Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for April 06, 2023

“Why did the ruffians take me in the first place? Why don’t you catch them and ask? HA HA HA!

I’m glad Wolfe got what he came for because us readers didn’t!

(I know, I know, there’s a very vocal minority out there that laps up everything that’s put out. Good for you!)

I won’t even say the story was bad.

It was so yawn inducing, Neil hasn’t even bothered to comment early!

It put Gweedo’s goats to sleep faster than he does!

It was more boring and stinky than Firestrike is, and that’s saying lot!

So they really are ending it here huh

Good morning™, fond farewells !

The trip wasn’t a total loss. Soon Wolfie will be back in the comfort of familiar surroundings, and P.2. Archie should be making those wistful eyes toward HIS #1 detective in more private settings.

I hope they DON’T meet again… why should we expect their next encounter to be any different or better than THIS one?…

What was the point of the whole boring charade? Depicting Flattop?

I’m glad Wolfe got what he came for, because once again many of us Tracy fans are left feeling like we didn’t get what we come to the strip for … an entertaining and suspenseful story that doesn’t have more holes than 88 Keyes after Tracy shot him in the railroad tool shack.

Mike had to put in a reference to Flattop via a bad pun didn’t he?

Good morning™, everyone!

We had a pretty big all-day ice storm here in eastern Canada. A lot of tree branches came down on power lines and about a million customers are without power, including me, so that’s why I haven’t written any comment until now.

There’s not a lot to say about today’s strip in particular, but I’m annoyed by Archie’s comment about “the creeps we know.” Nero Wolfe never has had a list of repeat “creeps” and I don’t think that Dick Tracy should, either. The only repeat offender ever in the Wolfe canon has been Zeck and they didn’t even know it was him they were dealing with this time.

Eventually, whenever I get power back, I will try to summarize the bits and pieces of this story, and see what I think went wrong. In the meantime, do you think Sam stayed awake through the whole thing?

Some of you complaining should go back to read the strips from 2010. Some of these stories might not be all that great but compared to that year they’re a lot better than they were.

What the hell did they kidnap him for?

Thanks for this story!

if you really think this was a snooze-fest you’ve been spoiled in recent years. Go back to https://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2010/11/21 and enjoy. That one went on for MONTHS with absolutely nothing happening at all. I’m just glad I stuck it out until the new Team Tracy took over.

Well, I really liked the art, Liked the famous characters presented, seeing Flattop at his baddest ,so onward we go to the next adventure in Tracyland!

Hindenburg, Titanic, Twin Towers…just a few things that ended better than this Godawful story

By the way…the last three days of excruciating pain and (yesterday’s) discomfort was revealed, thankfully, as definitely being a result of the remaining kidney stone pieces moving…I nearly broke open the percocet it was so bad…but I felt better yesterday afternoon

Some said Dick Locher’s stories were no good.

I have to wonder if they were limited as far as what they could do with Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. After all the characters ar still under copyright, so maybe they had to respect certain limits when using the characters.

I compliment one aspect of this story: the art team depicted 1940s Chicago well. I mention the team, because they got the fact that every cop and bank employee was white right. It was the 1940s.

tracy wasn’t needed at all for nero wolf

gotta make a snarky comment here, at least (now that this JUST might be, mercifully, over…):Archie say: “I prefer the devil I know to the devil I don’t know”….there, done. Now, how many donuts left in that box in the break room?

Now that this flashback/narration is a wrap…we can resume “regular programming”.

At least Nero Wolfe is leaving Tracy land with something…orchids for the memory.

And then, in n ironic twist, Wolfe discovered the plant he’d been so lovingly nuzzling was, in fact, poison oak…

What happened to Flattop, did he make it out ok?

So…

THURSDAY: Pat leaves for long fishing weekend. Archie visits Dick. Dick calls Inspector Cramer. Tracy and Archie start the search. Zeck meets with Flattop after his dinner, orders hit on Tracy. Flattop meets his gang and argues with his brother, who plans a bank robbery for the next day. Archie checks into a hotel across from the same bank, calls Fritz.

FRIDAY: Wolfe escapes. Bank robbery is attempted, foiled by Archie and Dick. Wolfe appears on the scene, and is spotted by Archie. Wolfe, Archie and Dick have dinner.

SATURDAY (or SUNDAY): Archie and Wolfe return to New York.

MONDAY: Pat returns to work, tells Dick fish story. Dick just smiles.

Oh for the Love of Dark Lilly.

Back to the present day tomorrow?

Well, THAT was anti-climactic. A four flat tire conclusion.

MOVIE QUOTE—“Guys in their 50’s don’t have dreams. They have nightmares and eczema”.

Adam Sandler—HUSTLE—2022

1-JACK BENNY in shadow: Isn’t the Easter Parade a lovely tradition, Mary? Why look there – that man is fatter than DON WILSON! MARY: HE IS! We could make a lot more “fat jokes about him than we can with Don!

DT: I’m glad I was able to save you, Nero. ARCHIE: HA! You couldn’t save Green Stamps without a team armed with wet sponges!

2-NERO: All’s well that ends well. Any landing you can walk away from is a good one. Any port in a storm. Toodle ooo, Tracy. Lemme know if you ever figure out who kidnapped me and why.

DT: Oh. So this case isn’t closed? Well, if they ever turn themselves in, you’ll be the first one I tell!

Absolutely gorgeous first panel,especially that Tracy profile.

And now,the hint is we may finally find out who Little Orphan Annie’s real mother was.

Of course,she will prove spectacularly unworthy of the kid.If she doesn’t,.we won’t have a story.

Tomorrow,Open-Mind Monty will sucker Wolfe all over again…..

TOMORROW: Mr. Wizard speaks the words that bring us back to the present: Drizzle, drazzle, druzzle, drome – time for this one to come home…

On to the bank robbers.

Al Capone actually had the gall to say he got his famous facial scar while serving in World War One.

The truth is when he was a bouncer in Brooklyn a guy he was trying to eject cut him with a broken beer bottle.

He also carried fake business cards that identified him as a “second-hand furniture dealer”.

An ordeal his “visit” to Tracyville was indeed for Nero Wolfe, but he takes his leave in good spirits and in possession of his beloved black orchids. Adieu until next time (if ever there is a “next time”).

Meanwhile, will Tracy pursue the case, or will the whole episode just be dropped from the detective bureau case log (in story time, I think the MCU has not yet been established)?

Are we now clearing the decks for a new story to begin on Easter?

I don’t normally read this strip (I’m a Nero Wolfe fan who just dropped in for this story line), but I can see why they left Zeck free. Arnold Zeck is the closest thing Wolfe has to a Professor Moriarity and appears as the nemesis in a series of three Wolfe novels. At the end of the last one Zeck and his entire operation are wiped out (as in: dead) thanks to an elaborate deception by Wolfe that does, in fact, involve Wolfe leaving home and effectively disappearing to assume a new identity.

So I have to assume this one was mostly for us Wolfe fans, for whom it’s an amusing tie-in and somewhat sets the stage for the later appearance of the evil Zeck. In the novels, of course, Zeck would never resort to a scheme this incompetent and certainly wouldn’t hire a pair of goofballs like the Top Brothers. :-)

Back when I was a kid and reading Tracy every Sunday, Flattop didn’t have a brother. When did he pop up?