Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for November 07, 2009

That’s quite a fall for Pops. I wanna see the Pig on Wheels! Perhaps he’ll rescue Pops! That’s quite a tent. The only ropes are on the corners.

That kitty looks really annoyed.

LOL, love the look on the tiger’s face! Pig On Wheels, Pig On Wheels, we want the Pig On Wheels!!!

Maybe by next Tuesday’s script Pops will hit the floor.

Where is the really good looking tiger??? I do love the expression, but it could look less like a cute kitten.

I think that’s the Pink Panther. He was called in because Tracy’s detective work was so lacking.

Did somebody say “Pig on Wheels?”

http://kraptastrophe.blogspot.com/2009/11/who-you-gonna-call-pig-on-wheels.html

Kitty is so annoyed from having her tail pulled, that she’ll probably snub her dinner, and Pops will have to go to jail, after all.

curiously, the drawing of the tiger is better– more stylized and Gould-like– than all the endless tiger panels of recent months.

Good Lord though, this strip overall remains a nigh-abomination.

Kitty had been reading Daniel. Now, she gets to eat according to the story, but it’s clown so it’s going to taste funny. Daniel’s lions got a better deal, they got an official meal next day.

“Ye Gods!” Is that all that remains in Macy’s vocabulary? I suspect he smells real ripe by now. Doncha know Agent Ennin is itchin’ to get as far away from Naperville and its brave hero as soon as possible? Especially with his 3-month old pair of Depends all loaded up?

The tiger has been electro-transmutated since last time we saw it.

Llewellenbruce is exactly right - thrown down yesterday, it will take untill next week Tuesday to hit the cage floor. Another example of economical “tit-bit” progress to flaw the strip, and further “self inflicted” injury to the Author’s waning reputation.

Frustration finds good bedfellows. Comment and demand for the “Pig on Wheels”, an incidental prop, has confered a hightened presence on an inanimate object, displacing Dick Tracy as the main “focus” in the strip.

I’m thinking the tiger is looking more like Pete the Puma from Warner Bros…..or maybe the old Exxon Tiger…

Hey…Thanksgiving is in just under 3 weeks. The tiger’s just getting his dinner early….(note to Mr Pops: haven’t you ever heard turnabout is fair play?)

The endless Tiger and Elephant illustrations Jumbo noted were also props to sate the hunger of readers for the never present “action” Locher has with great difficulty managed to keep out of the strip.

He now has Dick Tracy behaving like a poster boy for Apraxia. The new blurting “nothing” man of comic strips

I contend that it’s easier to let actiom flow than to stamp, “cramp” and clamp down on activity flow in the strip.

And here I find myself strangely agreeing with Mattie - Locher really is “SUPERB”. But only at ONE thing - being so drastically slow that readers are lulled into deep sleep !

Just shake “jtpozenel” and ask him ! He knows if he awakens in a week or two he wouldn’t have missed a single Locher beat. Repetition never tales a back seat !

Now Annie and Gasoline Alley promoted to (daily) COLOR. But Locher’s “bottom-of-the-barrel” crafted Dick Tracy can’t follow !

The tiger is really TIGGER from Winnie the Pooh. The Pig is Piglet’s Father.

No, NotNorman………. Macy stinks! This REEKS!

Virus Warning: My antivirus program is going crazy on all the Gocomics site this morning. It has removed several terrible trojans. One of them even managed to shut down an old antivirus program, but fortunately, Microsoft Essentials managed to get it. I also am having tons of popups this morning.

when did this become a vehicle for self promotion?

That is one enormous cage. Either that or Locher has the perspective all messed up again. No wonder it will take Pops until next Tuesday to hit the ground.

When Pops finally hits the floor, will the three officers of the law stand around and watch him being eaten alive? Didn’t something like that happen in the Great Dog Bank Robbery arc a couple of years ago?

ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz…………..

Naw he’ll hit the floor on Thursday that way they can drag out another weeks worth of this garbage. Tiger is annoyed because he keeps being denied his lunch!

Ray C,

If you have the time you can refresh on all the “action” (if I can call it that), in the Archives, July 22 to Aug.13, 2008 - Baskerville !

As I recall Tracy had a plan to defend with T-Bone steaks which failed. Then he, 2 Swat Team members, 2 Bank Guards and the Manager (total SIX) had to grab defensive “whistles” from Baskervile’s gang, and then another, from Baskerville to save a late arriving Shirl Locke from the savage dogs.

One Swat team member wanted to shoot the dogs. Tracy said “NO !”. He waited for Animal Control to arrive but by then - Baskerville was dead !

Seem’s Locher also did a little Houdini “magic” with the WHISTLES. It’s puzzeling ! Six good guys, plus Shirl. Bad Guys, total 3 “seen”, with just THREE whistles !

Where did the extra FOUR whistles come from (?) and how did the 2 gang members stay alive when their “tooters” were swiped ?

How could the remainder of (4) be alive ? As I noted on a recent occasion, not for the first time has Locher, acting carelessly - confounded us with “nonsense”!

Thanks for the refresher, Sydney. I had given up on DT months before that, but when I checked in and found a plot where there was a mole in the police department, I though it would be interesting. That was the Baskerville episode. Why I have stuck with it, other than to read the comments, I cannot say. I even wrote Locher once, to compliment him on his editorial cartoons and ask why he didn’t have the same quality in the DT strips. He didn’t answer. I defended him for a while in the comments, but have since given up on that.

Time and space have no place in the Locher universe His drawing out of the story is really most perverse This day is like any other it hangs on interminably That it would quicken it’s pace is an impossibility A story sharp, crisp and to the point would be wonderful to see But instead we are treated daily to this doleful monstrosity The plots are weak, the writing reeks, it is really quite noisome The comments here seem to agree that it is beyond loathsome To the editors at TMS, I ask you how it feels To know what people want to see is the little “Pig on Wheels” I think I can say, with a great degree of certitude That people read the strip just to see the level of ineptitude Is there a chance that the great detective will be saved Or will he be allowed to die and go quietly to his grave?

Syd you mentioned T-Bone steaks. DT looks like he could use one, or at least a sandwich. I realize the dude hasn’t eaten in 3 months, but I never thought he was heavy. Tiger wouldn’t have eaten him anyway, all bone.

What excitement! I can hardly wait until tomorrow’s strip to see more of this action-packed story.

I echo the sentiments on SHEL DORF, I owe him a great deal for the Blackthorn reprints taken from his wonderful collection of DT strips throughout the years. The reprints were well done on good stock so that they are easy to keep and easy to reread from time to time. He will live in eternity for his work in preserving the archives, at least in my memory.

Matt, Although I don’t have an iPhone yet I do have an iTouch 32gb and would love to have “an app for that”. You’ve got my vote. I also follow Tarzan and Alley Oop on another network and I do like to get them without having to go to my computer.

Tracy is looking a bit ragged today. He’s aged quite a bit since he went to the circus with his wife and daughter (who I’m guessing we won’t see for another four years).

This story could be written better by a 5th grader. Who drew Tracy in panel two???? What I would like to see in the next story is Tracy remembering an old case and then having them print a Chester Gould story from back in the 40’s or 50’s. In fact run all the old stories and call the strip “Dick Tracy Classics ” by Chester Gould.

We want the “Pig on Wheels” because we all suspect it might be better at solving this case than Tracy is. Right now, Tracy still hasn’t got a case he could take to the DA even though he’s been part of the action, such as it is.

Way back in the mid ’60s, my mother commented on how long a female opera singer took to “die” and how hard said singer “died”. I wonder how she might comment on this strip where so far it’s taken three days for Pops just to start falling and may take another two days to reach the bottom of the cage. That’s a far longer “death” than any of the hated soprano opera singers ever needed.

Tracy said, “Pops is in the tiger’s cage!!”. Is there nothing he or Ennis or the policeman can do to control the tiger? Surely, they could use pepper gas or something. Tracy stands there and comments on what’s happening. All the more reason to bring the Pig on Wheels back!

The repeating dialog is worse than it’s ever been, not to mention, we don’t even need it since the pictures depict the story. Is Locher even in the building or is the janitor writing this?

Regarding viruses: I recently linked to GoComics in a forum I belong to, and another member promptly reported similar virus warnings, as well as intrusive pop-up ads.

Personally, I never see the ads, ‘cause I’m using Firefox with an ad-blocking add-on, and I don’t have to worry about viruses ‘cause I’m using a Macintosh. It sounds like GoComics has some issues they need to deal with.

Matt:

Regarding iPhone apps, it won’t do me any good, ‘cause I refuse to pay the huge data surcharge that AT&T extracts from all of their iPhone and smart-phone customers. Got me a Samsung Impression, which does a lot of the things an iPhone does, but without the huge surcharge.

No Ludwig ! As has been the practise for all of 2009 Tracy goes straight home after a lightening “one panel” visit to HQ (Nov.24)

This almost seems to be his new opreating base, and Tess will once again point him in the direction of the new villain. If nothing else Locher has faithfully followed that routine to start each tale this year.

Tess is there on the 25th but you are probably right about Bonnie (and there is the other inconsistency with missing brother Joe aka “Cool Dude”). But it’s a given that “New” Junior will be there for Christmas !

MaxStarmanJones said, about 11 hours ago

Virus Warning: My antivirus program is going crazy on all the Gocomics site this morning.

Viruses? I surf here with Linux, so I don’t worry about no stinkin’ viruses.

I haven’t been bothered by the pop-ups since trimming Opera to stop all pop-ups. I had some trouble a few days ago with virus warnings though, seems one of Gocomic’s advertisers is infected. That’s the problem with being supported by advertising, you really have no control over outside ad servers and the possibility that a nogoodnik compromised an ad server always exists.

I have Safari so viruses are not a problem and I have pop-ups blocked.