Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for November 17, 2009

So the story is over huh? What exactly was all that about anyway?

LAME!!!!!!

Tracy looking a bit like Spock today.

Ennen looking rather manly.

Della is modeling the latest in Bag wear…Does she even have a face?

I think that’s supposed to be a smile above that chin on Della.

The question remains, how did the paramedics get Fee Fi down from the 80’ high cage? And why did it take so long for the medics to arrive? Was Fee Fi in critical condition when he was shot? Or… did he get that way while waiting for someone to arrive to help him? Will we ever find the answer?

Bring the Pig on Wheels back!

Like….it felt so long…wrapped up so quick…and then there’s a couple days of Tracy speeching it up? Hope for the next story…

Fee Fi gets grazed in the shoulder and is in critical condition and Mr. Pops falls 80 feet and isn’t even hurt. Should’nt it be the other way around?

Llewellenbruce This *is* ‘Dick Tracyland’, and ordinary rules do not apply…

Ennen looks like a Gelfling again. Fee Fi looks like he’s got the gearshift from a Mac truck growing out of his chest.

So, the paramedics keep an extra-huge stretcher around for emergency situations when they have to haul a man big enough to be considered a “freak” by circus standards?

This has to be the worst story. If only I could join Professor Peabody and Sherman and use the “Way Back Machine” and go back to when Dick Tracy was worth reading in the newspapers with stories by Chester Gould.

Dick Tracy.

R.I.P.

How else to explain it?

yup, looks like it’s time to ride off into the sunset

Talk about storyholes like Swiss Cheese with multiple silly contradictions.

Mr.Pops (11-07): “NOBODY comes between me and my* Circus”* And add, three more statements of similar effect between 10-30 and 11-02

Tracy (8-10): To Ringo “Let’s see you’re the Owner and Ringmaster of the O’Connell Circus”

Thats one off of six comtradictions (does Locher keep forgetting?)

Then what was the need for Pops to pull a gun? Tracy and Ennen had no hard evidence on anything. Mr.Pops’ claim to the Police that Ringo killed Tracy and Karen Ennen was hilariously naive and foolish, even for 2nd graders! Ringo was the one getting death threats, No one else ! Tracy was providing protection and the FBI’s Ennen was attempting to keep him “safe” in a witness protection program

There is absolutely NO MOTIVE for Ringo to kill them. And Pops has a big prison record and a suspect behind the much earlier attempt on Ringo’s life.

It’s difficult to see how Locher could have made this tale more uproariously silly !

Does Locher feel proud to his effort here ?

safeway I don’t think this was the worst - it was better than the robo one. This had the tiger (who was good at the start) and of course, the Pig on Wheels.

Sydney, Locher put an effort into this story?

Dick Tracy, M.D.

Why do people keep saying the cage was 80 feet high? Did I miss something? The tallest big top tents are no more than 20 feet high. How would an 80 foot high cage fit inside unless it’s another Locherism?

rac0308: Caught my attention also. Dick has pronounced the prognosis with great authority. He must have slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Maybe he could go help out Rex Morgan, and Rex could come here and do some detective work. I don’t think Rex would want to trade his gorgeous (well-drawn) wife, June, for Tess, though.

Yeah, I don’t know where everyone is getting the 80-foot figure on the tiger cage.

I feel gypped. No one died. After all that the story comes to the quickest and most abrupt ending ever.

Ludwig,

If someone dived from an 80’ highboard and did a ”belly-flop”. (and Locher did) technically he did a dive !

NOLA,

What your’re “misng” was “sight” of the fall ! If Locher can exagerate a lot, we can be forgiven for doing a little bit

rac0306,

Tracy must have been injured and in Hospital at least 25 times in the Gould era. Maybe he picked up on the diagnosis stuff during those visits. But he may be losing his “touch”, not a finger scratch in the past 20 years

Me thinks the 80’ cage is a bit exaggerated through frustrated commentators who got tired of the way the DT story line is going and got sarcastic about it.

I FOUND THE PIG ON WHEELS!!! He’s over on Cul-de-Sac disguised as Big Shirley.

The cage has been drawn in a wide variety of heights–in the early strips of the cage sequence it appeared to be barely taller than Tracy; in the later strips (the ones with the trapeze) it was much higher, somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty to thirty feet; in Sunday’s strip it was back down around ten feet. Apparently it’s on some kind of lift mechanism. The cage also seemed to be small and rectangular when Tracy et al were first shoved into it; then it mysteriously became round.

I think there may be an answer for all this in quantum cartoon physics. Last week’s “Mother Goose & Grimm” had Grimmy popping into alternate cartoon universes. Maybe Tracy’s doing the same thing–a week in the “short square cage” universe, then a week in the “tall round cage” universe, and now in the “short round cage” time line. This might also explain why the other characters keep changing appearance, history and motivation.

So… if Diet Smith appears next week and rescues Tracy from this malfunction of his alternate universe machine, will we all agree that Locher’s actually some kind of genius?

People, myself included, definitely latched on to the amazing changing cage size…but it’s just the latest shining example of slipshod work on this strip. Seems like only last summer we were wondering why RIngo would not stop saying “IT HAPPENED!” Oh wait, it was last summer.

Akenta: Probably the robot story was worse than this in that it was a badly told story full of absurd sci fi elements. This was just a badly told story, whose hero alternates between uninformed pronouncements and squealing with helpless terror.

Ummm are we actually sure that this is the “end” of this so called story line? After all it is only Tuesday!

Lefer, at least with the Beatty movie we had Modonna to liven up the screen. And that movie was intentially made to be “camppy”!

ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz……………

JPBecker,

Story ends next Tuesday (11-24) Locher still has Tracy pontificating for six of the next seven days

New story with blacked out Villain’s face, starts Wednesday. Hope that forward news doesn’t upset BASSMANBOB

Did they ever find out who was sending the “cut-and-paste” threatening (aka ransom) notes?

And, why was FBI agent Ennen sent to the circus? I forgot. What did she do the entire time she was there?

I wanna see the Pig on Wheels!

Were Della and FiFi being blackmailed by Ringo? For what?

Was Ringo sending the threatening letters to himself?

I guess the strip was not canceled after this story.

All lose ends, not tied up !.

The only thing likely to be in knots is Dick Locher !

Fee Fi is critical, but he’ll make it?!? I thought if someone is in critical condition, it is very questionable if they’ll make it.

Did Bonnie Braids go home? Have she and Mom wondered why Dad never came home for dinner? Did they ever get the credit card thing worked out?

Who shot the trapeze artist and why? Who’s the bad person? Who is the mastermind of all this? What happened to the first two platoons of police that Tracy called?

Why didn’t Liz send more people down when Tracy didn’t show up with perps in his squad car?

Why did Tracy need his life saved? What happened to his gun? What happened to the FBI agent’s gun? What happened to the back up cop’s gun? What happened to all the other back up cops?

This is terrible writing, highly disappointing. I actually could stomach things until this one. This one, I can think of no other way to say it, this one stinks. Well, I could actually, but it would not be nice.

Genius. Pure genius.

MaxStarmanJones said, about 2 hours ago Did Bonnie Braids go home? Have she and Mom wondered why Dad never came home for dinner? Did they ever get the credit card thing worked out?

It’s AMAZING that you posted this today. I was just thinking the same thing!!

I do hope jtpozenel isn’t flying an airliner.

Finally, light at the end of the tunnel. Wait!! I think I see another tunnel!

Araldite said, about 3 hours ago

Finally, light at the end of the tunnel. Wait!! I think I see another tunnel! —————————————————————————–

Hah, hah!