Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for October 12, 2011

Laffy makes me laugh!

Laffy is Daffy!

With all the guest appearances by Tracy’s classic foes, I’m a little confused – are Ace, Crutch, Laffy and Beak originals created by Mike for this story, or did they appear in the original adventure, 80 years ago?That shows how well Mike has written this tale – I can’t tell where Chester Gould left off, and Mike Curtis began. Either way, the rookie detective might be in over his head!

This story will be a :Laff per minute

Now this is what I like – a detailed story that will keep us in suspense.

Program, Program – you can’t tell one crook from another without a Program

DICK TRACY PROGRAM(grin)

Ace looks more DT than Lawson even with his oversized right hand.

art work real good, but the storyline is too predictable.

Good morning all…

Ace and Crutch are essentially just a couple of low-level thugs—“soldiers”—waiting around (playing cards, drinking beer, munching potato chips) for Big Boy to order them into action. Laffy is a messenger. There are so many baddies around, “Lawson”/Tracy had better be very careful….

Another thing I like about Dick Tracy is that peope smoke and drink. It makes the characters more real.

The cameos keep coming. Nice!

I love how Staton has adjusted his artwork to be more reminiscent of the 30s. Joe is the King!

Anybody received this email?: Your GoComics Pro trial membership expires soon! Renew for $11.88 per year. I always thaught the site to be free. After almost 2 years I got that email.

Go Comics automatically renews my subscription, Doc, even without an email. It was free when I signed on here years ago reading Annie, but it doesn’t appear to be that way anymore.

you are right Dale—I was surprised too.—But it’s been so much fun—I gladly sent in my dues.

The dues are to be ‘pro’. At Comics Con GoComics hooked up fans with 2 month as a ‘pro’. Last month they extended it another month. They can’t tell which of us peeps out here were the Comic Con invitees and the ‘freeloaders’ like me. I don’t need pro status. If I have to start paying I’ll start finding the comics on other sites.

“Pro” which is the $11.88 per year means no ads and all the comics on one page if you prefer. Once that runs out, you can still get the comics free, but have ads and one per page (which I prefer for reading the comments anyway).

While I’ve enjoyed this retelling and the many cameoes, I feel I have to call out Mike Curtis on the last couple.

Up till now, Curtis has been very good in handling cameoes in a way that didn’t disrupt the continuity of the original stories these crooks first actually appeared in. Most of the time, they happen to be nearby, but don’t actually bump into Tracy.

But Curtis really pushed it by having the Mole hold Tess, even breifly, especially where she can see Mole and hear Ace call him by name. In Mole’s first story, he was a known criminal, but wrongly believed to have died sometime before Tracy became Detective. It’s possible, I suppose that once (SPOILERS) Tess is rescued, that she might forget to mention Mole when describing her captivity. But it’s not very likely.

And Curtis has shattered continuity altogether with this strip, where Tracy is face-to-face with Laffy and already seems to know who he is. In Laffy’s first appearance, he killed a doctor then posed as that doctor as Tracy came in to get something for a headache. Tracy didn’t recognize Laffy there, he just became suspicious of Laffy’s (REALLY irritating) habit of laughing in between Every. Single. Sentance.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been enjoying this anniversary trip down memory lane, and I’ve loved the cameoes. I just feel the need to play continuity cop.

@Saucy1121

Like I said four years ago when I sign on to GoComics:“Why should I pay for something that I’ve been reading and enjoying for, for free?”

Yay! Return of the Mole!

And if you feel like digging his granddaughter out from under tons of granite in that quarry, please don’t tell us. Let it be a surprise.

If I can’t access GoComics free, I’d miss all the comments by my friends, margueritem, etc. (including those by Mike Curtis, et al). Yikes!