Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for July 04, 2009

He did speak English, pudding face.

“speak English you dumb cop!”

” OK, in other words, I cheated.”

Shall I comment on Tracy’s arm and hand in the first panel? Ugh!

I have it figured out. We are all dead and have been condemned to hell. There can be no other explanation to this.

Are those Wanted posters on the wall? If so, why are they there?

The cheater got cheated. There’s a certain justice in there somewhere.

…with a name like Dick Tracy you have to be good…

Well Locher picked the fanfare of July 4th to launch his brand new rocket, “Thermal Imaging”. It’s his “scientific” version of Teevo, not going anywhere. A modern day answer to the Space Coupe that just like those North Korean rockets will crash off radar and dies when this story ends.

Not unlike Traze-R et al, we could call it a once in a lifetime “highlight” that we will not see again

As Jeff noted yesterday, when Locher ends a story, he ENDS it ! Very rarely looking back ! That’s the equivalent of Gould launching the Two-Way Wrist Radio in the Diet Smith/Irma saga and then squashing it for all future stories. In a way I like that Locher “imperative”, but apply it to Teevo too ! Seems unfair to take your dissapointment at that Dodos creation (sorry, “characters”) and punish Sam Catchem for your mistake.

So for the future that sort of “continuity” and “linkage” with the past is “OUT” along with that Taser feature they were just “highlights” . But Creations not good enough to earn a longer “life” in the strip.

Don’t complicate your enjoyment with “fussy” considerations. Just read along and imagine they all never happened or existed. Remember, the Author already has to struggle to tweak his stories, to occasionally cope with the “reality” of normal police proceedure. It’s difficult, but he must make Tracy look like a “genuine” detective.

Gould had Al Varnis, as a paid police consultant to ensure “authenticity” which he felt was important. They’re things like clues and science, (intuition, instinct on occasion yes), but he couldn’t have Tracy looking like a “hunch” detective around the clock, all the time ! Circulation and the attendant income are so bad now, poor Dick has to fudge it all by guessing (?).

Perhaps we need to give him a little slack, but he needs to cut out those short cuts and focus more on producing valid looking police sequences.As I said, acting on “gut feel” on occasion is fine.

Sydney, It seems to me that these ad-hoc gimmicks are each a sort of deus ex machina. They resolve a plot problem, but are so powerful that they would resolve almost every problem and thus there would be no stories. So the best thing to do is bury them after one use. I suppose if you change your deus each time, it’s a new story so it’s not so bad. But if you keep using the same deus, it’s just dull repetition. The wrist radio was a handy plot lubricant, while Traze-R would be a huge eraser wiping out everything. The only thing that could stand up to him would be another super-robot, and we’ve been there, done that. If Traze-R stayed, we’d just have an evil robot of the month plot.The strip would have to be re-named “Traze-R.” DT would be reduced to being a bystander, as he was during that storyline. This is the problem with Spiderman. No ordinary villain can stand up against him, so it’s one super-villain after another.

Yesterday by accident I came across the “online” version of The New York Daily News, the paper that introduced me to Dick Tracy when I was a kid. It was one of the “foundation” papers for the strip carrying the strip on the front page of the Sunday comic section (and wrapped around the WHOLE paper)

The strip remained in the paper until about 1996 when it was dropped suddenly. My “take” was that the quality of the strip had slipped badly and the Editors simply did what hundreds more were in the process of doing.

But “defenders” saw it differently. The usual “spin” to protect the then producers, Kilian and Locher. What had happened they said was that the ownership of the newspaper changed hands. Sounds reasonable on the surface, but dig a little deeper.They only lost a “requirement” to carry the strip. It would now have to earn it’s right to stay there, and it didn’t !

PLOP ! And it skidded on the N.Y. sidewalks !

Then the next line of “defense” was that “continuity” strips were now out of favor. They had to make way for humorous strips. Could that be right ? Sorry ! Not in the New York Daily News as of yesterday.

Among a wider selection these “serial” type strips are now carried in their pages – 1) The Phantom 2) Mandrake 3) Spiderman 4) Flash Gordon 5) Prince Valiant 6) Apt. 3-G 7) Rex Morgan 8) Judge Parker 9) Mary Worth

My Lord ! What a come down ! II’s one thing to be replaced by Lee Falk’s Phantom but we have a shocking new LOW here ! ? Is the Mary Worth package more “attractive” and viable than Dick Tracy ? It’s not “skidding” on the sidewalk anymore, it’s floating down the Drain ! Twenty three million readers on the Internet ? What do you think ?

Some people need to hang their heads in shame. Including those that have the temerity to posture boldly as they defend trash ! Imagine ! Mary Worth !

And less we forget, these guys “INHERITED”, 300 Plus newspapers. Under their stewardship it’s slipped to a “finger nail” biting 50 newspapers ! Under their management they lost 83% of what they started with.

Why should we bother to respond to their questionable defensive comments ?

I think Locher teleported them to the Naperville post office. Hence, the wanted posters. If it had been the police station, Tracy’s picture would be up.

ludwig, those arent wanted posters…those are missing children posters . Our evil bad guy may look evil and bad but he has a soft spot for missing children…. .after all, nobody is ALL bad….. with the possible exception of my ex wife’s lawyer

What exactly is Big Ace being charged with?

Correct me if I’m wrong…but is this the first time Big Ace acknowledged DT as a “cop”? Could it be the way things are in this strip these days that they possibly ARE in the police station? Maybe those ARE indeed wanted psoters on the wall. Heck, one day DT was with BO and Gert and the next right back with OEJ and KOC.

Now I understand Dick’s card trick. That’s not a card he’s holding, it’s a Kindle.

You all have my undying respect. I don’t care if we share different tastes or opinions one little bit. It doesn’t matter to me in the least.

I’m a member of the 5% club, and I’m perfectly comfortable with the company I keep there. Peace to you all this Independence Day and God bless.

Please forgive me for my past behavior–can’t a person have a change of heart? All I can do now is listen to my heart and behave accordingly. I have asked for forgiveness for my past behavior and the past behavior of others. I forgive everyone here for anything they may have said untoward or disrespectfully about me and I forgive those who will do so in the future…and that goes for you, too, Grok.

I’ve turned over a new leaf, brother.

I’m a member of the 95% club and we all are pretty happy too.

(Psst…what’s the 5% club?)

But this technology really exist?

Carlo, I think it does. Search on the Internet and you’ll find it

Where the leap into the “wild beyond” takes place is on Monday, when Tracy reveals it’s all powered by his “body heat”. Wow ! Since he learned this trick Tess must be in 7th Heaven ! No wonder Tracy seldom goes to the Office anymore - only once this year !

I think Araldite easily takes the new “D.I.T.T” Award (‘Dick In Thermally Titillating’ Award) for today, with the phrasing in his one line scorcher on membership in the “95% club”.

Thanks for the kind words, Jeff. Boiling it down, we are only kernels of corn in Maxine’s big popper. Putting it in a sense that maybe more of us can identify, we are but cubes of ice in the Big Margarita Machine. And that is only until someone pulls the lever!