Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for February 20, 2009

You’re toast, Tracy. Her lawyer will be calling you any minute now. If she can’t see, how the heck did she find her car? Most people are in a great state of panic if they suddenly find themselves blinded.

OH COME ON! SHE’S DRIVING AWAY? How the hell can Dickless Tracy allow someone like her to escape. What, the great defective too old to run down a perp? Where is his backup? If she causes an accident with injuries or fatalities, it would be laid at Tracy’s feet. Perhaps it is indeed time for a retirement party for Dickie.

I’ve been away for a while and need to catch up on what’s going on with the serial strips.

Wow! She’s shooting wildly with a magically disappearing and reappearing gun and Dickie has her right where he wants her. It’s time for Dick to retire from the Naperville squad if that’s the case. If it’s not time for Tracy to retire then it’s time for Locher to retire. If it’s not time for either one to retire then maybe it’s time for ME to retire because this silliness has gone on for far too long.

Tracy’s neighbors sure are lucky to have him in charge.

With her luck running the way it is, she probably got Tracy’s car by mistake. We know what she did to the gas tank so she won’t get far.

Wayback machine–set a couple of days back: Somebody here mentioned that Naperville might be Chicagoland’s “Sleepy Hollow”. Nope; the town of “Sleepy Hollow” is located just North of Elgin, roughly between MacLean Blvd and Randall Road just North of the tollway. It’s a sleepy burg alright, the local crooks can barely work up enough energy to steal your Weber grill. Naperville is nowhere near the place.

It IS possible for Angelorious to get to a giant oil company’s offices. Amoco maintains a huge office complex at Interstate 88 and Rte 59, on the Northern edges of Naperville. Getting in and seeing the head honcho there might be another matter though. I wonder how she pulled that off.

3 panels of pure illogic.

Angelwhatever is blinded after Tracy splashed her in the face with a possibly lethal or at least corrosive substance. She drops the gun.

She now has the gun again! Huh? She fires wildly at anyone and everyone. Thus endangering the entire neighborhood. Good move, Tracy.

Noll & Tracy stand outside hoping to catch a stray bullet. Despite her blindness, Angel not only finds her car, she is actually able to drive it. While unsighted. And armed. With a gun she will use with reckless abandon. Good moves all around by Tracy. A sightless crazed armed woman is careening wildly down the streets at night (I think it’s night, as always in DL land no clocks or watches present) thanks to Tracy. If only it was morning and there were a few school zones nearby. Poor nonsense.

It burns! It burns us! It freezes! Nasty Elves twisted it. Take it off us!

marg and wndrwrthg: maybe she’s driving TRACY’s car–the one she de-petrolled–in which case she won’t be going far.

It seems some people continually re-read this comic strip daily…huh? No tinkertoys to play with?

HankF says: It seems some people continually re-read this comic strip daily…huh? No tinkertoys to play with? And so, what does that say about you hank? You are here daily critiquing the critiques

so, getting back to the score board, let’s see, running blindly to somebody’s car, she fires off several rounds hitting and killing the neighbors Westminster winning Yorkie and also Grandma who was coming over to offer the good doctor and detective Tracy some freshly baked brownies (laced with fine Lebanese hashish, has to be some explanation for all this). Then as she drove off, the car jumped a curb and plowed thru a day care center, killing and maiming several children. due to the velocity, the car kept going long enough to crash into the Naperville Police Station (and it was Tracy’s car with the ruptured fuel tank). When finally stopped, enough gas dripped onto the hot catalytic converter to cause a fire then explosion leveling the Police Station and killing all inside. END OF STORY, END OF STRIP please…please…please. oh, and they thought all along that Dr. Noll was the terrorist bomber.

Uh, maybe she’ll run right into agent Cosgrove. And this “story” will end just like the Shirl Locke epic.

Who is the terrorist? If not Noll, why was the FBI or CIA or whoever looking for him and asking Diet Smith about him? If Angel is the bomber, why is she trying to sell a gas substitute formula to various heads of huge oil conglomerates? All of whom have nothing better to do than grant access to some nutter. What was Driller talking about when he said “Give it a famous name”? Who cares what a biodiesel is called? Or why would Driller want the perfume?

“Emergency!” starring the Naperville 911 emeds has been canceled.

I guess Tracy’s backup got stuck in traffic?

Ol’ Dick’s gonna find out all about getting indicted by the Napersville Grand Jury. She’s gonna make more off this than she ever was with the oil industry.

AND, if she makes off in Tracy’s city ride because he left the keys in the car (I bet ya a dollar she does!), then Lizz ought to charge Tracy for the car, the gas, AND the wrecker! I can see this coming!

Now, I betcha our two pals, Mattie and Jeff, are sitting on the edge of their seats, cramming popcorn down their throats cheering.

Angelorious never saw it coming. “Oh no, not again”! her mind screamed as she brought her deformed hands towards her face, trying to wipe the liquid from her eyes while twirling her bracelet. “My eyes! Can’t see! It burns”! “This is all HankF’s fault, he’s the one who told me to go back to Noll’s house”! Angelorious vowed to get that double crossing Magpie if it was the last thing she did. “Gotta get out of here”, she shouted out loud while firing from the gun that magically appeared in her left hand. As she entered her car and sped away, she realized too late that not only was HankF in cahoots with Liam to take over everything but that she still couldn’t see where she was going. She had to fight the urge to extend her arms and flap away. Noll was startled and almost opened his left eye when Tracy stood right next to him and said in a very loud voice; “POW POW”! “O-KAY”, Noll thought while slowly backing away from Dick. He figured he’d try to distract him by talking in his best James Cagney imitation. “Tracy, she’s driving away and can’t see”. Tracy, feeling the urge to push hard said in a low, monotone voice; “Got her now”. Noll was baffled by what he heard.

BB

Could the Author have finally decided that this story in so lame that he has got to end it early, with an automobile accident this week? What would truly be laughable is if Angelorious did find her car and Tracy “discovered” his wasn’t gassed up and that he had forgotten to buy a car for Tess or as bassmanbob(?) suggested he failed to use Noll’s Antique car for the mini chase.

One of Kilian’s “innovations” when he joined Locher was “shorter” stories. The Six to Seven weeks kind (eg FBI Training-1994. Bill Baily and G.R.Eed both in 2001) Kilian eventually discovered that Locher “loved” them. The Rogues were on stage for such a short time that he must have thought, “not necessary” to “pop” the brain designing a “memorable” villain, so K & L liked them, the Editors (strangely) didn’t mind it and readers got disgusted with what were obvious short cuts. The only thing that takes a long time in the strip, is “getting to the point”.

Cutting it short will put a lot of people out of pain and only sour memories will remain for awhile

BB, you’re killing me again today! LMAO!

margueritem says: “BB, you’re killing me again today LMAO!” (whatever the latter means)

BB, Let me second that! It was one of your best! I particularly liked the line on Angelorious “fighting the urge to flap her hands and fly away” ;) The second, was how subtle and intuitive you were in making that HankF “connection” to “Magpies”. It was right on! The old saying, “open your ‘mouth’ and Ill tell you who you are” ;) is so true!

Let me ADD, “if you can’t beat them join them!”

Sydney, LMAO = Laughing my bleeep off.