Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for March 28, 2011

Good morning all…

Goodmorning back attcha, Bill! I think the color crew goofed, they gave the chief a brown cap,

The Honeymoon is continuing -

The story keeps moving along.

Miss a day and you miss a lot!!!

A Seinfeld reference?

If Locher was still doing this strip, it would have probably been a Lum and Abner reference that wouldn’t have even made sense to the few readers who actually got it.

Return to the past…

http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2009/11/08/

Fee Fi hurls Mr. Pops the clown from the top of the 80 ft. tiger’s cage.

Check out the coloring at the Daily News site:

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

Pat’s hat is blue and Lizz has the red highlights in her hair.

Can’t wait for Tuesday’s strip, by panel three, Dick and Diet will probably be halfway to the Moon in the aircar.

VistaBill, I found this today while researching the Space Coupe

http://drexfiles.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/tracy_55.jpg

Tuckerch, I actually prefer comics.com

http://comics.com/dick_tracy/2011-03-28/

It isn’t color, except for the Sunday, and the zoom feature is actually of a high quality image. It is the site closest to what Shelley originally intended.

Gocomics still has the best comments, and it releases the newest strip earlier. None of the color sites have got Pat’s hat or hair color right. Didn’t they use Shane’s Sunday panel for reference? (groan)

http://comics.com/dick_tracy/2011-03-20/

This is a prime example of how the inconsistent, unintended (by the authors) coloring of the daily strips is ruining them. Why are the chief’s hair and hat both brown? Neither should be!

For reference, check out the correctly (author-sanctioned) colored Sunday strip from just over a week ago. Pat Patton is unrecognizable in today’s strip! http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2011/03/20

I like the new strip but I must admit that I also enjoyed making comments about the old one. What does that say about me?

I haven’t seen gweedo’s comments anywhere for a while. I hope he’s OK.

Let us hope that the inevitable invention brought forth with obey the laws of physics, chemistry, and engineering…

…laws that the anti-science Locher would ignorantly ignore.

I just recently reread several years of reprints from the mid to late 60’s (before Locher). Locher had nothing on Gould concerning dragging out stories and reprinting panels endlessly. I probably saw a $100,000.00 floating around in space at least 15 or 20 times during that story and that is only one example of reprints that I saw. We now have the BEST Dick Tracy artist and writer EVER!!

Yeesh. I could color this thing better.

So could I, M. Mitchell Marmel, and I have glaucoma. I think the crayonistas could do better with it, too.

WHOA! When did the Chief start workin for UPS?

brinrik said:

I just recently reread several years of reprints from the mid to late 60’s (before Locher). Locher had nothing on Gould concerning dragging out stories and reprinting panels endlessly. I probably saw a $100,000.00 floating around in space at least 15 or 20 times during that story and that is only one example of reprints that I saw. We now have the BEST Dick Tracy artist and writer EVER!!

====

I’ve been wondering when someone was going to point this out. I’ve only been reading the anti-Locher comments since January, but many of the complaints could have been applied equally well to Chester Gould himself. I became a Dick Tracy fan in the seventies, during the Molene / Pouch / Johnny Scorn story, and even as a kid I could see there were problems with the art and writing. But Gould somehow rose above his limitations to produce a great work.

And while I also like Locher’s weird drawing, he needed another writer (Max Allan Collins) to keep him on track.

I’m not suggesting the new crew imitate the quirks and/or failings of Gould or Locher. I really like the new direction. Can’t wait to see what happens next. Which is precisely the response Gould’s Tracy almost always produced.

brown cap is better than a brown nose

So I’m taking a poll:

At what point will Locher jokes cease to be funny or relevant?

By “Locher jokes,” I mean, of course, references to how much better the new strip is to Locher’s.

I don’t mean actual jokes that Locher made.

The strip is excellent. The colorists need to be fired ASAP! Dailies should be in glorious black and white.

So I’ve followed off an on for a few months now, thanks to The Comics Curmudgeon. Enjoying the new artists and the new direction of the strip. One request. Can we quit slamming Locher?! Like a lot of comic artists, he did what he loved for a long time!!! Had he chosen to stop years ago, either the comic could have disappeared like so many others, or the replacement team would not be as good as what we have now. Sorry to rant… just trying to enjoy the comics and the comments without the put downs..

Terry Pleger –

Thanks for the flashback to the ‘64 Sunday strip (which I remember reading, lying on the living room floor! Am I really that old?).

And yes, Comics.com does have a better quality image.

APersonOfInterest said it – the Locher jabs aren’t funny any more. He’s retired, let’s be grateful the strip wasn’t “retired” with him, and comment on what we’re seeing now.

The artist who does “Pibgorn” does his own coloring; “Pibgorn Sketches” isn’t just uncolored; it’s pencil roughs. The /same/ artist also does “9 Chickweed Lane”, which is never colored except on Sunday; this is by his deal with the syndicate.

The current Tracy team may not have the time to worry about weekday color; the best deal /might/ be to go the same route as “9 Chickweed Lane”, and abandon weekday color altogether. But it will require negotiation.

It reminds me of what Meader and Slampyak did with Annie. I know this will be heresy to a lot of you, but I never cared for Little Orphan Annie until Meader and Slampyak took it over and modernized it.

Let’s hope Stanton and Curtis’s Dick Tracy doesn’t meet with the same fate.

whats sam got in his mouth?

it says a lot about the transformation of this strip when all we can do is nitpick about the coloring. color this color that – color me yawning.

Diet Smith? It just keeps getting better!

I was wondering about that thing in Sam’s mouth too. He was quite a chain smoker in the old days.

Why does Pat Patton look like Chief Brandon? He doesn’t look anything like when he was Tracy’s partner. When was this change made?

If one is reading the Gould/Tracy stuff only from the 60s and early 70s I can understand the comments regarding that era and the recent Locher stuff. Although it was topical, Gould got way too involved with the Space Stories, and I don’t think it was his best work. From the late 30s to late 50s though, nothing was better, and to look at that era and contrast it with the last 8-10 years will reveal the stark difference. However, even at his worst, Gould’s work, based on character and story, far exceeded anything in the recent decade. Finally, I think the weekly strip is much more vivid in b/w

I didn’t know Seinfeld” was on TV in 1948. But we didn’t have a TV so maybe he was.

The current strip is good. The only comment I can make is why does Chief Patton wear his hat all the time in the office. i don’t know anyone else who does. I didn’t wear my Navy “Chief’s Hat” when I was in the office.

The current strip is wonderful! I love colors!!!

Woodworker318, I don’t know why all the men are wearing hats. Sam hasn’t taken his off yet! If I had to guess, after Patton had his chemo treatments his hair is still growing in, and he wears it to keep his head warm, and so he doesn’t look stupid. It could also be a problem with the AC in the MCS section having a vent right over their desks, so it blows on top of their heads all the time. You never know.

Kurtis Findlay, Chief Brandon retired after Brilliant Smith was murdered. He now runs a hardware store called “Lawn Order”. Tracy declined the offer to become the new chief and passed it over to his partner Pat Patton. Pat retired for medical reasons and Liz took over as chief until just recently. Pat is now back, and he looks like Brandon because he is wearing the Chief of Police uniform. If you look close you can see he still has the rounded nose and chin that are characteristic of his character. Brandon is more angular and pointy, like a certain detective. Also, Brandon smokes cigars. I am not sure what hair color Pat was supposed to have. Shelley thought he was going to be a redhead, but Shane colored him with gray hair. He is back from retirement, maybe he is just aging quickly.

Bit of trivia for you all. The “Seinfeld” reference is not the original script from Mike. Originally Pat said MAD TV, it was changed to Seinfeld by the request of TMS. Not the only change they have requested. One of the panels of Liz, in an upcoming strip was “to revealing” and had to be changed. Sorry male viewership. Shelley and Shane also had to change a Sunday panel that was “to graphic”. Staton & Curtis, pushing the envelope. (grin)

Terry: having seen the “Plainclothes” site version of this story, I’m looking forward to seeing just how much TMS demands Lizz be covered. There was nothing “revealing” in the “Plainclothes” version, but it did make it clear what she wasn’t wearing at the time…

Patton virtually always wore his Chief’s hat when Gould drew him, and Rick Fletcher as well. It was only in the last few years Locher featured him that he began to be seen without it more often. Maybe this is nothing more than Staton & Curtis trying to bring back some of that Gould flavor to the strip.

The reference to Johnny Scorn came way out of left field for me, and it was much appreciated. That may have been the last truly great story Gould ever did, a rare bright spot of his later days. (As others have pointed out – correctly, if you ask me – Locher’s creative enfeeblement in the last years of his own career was very similar to Gould’s. If the Internet had been around in 1976, you can bet Gould would’ve been raked over the coals for his stuff just as much as Locher was for his.)

I too am wondering where this Space Coupe business is going. (Hopefully not back to Moon Valley; my suspension of disbelief can only handle so much!) Was this part of the MCS tribute strips?

A few points.

First and foremost, since it’s the most relevant to current events, today’s script is the perfect illustration of why the daily strips should NOT be colored. The dailies are drawn with the presumption that they’re going to be published in B&W. A panel that’s dependent on the noir-ish, chiarascuro use of shadows and light, like panel two, is completely undercut by the colorizing. What is striking and effective in B&W is muddy and hard to see in color.

JIM DOHERTY

Second point.

I didn’t follow the strip regularly (hardly at all, in fact) after Al Collins’s departure and the throwing overboard of past continuity and lore. That’s how little a fan I was of the Kilian/Locher consortium, continued by Locher on his own after Kilian’s untimely death.

That said, Locher deserves credit for his work on the strip. He stepped in at a critical moment (Fletcher’s death), at the specific request of his old mentor, Chester Gould. He had no reason except his friendship with Gould and his love for the character for doing this, particularly since he’d made a major success as an editorial cartoonist, a path he’d carved out for himself rather than having an existing property handed to him. And some of his work on the strip, during the years he was collaborating with Collins, is quite enjoyable.

He also deserves credit for keeping the strip going so that there was something to hand off to Mike and Joe.

I’m no fan of his work post-Collins, and even less of a fan of his work post-Kilian (that which I’ve seen). But he’s not on the strip anymore, and I think the snarky comments can stop. They’r not funny. They’re just mean.

JIM DOHERTY

Final point.

I’m no fan of the Space Era, but it did boast more forward movement, greater villains, and more unbridled imagination than has been the case sine 1993.

And, after ending, for practical, if not official purposes, the Space Era in 1970, there were a lot of great stories turned out poast Johnny Scorn. Off the top of my head, the Z.Z. Welz story, about a criminal seeking revenge on his daughter-in-law, and Lizz, for the death of his criminal son, was both topical and suspenseful. And his last story, about corrupt politics in the state capital was a great one to go out on.

Don’t count out Gould’s work between 1970 and 1977.

What’s with Pat’s brown cap?. After a couple of weeks, and I’m not complaining, the cartooning reminds me of Will Eisner’s.

countoftowergrove said : “the cartooning reminds me of Will Eisners’s.”

I beat if Joe Staton were to see that he’d blush!

This is the message Gocomics sent me (and probably others) about colorizing the strip:

“We have found that most users prefer strips in color, and prior to us adding the color strips, many of the comments we were getting were in favor of adding color to Dick Tracy. We are working to more closely match the creators’ intent, which will get easier as more of the new color Sundays become available to us. thank you GoComics Support”

Color is fine, as long as the artists do it themselves. But just adding color doesn’t work. Sunday’s strips have shown the landscaping in front of the Smith Industries building with different shades of green, and the police uniforms with specific colors. The crayonistas take a whatever approach, including that radial change-of-color filler.

safeway674 said, about 22 hours ago

The Honeymoon is continuing -

The story keeps moving along.

Miss a day and you miss a lot!!!

Ain’t that the truth! I did miss a couple days and actually had to see what happened! Way different from Tracy and Mordred in the granary! I like it!! :)

BTW…that thing in Sam’s mouth does look suspiciously like a cigarette…