Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for March 19, 2011

Good morning all…

Ha Ha. Had to be the first. :D So I’ll be the second. Good Morning! (at 12:19 am)

Good morning, VistaBill! Perhaps he smokes to keep the flies hanging around his buddy away from him.

It’s a good morning, all right. The first full week isn’t even over and we’ve been reintroduced to the central characters, started a new story and had some eye-pleasing art work. Plus the newspaper isn’t being used as the only source of clues (is”The Jackson Banner” another tribute? There’s a Jackson Banner in Indiana, according to Google, so I’m guessing this tells us two villains died somewhere other than Naperville.)

Yup, the story is moving fast. A very welcome change of pace.

margueritem, have you tried a new avatar lately? The usual X-box and name have been replaced by the old blank face and question mark avatar. Maybe Gocomics has corrected its problem.

The Jackson Banner was used as it will not sue, having gone out of business in 1979. I was the editor.

Tomorrow, our first Sunday, with color by Shane Fisher. Then the pace picks up.

Mike

You all know I’m dismayed by the complete lack of bad art and the lack of continuity errors which had gripped this strip! I believe Staton and Curtis may have finally thrown me a bone, as the cab in panel three looks very different from yesterday’s Checker Cab.

And if I was really motivated, I could even pretend not to know whether that was the front end or the rear.

Still, it’s no AMC Pacer.

Mike we are so pleased with the way the two of you are doing Dick Tracy. It’s a pleasure to read once again.

BillThompson there is no place to pick a new avatar at my home page. They say they are ‘working on it’. Meanwhile, here’s today’s avatar:

Guess I’ll put my two cents worth in too. I too like the new look and I’m glad everyone else seems to as well. While I’ll admit that Locher’s stories were sure not the best they were still better than Moon Maid. That’s my opinion and I’m entitled to it. I never meant to tick anyone off. It’s just that my local paper had dropped Tracy in 1978 and I had lost track of him until I found him on the internet in 2005. That’s a long time and I guess I had missed him for so long that I just could not see the reasons for all the attacks. The last Locher story helped me to see some of the holes in his work. This new story looks promising, I remember Thistle well and how she pretented to like Junior so she and her Uncle Punky could kidnap him. So you see, I go way back. Hope this new look keeps Tracy from going the way of Annie and Brenda Starr.

Quick, Henry, the Flit!

Mike Curtis, how cool of you to interact with us. Adds to the fun and intrigue. But you got me wondering…what’s the story behind “Klypzyxm” as your handle??

new here! read tracy in the late 50’s & 60’s. been getting each volume of “the complete dick tracy”. kept an eye on him, but never found anybody but gould could do him justice. that is ‘till now! this team may be onto a good thing. the intro of flyface reminds me of the way milton caniff introduced steve canyon in its first week. well done. please don’t skimp on the highlighted profiles that gould used, and whip up a few good snow storms or fires, and this re-energized machine will really be rolling!

The rear of the car— Hmm, it’s not a Crown Vic, but I can’t quite figure what it is.

Now I wonder. I mentioned last week the idea of becoming a career criminal, starting with stealing the 52 inch TV from the police headquarters. Back in the day of Locher nothing would come of that since he never read the comments (as far as we know). Today at least one of the artists not only reads these comments, he joins in from time to time. So– at some point in the future– at a time least suspected— will one of us show up in the series?

Thanks, Mike (Klypzyxm). I hope you’re bullet-proof on the newspaper name.

Michael McMillan said, 27 minutes ago

The rear of the car— Hmm, it’s not a Crown Vic, but I can’t quite figure what it is. ———————————-

Could easily be a 1980s era Crown Victoria. Remember, they weren’t always rounded like the modern ones.

Here’s a 1987 Ford LTD Crown Victoria:

http://tinyurl.com/4tpvnws

Very similar to the car in today’s strip.

@grazer; I’m guessing our friend Mike is paying tribute to the Superman mythos. One of his enemies was a little guy named Mr. Mxyzptlk. When he’s causing mischief, he can only be stopped by tricking him into saying his name backwards (“Kltpzyxm””, which is close to “Klypzyxm”).

Am I right, Mike?

Careful, neonleon59, if you’re right we’ll lose him!

I have been a fan of Joe Staton’s artwork for years. I think the first time I saw it was the very first Green Lantern story he drew way back in 1977. In my opinion, this is the best work of his career, and maybe the best that this strip has ever looked.

Mike, since you have Joe have saved this strip, is there any way someone can do something to save Alley Oop? It’s almost as bad as Locher’s DT.

I’m not agree, Alley Oop is still a good strip.

Mr. Curtis, It’s a pleasure have you here! My congratulations for the awesome work you and Joe Staton made on Dick Tracy!!!

I believe that Klypzyxm, or the other way around, is the original spelling of the character’s name.

I don’t think it would be possible, but I would love to see Michael Mauser, or for that matter Alec Tron and Nova Kane make an cameo in the strip. It’s been way too long since I last saw those guys.

Nix on that idea. Stick with the Gould-style villains. I’m not a big fan of returning past opponents, although it has worked from time to time. I’d like to see some new faces added to Tracy’s Rogues gallery, something Hack Locher could never quite accomplish. Looking forward to more interaction with The Fifth and Flyface.

Its looking much better. I think it took a full month to get from the car to the house in the previous strip over the Holidays. They were giving slowness a bad name.

The 1st frame look a lot like Major Crime Squad 001.

Hmm… yesterday’s front-view was unmistakably a Checker; today’s rear-view (and it’s clearly a rear-view; we can see the silhouette of the driver on the left side) is clearly not a Checker.

The new team’s been doing a lot of “tributes” in the details of these first few strips. Maybe the Mighty Morphin Power Cab is their tribute to Locher’s infamous continuity gaffes.

Oh, no… you mean… they might have done it on purpose ?!

Wow! Three dialogs in one panel! That would have been a full day’s strip before, not to mention the Sunday repeat.

COLOR! We want COLOR!

Can’t snark the strip now! It is actually pleasant and exciting to read. Congrats!

For color:

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/comics/index.html?featureid=DickTracy

Black and white! We want it to remain in black and white!

The question is, who does the color for the daily strips? If it’s added after it leaves the creators’ control, I don’t want to see it. (It’s like the colorized version of “Casablanca,” if you remember that. When Rick said that Ilsa wore blue, he meant her dress, not her teeth.)

I’m loving the new creative team. I’m not familiar with Flyface or The Fifth, since they were before my time, but I’m delighted to see some classic Gould villains return. I don’t know anything about Thistle Dew or Wormy, either, but I’m sorry to see them go…it just doesn’t seem right for any Tracy villain to die “off-panel” with Dick not being involved at all.

Incidentally, this strip prompted me to do a search on the aforementioned Dick Tracy villains, and I discovered a blog post with a beautiful gallery of 200 Gould characters:

http://mikelynchcartoons.blogspot.com/2009/06/200-characters-from-dick-tracy-1931.html

Wow.

Not bad for one week’s work! Those young fella’s know what they’re doing!

I wonder if the two arrivals have anything to do with the death of the two in Jackson???

One panel I don’t think we will see again is of Police Headquarters.

All it was is a filler when Locher had no idea what to say.

Lot’s of info today. I’m not used to taking in so much info from a Dick Tracy strip.

Could Mike Curtis be a long lost son of Chester Gould. His style of writing reminds of Chet.

Well I have been trolling since Monday, I figured I would go ahead and say hi. Mike isn’t the only person working on Tracy that reads your comments, my wife and I read them as well. My wife, Shelley, is the one giving Tracy that great inking and easy to read text bubbles. She should have her name up on the Sunday strip along with Shane Fisher, the official colorist for the Sunday strip. WE DO NOT COLOR THE DAILIES! We also have no control over the coloring of the dailies. Something that we sort of worry about. Like the “blue dress” comment earlier there will be some color references in the future strips. Don’t blame us for color errors in any strip other than the Sunday.

Mike, of course, is providing the story. He just keeps coming up with story ideas, the guy is amazing! He is a major Superman fan, and collector, as you have guessed by his avatar. I am sure you can find out all about that from him.

Joe provides the pencil art and general layout of the panels. You can blame him for the general look of the strip, big hands, long legs, cabs of unknown origin, etc. Sorry, Shelley fixed most of the errors you would have pounced on. Believe me, when it comes to things looking right, she is on the case. (grin)

I will NOT say anything about the story that is coming up. I will say that you are all in for a treat, and I hope you continue to enjoy the strip. We all hope we can provide you with your daily Dick Tracy, for years to come.

Terry Pleger

P.S. - I know that you aren’t saying our name out loud, but I want you all to know how to say and spell it correctly. For some reason everyone wants to add a “D” to it. There IS NO “D”! The name is Pleger. The first “E” sounds like the “E” in “Ned met Betty” . The last part sounds like a dog growling. Grrrr. Say it with me, Ple-Grrrr. Very good. Notice, there is no “D”. Shelley, also has two “E”s. Now you will spell it right in the search engines. :) Let the search begin!