Coming Soon đ At the beginning of April, youâll be
introduced to a brand-new GoComics! See more information here. Subscribers, check your
email for more details.
Ah! So the killings are nothing but a means to an end; the clownâs real agenda is to ruin the circus.
Ringo even seems to be acknowledging that his life, and Tracyâs and Ennenâs, are of secondary importance to the matter of whether the circus survives or fails.
HmmmâŚ
(CUE MUSIC)
Look at me Iâm Sandra Dee, Lousie with Trapeze-ityâŚ
Not only the glove was appearing and disappearing, but the sleeve that we saw on the sunday page had no stars, now the arm of the clown has stars and the fluffy thing on its extremity. Oh, the joys of inconsistency!
At the risk of revealing how out-of-touch I am, whoâs this BMB that keeps getting mentioned?
Regarding GoComics, it is silly that clicking on a comic just gets you the same pic, blown up. Worse still, itâs a GIF. The GIFs here generally look OK, but one would think a JPEG or PNG would almost surely yield better picture quality.
Regarding your comments yesterday about that Batman-meets-Dick Tracy thing:
You make a good point about the classic, abstract portrayal of Tracy not carrying over so well into a more realistic style. It was interesting to see that artistâs take on the character, but in several panels, I couldnât even tell if I was looking at DT or at the villain.
The other thing is that the concept of Batman meeting, teaming up with, or fighting characters from other franchises not in the DC Universe has already been done to death. Heâs met everything from H.R. Gigerâs Aliens to Predators to Judge Dredd to Spiderman.
Interesting, in light of your ongoing debate with Sydney, that the Batman strip firmly identifies DT as a Chicago cop, especially since Iâve always imagined Metropolis as being analogous to Chicago and Gotham, of course, being a stand-in for New York.
It gets a bit complicated if Metropolis, Chicago, Gotham, and New York are all supposed to be existing concurrently in the same continuity. Americaâs a big place, but weâve only got so much room for so many major urban destinations.
I like powers - explicitely aimed to adults. And I agree, stuff like sex between two characters should be out of comic books, indeed - and I didnât buy the A*sex issue with Luke Cage - but then⌠are comics still being read by children or a younger audience? I think that the target audience for current comics (except archie and disneys) is the thirtysomething male nerdish type.
However, I thought BMB work in âUltimate Spider-Manâ was good. With no f-bombs or adult situations.
@Flight Suit:
BMB is Brian Michael Bendis, a comic book writer who divides the opinion of comic fans. Some of them consider his work brilliant (personally, I still think he does the best âtalking headsâ sequences EVER) some of them, consider him boring and slow and derivative.
Picture this: a clown with no gloves on and no stars on his sleeve is seen going IN to a tent within a tent â seen by all the cops swarming around the crime scene doing crowd control and gathering evidence, naturally. Unimpeachable witnesses! (Why is there a tent within the tent? I dunno, havenât figured that part out yet ⌠but there must be a reason!)
While inside the tent within a tent and observed only by the three who will not be testifying later, the clown PUTS ON GLOVES! Then he STICKS STAR STICKERS onto his sleeve! He is disguised! Then three shots ring out. Cops rush over to see what happened. A clown comes OUT of the tent within a tent â but he is not the same clown who went in. The clown who went in had a plain sleeve and no gloves â this clown is wearing gloves and has stars on his sleeve â a different clown, obviously. The police ignore him and he goes away and disposes of the murder weapon. The police are baffled!
9-11 Agent ENNEN: âYes, Mr. Ringo was given a new identity because he was threatened âŚâŚâ
9-12 TRACY : âIâll put Ringo under a 24-hour guard !â
THEN WHAT HAPPENED ?
A) Ringo is âhiddenâ for his SECURITY in SAME place where, ALL the bad guys who want to KILL him work ???
B) Tracy puts heavily armed Police Security in place for Ringo and the Circus (see 8-27). NOW, where are they when Mr, Pops pulls a gun ?
Locher has A) created astonishingly stupid âREALITYâ, B) apparance of heavy SECURITY. Now âBlink yor eyesâ - SHAZAM !
It was all there âyesterdayâ, â but vanished âtodayâ! Must we now believe, it never happened (?), it never existed ??
And thatâs not all, snail pacing aside thereâs a laundry list of unfit sequences.
This is all MAJOR Crapo !
This in not amateur hour, itâs a presentation thatâs stunningly inept, slapdash and sadly disrespectful to the great Dick Tracy comic strip and Chester Gould itâs creator.
A dispespectful âslapâ in the face of the creator, who years before helped give a helping hand to Locher to become a top Political Cartoonist
âThis in not amature hour, itâs a presentatio thatâs stunningly inept, slapdash and sadly disrespectful to the great Dick Tracy comic strip and Chester Gould itâs creator.â
I agree wholeheartedly. This is just sloppy work. Maybe because it is not a âgood-payingâ job, considering the tiny number of newspapers the strip appears in?
I think the strip is indeed doomed to failure now, even if a new creative team would start with some decent stories - it would not be likely that papers that dropped the strip would pay for it again, I assumeâŚ
Jumbobrain: From yesterday, Prince Valiant is indeed online. Check out Dailyink.com, itâs Kingâs own website where youâll find a lot of things you canât get anywhere else. They do charge a small annual fee, but thatâs not uncommon.
Matthew: Sorry I didnât read yesterdayâs request until this morning. I read Gocomics, the aforementioned DailyInk.com and Comics.com. Each site has a few I canât find elsewhere and I enjoy them all. While my favorite forum is right here at Dick Tracy (you guys are a real kick to read) my favorite comic still has to be FBoFW - I save it for last every day.
@JanCin-
Thanks for the dailyink tip, thatâs a neat site. I wish theyâd haul out more of their decades of archives though. Itâs weird that we now get 15-year-old Peanuts and For Better or Worse reruns in our papers but thereâs no resource anywhere to find old strips like Moon Mullins or even Dick Tracy back when it was a good read.
Batman meets Dick Tracy: I mean, whatâs the point? Comix fans always wanna see the crossovers and they can be fun enough. But these two characters, I just donât see the appeal. I mean, why not Dennis the Menace and the Incredible Hulk? Blondie and Wonder Woman?
And finally: YEESH is this comic strip lame or what? If I hadnât been following the last ten weeks Iâd assume some major betrayal was occurringâŚwhich maybe it is, but since no time has been devoted to showing the characters backstories and motivation (aside from the interminable conversation about Ringoâs whistleblowing), what they do now is just meaningless. Pops pulls a gun. Pops is a bank robber on the lam. Pops is Louise Trapezeâs estranged husband/father/mafia cohort. Pops and Ringo were lovers. It doesnât matter if you donât tell the story properly. Duh.
Roberto,
In a 1994 Interview, Locher sitting on his then âinheritanceâ (from Max Collins) of 350 newspaper (the considerably more âexpensiveâ Collins gone, lower cost Kilian was in) admitted he was ârich from the strip but not as rich as Gould had been ,,, it had to do with circulationâ he said
Under his guidance, in a flurry of naive over-confidence he introduced big changes, new faces, new personalities. Removed the hat serving to alter the image of Tracy the main character. Kilian dropped Gouldâs well honed âChase sequencesâ, introduced what he called âserious themesâ. Traditional villains (like Flattop, Shaky etc) he said would HAVE to take a âback seatâ, they would âtrivializeâ the SERIOUSNES of his presentation. He got carried away - he must have thought he was writing an Editorial for the Chicago Tribune anf forgot it was just a comic strip to entertain people. Senior partner Locher seemed to agree.
In short order, the âsheetâ hit the fan, this was a brand new concept of Dick Tracy, most readers didnât it and they started losing Papers including the GIANT circulation N.Y. Daily News. Reality had struck ! Locher;s Dick Tracy ârichnessâ had dissapeared, just like his Police at the Circus !
Eleven years later when Kilian died they were down to just FIFTY newspapers. An 86% rejection ! The great euphoria, the experiments and changes were all a GIANT FLOP !
Thereafter, Locher did the writing and the art, but STUCK doggedly and mightily to ALL those failed policies and techniques. A man who thought the whole World was WRONG and HE, Dick Locher was right ! A wise man would have turned back (?)
What can I say ? You CAN help a man who has made a wrong turn and wants better. You CANâT help someone who is determined, stubornly, to continue doing the same NONSENSE and would rather go down in FLAMES (the whole world in wrong) as HE is right !
A musket. I just realized the clown used a flipping unaimed musket to shoot a moving target in mid air. NO, NO, NO. Impossible! Why didnât Tracy simply examine her body and look at the musket ball hole? Wouldnât that have been a big hint as to the murderer. I mean, besides the fact that the clown just happened to fire a gun before the faux aerialist was killed? We are not asked to suspend disbelief in the strip, we are required to take it out in a back alley and beat it to death.
Mr, Pops the Clown didnât shoot Louise Trapeze, Seems he is just the gang leader. In week TWO of the âEXPLANATIONâ period, ie Saturday, October 2, that âtit-bitâ of information will be released.
Itâs unclear who owns the Circus and who if any one will benefit from closure. Realistically, a whole bunch of freaks will be out of a job if they do.
I stopped following Dick Tracy in the early 90s before Collinsâ departure; and only rediscovered the mess that it now is last yearâŚso I am not familiar with whatever changes Killian brought to it. But looking at the strip now, itâs clear his legacy is not an improved strip.
Obviously, whatever math TMS did to determine that Collins was not worth it to the strip was dead wrong. Iâm assuming no papers have picked the strip up in the last decade. Iâm surprised any continue to pay for itâŚitâs a clearly and highly inferior product compared to what it was under Gould and Collins. Much, much worse than it has any reason to be.
Okay, I get itâŚthe clown is a METAPHOR, he represents Locher and he is showing how he has the power to eliminate the whole circus that this comic strip has become. Thatâs why he didnât have the glove or sleeve when his gun hand first appeared, seeâŚitâs surreal, like Luis Bunuel. Obviously we are all way off the mark criticizing this strip, when itâs now clear that every single bit of seemingly haphazard writing, shiftless continuity, and unending tedium was all leading up to this moment!
Sydney PhillipsGenius_badge said, about 5 hours ago
fishbulb,
Mr, Pops the Clown didnât shoot Louise Trapeze, Seems he is just the gang leader. In week TWO of the âEXPLANATIONâ period, ie Saturday, October 2, that âtit-bitâ of information will be released.
Itâs unclear who owns the Circus and who if any one will benefit from closure. Realistically, a whole bunch of freaks will be out of a job if they do.
To which Fishbulb can only replyâŚ.
AAAUUUGGGHHH!!!! 2 MORE weeks of just standing around??? Sadly, I donât even CARE who murdered the aerialist. For that matter, what happened to her body? Is it still in the ring? Has it been removed? More missing action. Quick! Stick the clip art tent-tiger-elephant into a panel again. Donât show the removal of the body, the âransomâ notes being taken to Police HQ,(Tracy used to work there), the departure of Teevo, etc. This entire story is surreal. Time has no meaning. People (the circus freaks, Teevo) come and go at random, logic is nonexistent. Mr. Gould is spinning at warp factor seven.
Most Tracy purists, myself included, would agree that the âmoon periodâ precipitated a decline in the stripâs quality. It was a profound shift in direction and themeâŚyou could argue that it was a bold move on Gouldâs part to keep the strip fresh, but it clearly alienated longtime fans who liked the urban grit. You also have to consider that Gouldâs black-and-white morality was not as fashionable in the tumult of the 1960s as it had been in the 1940sâŚand his attempts to seem current, like the âhippie copâ Groovy Groove, only underscored how out of touch he was with the national mood. So all of that played into the decline in readership, yeah. But that was on the heels of three decades of immense popularityâŚpeople were complaining about Peanuts in its final years too. Things get old.
Was it a failure? You could argue that it was, since a key measure of a stripâs popularity is readership. And when Collins took over, he clearly reached around this period to Tracyâs golden days by killing off Juniorâs wife Moon Maid, as well as Groovy, in order to re-establish the stripâs relevance, and I think it worked while he was writing it.
BUTâŚeven at his worst, Gould drew well, wrote consistently, and his work did not suffer from the glacially slow pacing and utter lack of logic, continuity, characterization and suspense that the current strip does. The best I can say about it is that the art is mostly serviceable, constant reuse of panel art notwithstanding.
I personally would not call any of Gouldâs work a âfailure,â because even at its worst itâs always interesting and readable.
Do I consider the current version of the strip a failure? Absolutely. It sucks.
Thanks for the valuable information you provided. Something I really enjoy about your posts is the fact that you usually add relevant numbers and references that help very accurately to understand the point.
I am not surprised about the the 86% rejection since the beginning of the Killian period (that I have not read) - but I had no idea it was such a BIG drop in readership.
As you say, âYou CAN help a man who has made a wrong turn and wants better. You CANâT help someone who is determined, stubornly, to continue doing the same NONSENSE and would rather go down in FLAMES (the whole world in wrong) as HE is right !â - and I agree absolutely!
However, I think the problem is that he is mostly an artist (probably feeling old and tired now) and you need a certain mind framework to plan and strucuture a story. Jim Brozman arrival has even worsened the situation, as I think the art is now embarassingly bad.
Thank you for the information about the âKillian yearsâ - I really had no idea so, the disappearence of the classic grotesques was his idea⌠and probably the removal of the âchase sequenceâ started paving the way to the non-action of todayâs strip?
Llewellenbruce over 15 years ago
Like you would be around to worry about it.
margueritem over 15 years ago
Not sure why Ringo is worried about the circusâŚ.
FLIGHT SUIT over 15 years ago
Ah! So the killings are nothing but a means to an end; the clownâs real agenda is to ruin the circus.
Ringo even seems to be acknowledging that his life, and Tracyâs and Ennenâs, are of secondary importance to the matter of whether the circus survives or fails.
HmmmâŚ
(CUE MUSIC)
Look at me Iâm Sandra Dee, Lousie with Trapeze-ityâŚ
fleeglebeagle over 15 years ago
I think the elephant will come to the rescue!
Vista Bill Raley and Comet⢠over 15 years ago
If the circus goes, the elephant, tiger, and pig on wheels will all be out of work! The other performers can get a job at Wal-Mart!
riley05 over 15 years ago
Blecch!
Arrgh!
Canât get worseâŚoh waitâŚIt Happened!!!
watcha over 15 years ago
And here I thought the whole idea was that they want to kill Ringo in revenge, but NO, it seems he want to ruin the circus. It all makes senseâŚ
Fearless_Fosdick over 15 years ago
Yes RingoâŚ..I am your father. But donât call me Pops.
LudwigVonDrake over 15 years ago
Ringo needs to see a dermatologist for his skin condition.
Sloppy the Clown is one tough clown.
roberto.alves over 15 years ago
Not only the glove was appearing and disappearing, but the sleeve that we saw on the sunday page had no stars, now the arm of the clown has stars and the fluffy thing on its extremity. Oh, the joys of inconsistency!
Morrow Cummings over 15 years ago
And just when you thought it couldnât get worse!
poopa33 over 15 years ago
it did
MisngNOLA over 15 years ago
OMIGOD!!! It just HAPPENED on The Dinette Set too!!! Itâs contagious!!!
Froxkrybra over 15 years ago
I told u all clowns are evilâŚ
FLIGHT SUIT over 15 years ago
MisngNOLA, youâre right!
Matt:
At the risk of revealing how out-of-touch I am, whoâs this BMB that keeps getting mentioned?
Regarding GoComics, it is silly that clicking on a comic just gets you the same pic, blown up. Worse still, itâs a GIF. The GIFs here generally look OK, but one would think a JPEG or PNG would almost surely yield better picture quality.
Regarding your comments yesterday about that Batman-meets-Dick Tracy thing:
You make a good point about the classic, abstract portrayal of Tracy not carrying over so well into a more realistic style. It was interesting to see that artistâs take on the character, but in several panels, I couldnât even tell if I was looking at DT or at the villain.
The other thing is that the concept of Batman meeting, teaming up with, or fighting characters from other franchises not in the DC Universe has already been done to death. Heâs met everything from H.R. Gigerâs Aliens to Predators to Judge Dredd to Spiderman.
Interesting, in light of your ongoing debate with Sydney, that the Batman strip firmly identifies DT as a Chicago cop, especially since Iâve always imagined Metropolis as being analogous to Chicago and Gotham, of course, being a stand-in for New York.
It gets a bit complicated if Metropolis, Chicago, Gotham, and New York are all supposed to be existing concurrently in the same continuity. Americaâs a big place, but weâve only got so much room for so many major urban destinations.
roberto.alves over 15 years ago
@Matthew:
I like powers - explicitely aimed to adults. And I agree, stuff like sex between two characters should be out of comic books, indeed - and I didnât buy the A*sex issue with Luke Cage - but then⌠are comics still being read by children or a younger audience? I think that the target audience for current comics (except archie and disneys) is the thirtysomething male nerdish type.
However, I thought BMB work in âUltimate Spider-Manâ was good. With no f-bombs or adult situations.
@Flight Suit:
BMB is Brian Michael Bendis, a comic book writer who divides the opinion of comic fans. Some of them consider his work brilliant (personally, I still think he does the best âtalking headsâ sequences EVER) some of them, consider him boring and slow and derivative.
CougarAllen over 15 years ago
Now I see the clownâs diabolical plan!
Picture this: a clown with no gloves on and no stars on his sleeve is seen going IN to a tent within a tent â seen by all the cops swarming around the crime scene doing crowd control and gathering evidence, naturally. Unimpeachable witnesses! (Why is there a tent within the tent? I dunno, havenât figured that part out yet ⌠but there must be a reason!)
While inside the tent within a tent and observed only by the three who will not be testifying later, the clown PUTS ON GLOVES! Then he STICKS STAR STICKERS onto his sleeve! He is disguised! Then three shots ring out. Cops rush over to see what happened. A clown comes OUT of the tent within a tent â but he is not the same clown who went in. The clown who went in had a plain sleeve and no gloves â this clown is wearing gloves and has stars on his sleeve â a different clown, obviously. The police ignore him and he goes away and disposes of the murder weapon. The police are baffled!
-Cougar :{)
sydney over 15 years ago
FACT TODAY ? â FORGOTTEN TOMORROW ?
9-11 Agent ENNEN: âYes, Mr. Ringo was given a new identity because he was threatened âŚâŚâ
9-12 TRACY : âIâll put Ringo under a 24-hour guard !â
THEN WHAT HAPPENED ?
A) Ringo is âhiddenâ for his SECURITY in SAME place where, ALL the bad guys who want to KILL him work ???
B) Tracy puts heavily armed Police Security in place for Ringo and the Circus (see 8-27). NOW, where are they when Mr, Pops pulls a gun ?
Locher has A) created astonishingly stupid âREALITYâ, B) apparance of heavy SECURITY. Now âBlink yor eyesâ - SHAZAM ! It was all there âyesterdayâ, â but vanished âtodayâ! Must we now believe, it never happened (?), it never existed ??
And thatâs not all, snail pacing aside thereâs a laundry list of unfit sequences.
This is all MAJOR Crapo ! This in not amateur hour, itâs a presentation thatâs stunningly inept, slapdash and sadly disrespectful to the great Dick Tracy comic strip and Chester Gould itâs creator.
A dispespectful âslapâ in the face of the creator, who years before helped give a helping hand to Locher to become a top Political Cartoonist
roberto.alves over 15 years ago
@Sydney Phillips:
âThis in not amature hour, itâs a presentatio thatâs stunningly inept, slapdash and sadly disrespectful to the great Dick Tracy comic strip and Chester Gould itâs creator.â
I agree wholeheartedly. This is just sloppy work. Maybe because it is not a âgood-payingâ job, considering the tiny number of newspapers the strip appears in?
I think the strip is indeed doomed to failure now, even if a new creative team would start with some decent stories - it would not be likely that papers that dropped the strip would pay for it again, I assumeâŚ
roberto.alves over 15 years ago
⌠and probably being a political cartoonist pays more than writing Dick Tracy.
However, what I donât understand is how Jim Brozman (with a degree in fine arts or whatever) keeps making these atrocious drawings.
And I wonder⌠what happened with Mustasha? That was an unforgettable name!
@CougarAllen:
Brillian explanation of the stars-and-glove mystery-within-a-mystery!! LOL!
JanLC over 15 years ago
Jumbobrain: From yesterday, Prince Valiant is indeed online. Check out Dailyink.com, itâs Kingâs own website where youâll find a lot of things you canât get anywhere else. They do charge a small annual fee, but thatâs not uncommon.
Matthew: Sorry I didnât read yesterdayâs request until this morning. I read Gocomics, the aforementioned DailyInk.com and Comics.com. Each site has a few I canât find elsewhere and I enjoy them all. While my favorite forum is right here at Dick Tracy (you guys are a real kick to read) my favorite comic still has to be FBoFW - I save it for last every day.
jumbobrain over 15 years ago
@JanCin- Thanks for the dailyink tip, thatâs a neat site. I wish theyâd haul out more of their decades of archives though. Itâs weird that we now get 15-year-old Peanuts and For Better or Worse reruns in our papers but thereâs no resource anywhere to find old strips like Moon Mullins or even Dick Tracy back when it was a good read.
Batman meets Dick Tracy: I mean, whatâs the point? Comix fans always wanna see the crossovers and they can be fun enough. But these two characters, I just donât see the appeal. I mean, why not Dennis the Menace and the Incredible Hulk? Blondie and Wonder Woman?
And finally: YEESH is this comic strip lame or what? If I hadnât been following the last ten weeks Iâd assume some major betrayal was occurringâŚwhich maybe it is, but since no time has been devoted to showing the characters backstories and motivation (aside from the interminable conversation about Ringoâs whistleblowing), what they do now is just meaningless. Pops pulls a gun. Pops is a bank robber on the lam. Pops is Louise Trapezeâs estranged husband/father/mafia cohort. Pops and Ringo were lovers. It doesnât matter if you donât tell the story properly. Duh.
sydney over 15 years ago
Roberto, In a 1994 Interview, Locher sitting on his then âinheritanceâ (from Max Collins) of 350 newspaper (the considerably more âexpensiveâ Collins gone, lower cost Kilian was in) admitted he was ârich from the strip but not as rich as Gould had been ,,, it had to do with circulationâ he said
Under his guidance, in a flurry of naive over-confidence he introduced big changes, new faces, new personalities. Removed the hat serving to alter the image of Tracy the main character. Kilian dropped Gouldâs well honed âChase sequencesâ, introduced what he called âserious themesâ. Traditional villains (like Flattop, Shaky etc) he said would HAVE to take a âback seatâ, they would âtrivializeâ the SERIOUSNES of his presentation. He got carried away - he must have thought he was writing an Editorial for the Chicago Tribune anf forgot it was just a comic strip to entertain people. Senior partner Locher seemed to agree.
In short order, the âsheetâ hit the fan, this was a brand new concept of Dick Tracy, most readers didnât it and they started losing Papers including the GIANT circulation N.Y. Daily News. Reality had struck ! Locher;s Dick Tracy ârichnessâ had dissapeared, just like his Police at the Circus !
Eleven years later when Kilian died they were down to just FIFTY newspapers. An 86% rejection ! The great euphoria, the experiments and changes were all a GIANT FLOP !
Thereafter, Locher did the writing and the art, but STUCK doggedly and mightily to ALL those failed policies and techniques. A man who thought the whole World was WRONG and HE, Dick Locher was right ! A wise man would have turned back (?)
What can I say ? You CAN help a man who has made a wrong turn and wants better. You CANâT help someone who is determined, stubornly, to continue doing the same NONSENSE and would rather go down in FLAMES (the whole world in wrong) as HE is right !
His Dick Tracy world is close to Ashes !
fishbulb over 15 years ago
A musket. I just realized the clown used a flipping unaimed musket to shoot a moving target in mid air. NO, NO, NO. Impossible! Why didnât Tracy simply examine her body and look at the musket ball hole? Wouldnât that have been a big hint as to the murderer. I mean, besides the fact that the clown just happened to fire a gun before the faux aerialist was killed? We are not asked to suspend disbelief in the strip, we are required to take it out in a back alley and beat it to death.
CougarAllen over 15 years ago
It was a blunderbuss (not exactly a musket) and he not only wasnât aiming it, he wasnât even looking in the right direction.
-Cougar :{)
MrBriberysShrunkenHeads over 15 years ago
Is Tracy going to smoke out (not) Pops? Where does he keep his stash?
sydney over 15 years ago
jumbobrain,
You want reprints of Moon Mullings ? Ypuâll get them and more at Spec Productions â (Andy Feighery - (719) 685 - 9086)
Plus everything Dick Tracy ! Visit them !
jpozenel over 15 years ago
Heâs making it bad for all the good clowns out there.
sydney over 15 years ago
fishbulb,
Mr, Pops the Clown didnât shoot Louise Trapeze, Seems he is just the gang leader. In week TWO of the âEXPLANATIONâ period, ie Saturday, October 2, that âtit-bitâ of information will be released.
Itâs unclear who owns the Circus and who if any one will benefit from closure. Realistically, a whole bunch of freaks will be out of a job if they do.
jumbobrain over 15 years ago
I stopped following Dick Tracy in the early 90s before Collinsâ departure; and only rediscovered the mess that it now is last yearâŚso I am not familiar with whatever changes Killian brought to it. But looking at the strip now, itâs clear his legacy is not an improved strip.
Obviously, whatever math TMS did to determine that Collins was not worth it to the strip was dead wrong. Iâm assuming no papers have picked the strip up in the last decade. Iâm surprised any continue to pay for itâŚitâs a clearly and highly inferior product compared to what it was under Gould and Collins. Much, much worse than it has any reason to be.
Morrow Cummings over 15 years ago
This is sooooo bad, it is funny! A bunch of thugs pretending to be a traveling circus!
jumbobrain over 15 years ago
Okay, I get itâŚthe clown is a METAPHOR, he represents Locher and he is showing how he has the power to eliminate the whole circus that this comic strip has become. Thatâs why he didnât have the glove or sleeve when his gun hand first appeared, seeâŚitâs surreal, like Luis Bunuel. Obviously we are all way off the mark criticizing this strip, when itâs now clear that every single bit of seemingly haphazard writing, shiftless continuity, and unending tedium was all leading up to this moment!
fishbulb over 15 years ago
Sydney PhillipsGenius_badge said, about 5 hours ago
fishbulb,
Mr, Pops the Clown didnât shoot Louise Trapeze, Seems he is just the gang leader. In week TWO of the âEXPLANATIONâ period, ie Saturday, October 2, that âtit-bitâ of information will be released.
Itâs unclear who owns the Circus and who if any one will benefit from closure. Realistically, a whole bunch of freaks will be out of a job if they do.
To which Fishbulb can only replyâŚ. AAAUUUGGGHHH!!!! 2 MORE weeks of just standing around??? Sadly, I donât even CARE who murdered the aerialist. For that matter, what happened to her body? Is it still in the ring? Has it been removed? More missing action. Quick! Stick the clip art tent-tiger-elephant into a panel again. Donât show the removal of the body, the âransomâ notes being taken to Police HQ,(Tracy used to work there), the departure of Teevo, etc. This entire story is surreal. Time has no meaning. People (the circus freaks, Teevo) come and go at random, logic is nonexistent. Mr. Gould is spinning at warp factor seven.
jumbobrain over 15 years ago
quick rebuttal to quick point:
Most Tracy purists, myself included, would agree that the âmoon periodâ precipitated a decline in the stripâs quality. It was a profound shift in direction and themeâŚyou could argue that it was a bold move on Gouldâs part to keep the strip fresh, but it clearly alienated longtime fans who liked the urban grit. You also have to consider that Gouldâs black-and-white morality was not as fashionable in the tumult of the 1960s as it had been in the 1940sâŚand his attempts to seem current, like the âhippie copâ Groovy Groove, only underscored how out of touch he was with the national mood. So all of that played into the decline in readership, yeah. But that was on the heels of three decades of immense popularityâŚpeople were complaining about Peanuts in its final years too. Things get old.
Was it a failure? You could argue that it was, since a key measure of a stripâs popularity is readership. And when Collins took over, he clearly reached around this period to Tracyâs golden days by killing off Juniorâs wife Moon Maid, as well as Groovy, in order to re-establish the stripâs relevance, and I think it worked while he was writing it.
BUTâŚeven at his worst, Gould drew well, wrote consistently, and his work did not suffer from the glacially slow pacing and utter lack of logic, continuity, characterization and suspense that the current strip does. The best I can say about it is that the art is mostly serviceable, constant reuse of panel art notwithstanding.
I personally would not call any of Gouldâs work a âfailure,â because even at its worst itâs always interesting and readable.
Do I consider the current version of the strip a failure? Absolutely. It sucks.
margueritem over 15 years ago
CougarAllen, your explanation of âPopsâ was wonderful.
roberto.alves over 15 years ago
Sydney,
Thanks for the valuable information you provided. Something I really enjoy about your posts is the fact that you usually add relevant numbers and references that help very accurately to understand the point.
I am not surprised about the the 86% rejection since the beginning of the Killian period (that I have not read) - but I had no idea it was such a BIG drop in readership.
As you say, âYou CAN help a man who has made a wrong turn and wants better. You CANâT help someone who is determined, stubornly, to continue doing the same NONSENSE and would rather go down in FLAMES (the whole world in wrong) as HE is right !â - and I agree absolutely!
However, I think the problem is that he is mostly an artist (probably feeling old and tired now) and you need a certain mind framework to plan and strucuture a story. Jim Brozman arrival has even worsened the situation, as I think the art is now embarassingly bad.
Thank you for the information about the âKillian yearsâ - I really had no idea so, the disappearence of the classic grotesques was his idea⌠and probably the removal of the âchase sequenceâ started paving the way to the non-action of todayâs strip?
countoftowergrove over 15 years ago
âDonât call me pops!â Kwai Chang Caine IV, Kung Fu: the Legend Contiues