Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for November 24, 2019

Splitface unloads. A bomb explodes. Concussive the results

Shake off the dust. Adjust to rust. Detectives know tumults.

Smoke, it clears. Then who appears? Steve Roper and Mike Nomad

Sam and Tracy are gob smacked. To see old friends they’re so glad.

Journalist and tough guy. These two game for exploration

Comic magic brings ‘em back. Fans shout out exhortation.

Such a thrill in Tracyville. Splitface, he fails and how

Steve and Mike were older once. They’re younger than that now.

Sigh

Sense of it all

None of it makes

Why

To know they’d be there

A psychic it’d take

Lie

That close to a bomb

Would be a mistake

Bye

Both should be dead

This truth is a fake

.

Never a dull moment in the land of recycling.

Good morning™, strip historians!

Steve Roper and Mike Nomad ran under various titles from 1936 until 2004. It had various distributors also, ending up at King Features Syndicate, but was never a Tribune property.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Roper_and_Mike_Nomad

Nomad was in the detective business in the end.

So, how did Mike & Joe secure the rights? ✨

Their coats and hats might have a Kevlar lining

Good morning™, psychic bomb placers !

The guest names sound vaguely familiar though I can’t remember when I have actually read the strip. I find the set up for the introduction of these two characters to be most contrived. Ah well.. As a free member who am I to complain but to enjoy what comes next.

These two men, coming out of the mists of time, look like spirits. Will we eventually see Sam and Tracy coming out of a coma surrounded by family and coworkers who are so thankful that the worst damage they suffered was only a nasty concussion ?

Joe’s Sunday inks really give a sense of the William Overgard run. ✨❤️✨

Oddly, Steve Roper essentially vacated his own strip for a dozen or so years, bequeathing its space on the newspaper page to artist William Overgard’s creation, Mike Nomad. ✨

Can’t believe that they are bringing back Steve Roper and his sidekick friend Mike Nomad. Steve Roper was my favorite comic strip before they decided to stop running it. Towards the end, it was mainly the adventures of Mike Nomad. Wonder how they plan to work these two into the story line. Steve Roper was a reporter and later the one in charge. Mike Nomad held many jobs such as a truck driver who later became more of a private detective.

Where’s Chief Wahoo?

Mike “hey joker” Nomad…..allll right!!!

So they detonate the bomb without them in the car??? Ummmmm…….

Holy way back when, Batman! I haven’t seen those two in ages! (since the early 90’s)

Now if Ma Jong shows up, I’m definitely along for the ride.

Wow! I recall Mike Nomad and Steve Roper! Some of their comics used to appear in the Indrajal Comics series by the Times of India publication (which also featured Phantom, Mandrake, Flash Gordon, Rip Kirby, Buzz Sawyer, Kerry Drake, Garth, Phil Corrigan, and a couple of Bruce Lee Comics plus some Indian features and an Indian hero called Bahadur). The western comics were reprints of the original comic strips in a comic book format.

All I can think of is “Mike Gonads”, an unprintable-languaged parody appearing in a “Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers” comic strip involving a bomb in a bucket of water…

Now here’s a crossover I never saw coming.

Meanwhile, back at high school, Honey and Crystal meet recent transfer students the Jackson Twins.

What next, Rip Kirby teams up with Dick Tracy?

Splitface, Splitface, Splitface – how many times do I have to tell ya? Wait until they’re inside the car to set off the bomb! Now, not only are they still alive, they’re ticked off…

It’s great to see Steve Roper and Mike Nomad in the strip.

Car go BOOM!!!

I am kind of in the Twilight Zone now, I will have to “stay tuned”!

I really miss Steve Roper & Mike Nomad…well written strips that kept you coming back for more.

Looks nothing like Steve Roper

1-This looks like a nice place to stay, Honey.

2-BA-BOOM-O!

3-DT: SAM! SAM! I told you to wait till I got a couple blocks away.

4-YOO HOO! Do you fellas need help.

DT: Oh no. A stupid question like that could only come from…

SAM: Ugh. Who burned dinner? Anybody else feel hot? Where am I?

5-DT: …CAPTAIN OBLIVIOUS AND HIS PAL CLUELESS BOY! Do we need help? What makes you think so? Sam’s charred face? The wrecked cars? THE FREAKIN’ EXPLOSION?

CAPTAIN OBLIVIOUS: Huh? I meant with your bags. We work here part-time now. Welcome to The Siam where the elite meet for meat and like, other stuff on the menu…

I guess they needed more dynamite!

Well, this got interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Roper_and_Mike_Nomad

That’s ONE.

My dad used to cut out the Boston Herald Sunday strips for Steve Roper & Mike Nomad. Think there’s still some tucked away in his old desk. I’ll have to check when I swing by on Thanksgiving.

Does anyone know the dates of the 80’s storyline in which Mike Nomad got involved w/ stunt crew on film? Older stuntman got killed in a motorcycle stunt, veered off cliff when explosive charges set too close to his path? The silent Sunday panel of the older stuntman literally launched into open air has always stuck in my memory.

Okay, I have to admit that Roper and Nomad are a “large” surprise, as Mike Curtis put it. My memories of the strip are from the Mike Nomad days, with Roper only an occasional guest star.

Roper and Nomad seem awfully calm after their car just blew up next to them. Perhaps they are invulnerable. How did Splitface know they were all going to be there at the same time coinciding with his easy escape from high security?

This is a bit ridiculous. Not even a scratch…

so no one was blown up?

I wonder if the Siam has some kind of magical protection around it that limited the explosion to some extent? We know who lives there after all, and he’s a pretty careful guy.

Deus ex machina!

I hope Rudy shows up as well. I mean the talking bonobo chimp. I MEAN THE COMIC.

The return of Steve Roper and Mike Nomad! I haven’t seen them in my local newspaper comics pages/section (Chicago Sun-Times) since January 1985!

Joe seems to be basing his iteration of Steve Roper on this period of the strip’s run, more or less …

https://images.app.goo.gl/DDWxn5wK9LbZdq1y5

Clearly the Hotel Siam is a nexus, linking countless cartoon universes together.

Steve Roper was a good strip for 15 years or more with Gould type villains like Kerry Drake’s. Once it became Mike Nomad it got a little soapy. Now a warmed over crossover, sigh.

Perhaps Roper and Nomad can be infused with personalities that defy detection in their home universe.

Can we just bring Brenda Starr in and get it over with? Or maybe include Captain Easy with Wash Tubbs,Juliet Jones and Dondi?

Back in the day, we were mainly a Tribune-reading family (in Chicago), as it was the biggest paper, and the Daily News in the afternoons; but over at my aunt and uncle’s house where we visited very frequently (at least once a week, sometimes more), all four dailies were available—uncle was an editor on Printer’s Row, so magazines and newspapers were abundant there (morning Tribune and rival Sun-Times, afternoon Daily News and Hearst’s Herald-American, later bought by Tribune and renamed Chicago’s American). Steve Roper ran in the Sun-Times, and I read it sporadically only; mostly what I remember is that Mike Nomad pretty much took over the lead rôle in the period I read the strip.

Here, it is a surprise, but I suppose necessary, that Tracy knows Roper and Nomad, and vice versa. What brings Roper and Nomad to the Siam in Tracyville is unclear still. I guess we’ll find out gradually.

Too bad for Splitface that he is such an amateur car bomber! Try, try again, Bad Guy….

They have to be close to 100 years old by now. I wonder if they are taking Ka-Zowie Kure-All.

Another trip to the newspaper comic strip museum of extinct characters. Sigh…

No idea who these two are

12:30 am and more comments (190) on Dick Tracy than Luann (186) – amazing!

Steve Roper and Mike Nomad. Now there are two comic strip characters I really miss.

“GHOSTS! I’m in the afterlife!”