D.T. is this…. the pretend D.T. is this:

http://www.plainclothescomics.com/Fireworks01.htm

just doesn’t seem right

Once the idiots get inside, can you imagine the trash talk that will ramp up? Now that they’ve survived the Evel Kneivel Death Leap, escaped the Harry Houdini Deep Six stunt, and bonded as brothers, they’ll find a bottle of Mumm’s inside and laugh it all off.

@Michael McMillan: Yes, BUT!!! If you were following along carefully, you will remember that the car originally went in the water at New Street Corner Lake. Street Corner, not boondocks river. Are we saying that the car went into a flooded street corner and then floated all the way out to the boondocks?!?

And then Tracy told him to walk this way! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKttENbsoyk

-Cougar :{)

(Better bookmark that theme music. The way Locher is pacing this, they could be walking this way for the next two weeks….)

BASSMANBOB6 Very good. Your story makes more sense than this strip. I thought Locher was retiring at the end of last year? No such luck.

you silly! all this talk about death and killing! let’s run together and get dry my darling, maybe cook up a batch of steel oats. do you like flax-seed?

Bad idea, Tracy… who’ll be around to rescue you in such a remote place?

Flight Suit said, about 12 hours ago

And what is an old granary doing in the middle of a big city?

never been to Cedar Rapids, or the Twin Cities, have you?

BB, thanks for the dose of good writing in the midst of all this drivel…

The New Lake Street Corner was only named in these comments. There are intersections in the country, too. They are between towns. There are enough other things to criticize.

The plainsclothes site is great. I read the whole story in one sitting. It was fast-paced (for a comic strip; each segment was like a Sunday strip and no newspaper is going to grant that luxury). It showed Tracy using great powers of observation and deduction. The American Sherlock Holmes indeed!

Granary, hell, it’s the Bates Hotel!

I looked at the structure again… it’s a ghost ship that lost it’s way in the storm!

Tomorrows strip takes place at the police station where Liz and Sam are still discussing the storm of the century and no communication. Liz says, “Tracy’s life is in danger.” Why didn’t she come to that conclusion before?

marvee said, about 6 hours ago

The New Lake Street Corner was only named in these comments. There are intersections in the country, too. They are between towns. There are enough other things to criticize. —————————————————————————— If you look at the12/23/10 strip, Tracy says,”If we get stuck at that new street corner lake.”

Woodworker is correct (and thanks for looking that up so I didn’t have to). New Street Corner Lake was named by Tracy in the strip. The commenters just added the capitalization.