Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for October 23, 2009

Feed Locher to the tiger.

Someone swore they saw Della Contessa’s butt the other day… Good call!

So it was Della that raised the trapeze. It’s a good thing the performers stayed behind after the circus closed! The excitement continues to build. I can hardly wait to see what happens next. Now that the clown has phoned the police, I wonder how long it’ll take them to arrive? He did phone ‘em, didn’t he? Where’s the pig on wheels?

That’d be me that spied Della’s derriere.

Today I’m noticing the haphazard, asymmetrical positioning of the spokes on the top of the cage. This, along with the impossible physics of the trapeze escape, convince me that the previously advanced hypothesis that this is all a feverish dream or ongoing hallucination is the only explanation for what’s going on here.

Flight Suit said, “…only explanation for what’s going on here.”

I’m glad there’s an explanation! I’ve been seeing the whole thing as a bunch of disconnected panels.

Dick Tracy looks like he’s beginning to show his age…

Tracy’s eyes doesn’t open that easily. They’ve been wide Garfield-on-caffeine-open for two week now. Relax, dear artist. He’s been through more harrowing stuff than this.

LlewellenBruce got it right!!!!

The art work in the last days it’s not great.

What the…. our FBI agent somehow looks a little bit like the king of Pop. Yes, this is the first sighting of him - like Elvis he is alive and well and cameo on Dick Tracy!

You can always count on fat women.

Did Della also weld a roof to the cage? Carlo, the artwork will get worse (if that’s possible).

Let’s start a petition:

Locher, please abandon the Dick Tracy strip to a more competent cartoonist, of which there must be an innumerable amount, so that us almost-loyal readers can stomach the results!

Did Della Contessa raise our two, um, heroes aloft to safety by pulling down on a rope or trapeze somewhere?

Oh, and is DT standing with one foot in mid-air where the hole in the roof is supposed to be?

If you want to see how a cartoonist wiggles out of a “hole in a plot” with humour and panache, have a look at today’s (2009-10-23) “Monty” strip at Comics.Com

Della ate the tiger. B-u-u-u-r-r-p ! P-f-f-f-f-t !

I’m agree with Anthony 2816. It’s the moment for a petition.

Nice touch: Della’s “Jazz Hands”!

No one has questioned where Della is standing. If the perspective in the first panel is correct (which it is not), then she must be standing on the very edge of the top of the cage!!!

This is such a joke!!!

I wake from sleep and rise from bed The coffee’s on, the cats are fed Same old news, different day Tracy’s still in an awful way He was trapped, about to be eaten But death it appears, he has beaten Just when his future was hanging in doubt He was saved by a women who was considerably stout She was no frail creature of skin and of bone She would top the scale at more than forty stone Not as huge of a woman you might well think It’s just that Tracy in her presence appears to shrink Perspective it seems has taken off for the day The panels are wrong in so many ways Mr. Pops scheme is beginning to unravel Making it time for him to now travel But he will stay to whatever preposterous end The writer of this strip decides on a whim It seems we are to be forever fated With a writer who is definitely addlepated.

Look at those jazz ha … um … jazz things at the ends of Della Contessa’s arms!

It sure was nice of the tiger to give Ms. Ennens her shoe. It’s hard enough walking around on the bars of a badly-constructed jungle gym without having to do it with one shoe on and one shoe off.

By the way, why did someone apparently not smart enough to read a ruler or a protractor construct a jungle gym in the middle of the circus tent?

How come the fat lady is strong enough to lift both Tracy and Ennens – faster than a tiger can jump?

I’m afraid this is all more hallucinations of poor brain-damaged ex-detective Tracy. That would explain how all the police swarming the crime scene vanished, too – they were only hallucinations. He didn’t really order a 24-hour guard for Ringo – or if he did no one paid any attention to his orders; the real police can only humor him so far…. But if there was a real murder committed there would be police all over the place whether a brain-damaged former detective ordered it or not! Was the murder a hallucination too? What is real? It’s all very existential and advanced.

-Cougar :{)

When you see Tracy’s hand and the trapeze in panel 3, it makes you wonder just what was Della pulling on to lift the trapeze out of the cage?

Oh, good grief! The 2 largest people in the clown’s Cirque deEvil have vanished and he hasn’t noticed.

You may have made it to the top of the cage, but given the size of the holes and the narrowness of the bars, you aren’t safe yet.

Even by this strip’s current pathetic standard, the art in panel 1 is an abomination!

great hands!— tip top!— love the improvement!

It was better during the past two days without dialog.

Quite a coincidence…today’s Merriam Webster Word of the Day is: REBUS

petitioneers: I’m all for it, but I don’t think it will make any difference…I wrote TMS some months ago and never heard back. Gocomics is the de facto web home of Dick Tracy and every day dozens of people write nothing but complaints about the many failings of the strip. And it’s been going on for years. I can only guess TMS is a highly dysfunctional agency, or so wrapped up in themselves that they think they are smarter than all of their readers and newspaper clients. It’s a shame, because Dick Tracy is a national icon. It’s like seeing the Lincoln Memorial covered in graffiti and smelling of urine because no one cares enough to clean it. The logical flaws in the strip are so numerous that it just doesn’t matter what happens any more because clearly, anything can happen.

And fer, I’d guess Essen is puking because she is in such a lousy comic strip. She also seems to be kneeling on the space between the bars, which is a pretty neat trick.

wndrwrthg: “addlepated.” yes.

pps: If anyone wishes to express an opinion to Tribune Media Services:

Mary Elson, Managing Editor

melson@tribune.com

435 N. Michigan Avenue Suite 1500 Chicago, IL 60611 USA

Watcha is correct: Ennen really does look like Michael Jackson, bustin’ a move.

Regarding Della:

Isn’t it time she put on some clothes?

Last I heard, TMS is kinda in trouble. Seems some rich dude bought the whole thing, ran it into the ground and since then he’s been selling off bits and pieces. Running DT into the ground might be part of the plan— who can be sure?

And just how did junior petite Della Contessa make it up to where she is?

I heard that Max Collins’ dismissal was a money decision, Mike Killian was brought in at half the rate. After which they went from 350 to 50 subscribing papers..so whatever money they saved in overhead they more than lost in income. It just makes no sense.

Still wondering what pulled Tracy and Ennen up (?)

wndrwrthg, Yet another great comment. Don’t know how you do it

I think the idea is the Della lowered the trapeze, and pulled it up after Tracy and the agent got on. Apart from bad art work, the only hard to believe part is how Tracy was able to hold on with one hand while holding another adult with the other hand. (Well, having cats, I also find it hard to believe the tiger didn’t attack the guy pulling his tail.)