Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for January 24, 2011

I really think Tracy’s going to fall for it.

I won’t even ask why or how Mordred’s left arm is already free.

Nor will I bother to think about why or how his right arm is currently behind his back, but in previous installments both hands were bound in front of his body.

“Forty pounds of chains … forty pounds of chains … Polly wanna cracker?”

Why forty? Why did someone obsess over weighing down Mordred with precisely forty pounds of chain? Wouldn’t thirty-nine or forty-one pounds have done just as well? Or even fifty?

I think it’s a Sign, as in something unpleasantly Biblical. You know, a flood that lasts forty days, forty days and nights in the wilderness, forty lashes, forty years of wandering in the desert, and whatever else is in there that you wouldn’t want forty of. This forty-fixation must mean that Mordred is some character out of the Bible. I’m rooting for something out of the Revelation to St. John. The Angel of Death would do fine. I’d even settle for the Great Whore of Babylon, who would at least break this arc’s monotonous theme of latent homosexuality.

it appears that now his right hand is free in panel 3.

Tracy has Mordred on the floor - Don’t turn over Morderd!!!

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I put a link into my comments last week so if you wanted to, you can read the whole weeks strips in advance. For some reason, when you click on the link it didn’t work -

Here is how to do it.

Go to Google and put in the search for

comics kingdom viewer

Click on the link

On the next page, scroll down and watch the right side of the screen.

You will see: Choose a comic.

Select Dick Tracy from the drop box

At the bottom click on read comic.

I don’t want to give anything away for those of you that want to suffer slowly by reading each days strip, one day at a time but the conversation is still about undoing the chains.

So the song this week should be “Unchained Melody”

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I was disappointed when Tracy and Mordred reached the top.

I expected to see Roy Clark & Buck Owens there shouting “Hee Haw”

Rightwingmoron, the Shadow knows!

Safeway674, That link worked fine for me. I doubt anyone will be surprised to learn we are in for at least another week of conversation.

Looks like all the hot air somehow dried them off, and the room as well. Maybe they could find ten thousand empty grain sacks, stitch them together into a balloon, and use it to float away. It should only take them five days of talk to generate the needed hot air.

This weeks-long story could have been summarized in one 3-panel weekday episode. Z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z.

You wear forty pounds of chains and what do you get? Stuck in a grain house with a copper who’s wet! Can’t take much more, this sure is mean I just can’t wait for March 15!

Seems to me all the forty pounds of chain does is make Mordred forty pounds heavier. It doesn’t appear to actually bind him in any meaningful way. Of course, the sedating drugs didn’t sedate either so why should I be surprised?

Even in Locherland the chains must be there for a reason. An accidental hanging is still my favorite guess. They could also figure in a battle; Mordred could swing them as a weapon. When he misses Thick their impact could smash a hole in the floor or in a wall. Mordred could fall through that and die. Either he somehow hangs himself with the chain, or he lands in the water and they drag him down, or he impales himself on something sharp.

How far ahead does Locher perpetrate his work? Has he already handed in his last inkstained papers and toddled off to retirement? Or, Cthulhu help us, will he keep hacking away until his official retirement day in March, haunting us for weeks afterward?

I just followed Safeway’s “link”, and I could wish I had not. Given Tracy’s remarkable stupidity (“Power approach” anyone) this business with the chains can’t end well.

The storyline is down by the head, with a twenty degree list to starboard. I’d give the call to abandon, but it seems we’re committed to follow it through until it sinks completely.

Hey, maybe the chains will kill Mordred, but not by hanging? Perhaps Mordred and Dick will have to climb up to the roof, due to further flooding. Once up there, maybe the chains will act as a lightning rod, and Mordred will be electrocuted?

My only problem with this theory is that Locher likes to telegraph all his punches weeks in advance. If Mordred was going to die by lightning strike, we would have already listened to Dick, Mordred, Chief Liz, and Sam making endless comments about how scary all the thunder and lightning is.

This is like a Series of Unfortunate Events. Only it’s more A Series of Painfully Poor Decisions.

Flight Suit, Mordred might even whack himself in the head if he swings the chain.

It’s impossible to guess what will happen from the clues. My opinion about the D’imwit arc is that Locher planned to have D-cubed do something with a heavily political slant, and at the last moment someone at TMS forced him to change the story. Perhaps the same thing is happening here; the scrambled panels and insane action suggest a crude and hasty rewrite.

Now, we don’t expect Tracy to be stupid enough to actually undo those chains, do we?

Thick would never do anything that stupid, not when there’s a chance he could do something even dumber.

“Here I am, trapped in an old granary building with a serial killer and a mega storm raging outside.”

Thank you, Dr. Exposition. (thanks to MST3K)

I TOLD YOU SO! The tie that Tracy removed yesterday has magically reappeared today!

I just figgered out why the story is dragging…….. and it is something that Locher has telegraphed in every story that I can remember. That is, Thick needs time to remember and organize all the “chain puns” that he is going to “rattle” off (that’s #1 folks) after this arc ends. So when both Thick and Mordred get through trying to outbungle each other, and Thick miraculously survives, we’ll be treated to Pun Week, courtesy of Locher/Brozman.

And, like my friend BT sez, the forty pounds will be prophetic. Trust me!

There’s something also bugging me….. my memory fails me right now, but whatever happened to Mr. Pops, the clown? Did he die in that horrible story, or get away? The reason I ask is Mordred/Pops both have that “Ha Ha Ha Hee Hee” laugh. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that will fall out at the end. It goes beyond reason that the FBI would let a prisoner continue to wear his disguise this far into the game. Laugh, Clown, laugh!

Thanks, safeway674, 4 providing the link. Now it won’t take a week 4 me 2 torture myself. I can do it now in a few minutes. Better 2 die quick then die slow…

I sure wish there was a free site that I can look at old Dick Tracy comics without paying an arm and a leg. Then I can steer away from the nonsense we’re dealing with now…

morrow, I had the same question a short while ago. I checked and Mr. Pops the clown lived, despite making a long, hard fall into the tiger cage. He was arrested for complicity in murder, I think. (I’d thought he might have died because his face was hidden. The equally faceless Blank did die when the Stuka fell on him.)

And when it comes to making bad jokes about links, Thick will turn ‘em out like sausage.

The only strip I like reading ahead is Dick Tracy because it never goes anywhere anyway. Beside, the main attraction here is the comments.

Froxkybra - ILoveComics has some. And it’s evident that they are getting ready to add some more.

http://www.ilovecomixarchive.com/D/Dick-Tracy

Struwwelpeter2 said :

” I TOLD YOU SO! The tie that Tracy removed yesterday has magically reappeared today! ”

Let’s be fair . Yesterday Thick loosened his tie . Today , it is still loose . =^.^=

Didn’t we see Pops the clown dancing off hand in hand with one of Nappingville’s finest?

Also-Newenglandah-what do you have against rocks?

He is. And after you take off my chains I will sell you a bridge.

Sorry-it was Johnny Ringo going off hand in hand with the cop, 11-23-2009, and nothing on the pig on wheels since

Why would Macy be into something as kinky as bondage? Never mind - don’t answer. Now I know why Tess has those marks on her wrists and ankles.

The chains are just to make it more difficult for him to escape the police car by swimming.

@M.MitchellMarmel, Loved your words to the “16 Tons” song.

now that is a great career move spacy – bargaining with a convicted serial killer and removing his chains? sure why not? what could go wrong?

The Jackson Sun (Jackson, TN) reports the new Dick Tracy team: Joe Staton and Mike Curtis

Links at that page connect to more detailed sources.

Thanks 4 the link David!

Radish the kibitzer said, about 2 hours ago

“Tracy will remove the chains, he and Mordred will fight. Mordred will be on top of Tracy when help finally arrives to save him.”

Mordred and Tracy will then fight with the rescuers for spoiling their tender moment.

Cue Aretha Franklin:

Chain, chain, chain, chain, chain, chain Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools

Everybody: I googled “Joe Staton” and visited several sites that had many of his illustrations. He is a fantastic artist. He can do any type of work from bizarre to comedy and do it well. Take a look. I am looking forward to what he will do with DT.

Rightwingmoron said, about 19 hours ago

Who is Tracy talking to in the first panel?

Perhaps Macy is simply thinking aloud for the benefit of the readers. You know, just like in “Deadwood,” Swerangen often thought aloud to ensure plot continuity. Although plot and continuty are foreign concepts to Locher.

tracy thinking?

Thick could never pass the Turing test.

“Granary building” is redundant.