Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for February 01, 2012

Wendy Wichel? Haven’t seen her in years! What a witch!

Good morning everyone…

I like the snazzy air vents in Dick’s hat. It must help him keep a cool head in crisis.

Nice noir Tracy images in panels 1 and 2.But, curses! Wendy Witch…err…Wichel! What a revolting development this turned out to be….

Nice to see Collins’s greatest (non-rogue) character contribution make a triumphant return to the strip. Last year we saw an article with her byline, but now we get the real deal!

Aaron

What’s next ? Love it!

Great to see Wendy, looking very Fletcher-esque I might add.

Some observations this morning:How does Wendy have the nerve to confront Tracy as a "shoot first. . " cop when he is standing there with bullet holes in his hat as proof that the crooks shot at HIM?Wendy was a post-Gould creation, so Chester himself never drew her. But this art today sure does justice to the Gould style! She looks awsome!Is that an actual fountain pen in Wendy’s hand? She doesn’t use a ball-point pen? How cool is that!

The Wich’ is back!

And good morning, VB!

Needs her like a hole in his hat, I mean head.

The cop in the background in panel 3’s hair is too long. If its a cop and if he’s a guy.

That profile, those thick lips (Wendy Witchel). So mindful of Rick Fletcher’s ART !

In his latter day work with Collins, Rick (more the illustrator), seemed to slip into a mode of BOLDER CARICATURE. One ‘captured’ here by Staton in the above representation.

It’s almost as if Rick Fletcher were back, doing that illustation for Staton.

Love it!!!

This Wendy is definitely NOT a Good Little Witch.

I’m still enjoying DT walking around with two bullet holes in his hat and I’m also puzzled by the people in the background. EMT’s? Spike’s band members? Cops? Cabbies? Wendy is a great character because she’s always wrong and gets us pissed off at her.

Wendy is truly drawn in glorious Rick Fletcher style. And she holds the fountain pen like a cigarette holder, like a femme fatale!

You mean Carmen Sandiego?

Love the art and story and new/old characters. But I do think those checkered caps say cabbie not cop.

Is this her first appearance since the Max Allen Collins years?

@ElGuapo:Sometime a while back, someone posted information on this comment page about Chicago Police uniforms. According to that link, the checkered cap design is a part of the Chicago Police Dept tradition.

Not very imaginative dope smugglers. I read about a shipment of dishes that were glazed hashish.

This new team is able to get more in just three panels than what Dick Locher was able to give in three weeks! Congrats DT team!

Hey MPH did you catch the New Teams nod to Brenda Starr back in November?

Can’t believe that’s really you talking Matthew !.You actually come across as if you are - EXCITED !

Never heard you teenage ’ swoon ’ over Dick Locher’s work that way ! (?) Maybe at last you’re begining -to realize what we have all been missing these past 15 years (?)

WELCOME to the Club !

I agree with you . . . the strip looks considerably better in B&W ! Why not read it on ComicStrip Nation?. That’s the way they carry it. I enjoy it so everyday !

Like the person she is drawn from, Waqlter Winchel, Wendy is a muck raker of the first order

Matt,.Re your comment below:.“AND—I don’t read it at Comic Strip nation because I want to PAY for the strip and not rob Mike Curtis and Joe Staton of their royalties for doing the strip. I am a firm believer that if you read the strip, you should pay for it and if you enjoy the strip and want it to continue you REALLY ought to be paying for it. Oddly enough, Jim disagrees strongly with me about that.”.You’re perfectly free to do what you want with your own money, and if you feel you have an ethical or moral obligation to pay to see TRACY when you can get it for free, it’s not my place to overrule your conscience..That said, I see nothing wrong with reading TRACY for free as long as it’s not violating the rights of the copyright owners..To the best of my knowledge, both Comic Strip Nation and the Houston CHRONICLE are showing TRACY on their sites with TMS’s permission. They are not pirating it. .In other words, they have paid for the privilege of running TRACY on those sites. So neither TMS, nor any member of Team Tracy has a kick coming..I don’t think either TMS or any member of the creative team gets anything extra from GoComics as a consequence of GoComics having paid subscribers. I know I don’t. So paying for it doesn’t put money in anyone’s pocket except the folks who run GoComics..And that’s fine. If you think that GoComics is more likely to keep running TRACY because of paid subscribers, maybe it’s even a tactically adroit maneuver. But it doesn’t have any effect on how much TMS or the people they’ve hired to do TRACY make..Comic Strip Nation, the Houston CHRON site, and the free part of GoComics all run advertising, so they’re all making money from selling space to advertisers. I don’t feel like I’m stealing by reading those sites for free. The sites are making their profit by selling ads..Would it be stealing if, instead of buying a paper to read Tracy, or instead of reading it on a paid ‘Net site, I went down to the neighborhood library and read it in the local paper that I could find in their newspaper section? How about if I read it in a paper that I found abandoned on a train, or bus, or hotel lobby?.I can’t convince myself that it would be. The paper’ s there. It’s available to the public. It’s SUPPOSED (at least in the case of the library) to be available to the public. The newpaper company’s been paid, both by the library (or the person who left it behind), and by the advertisers who buy space in the paper. How is my reading TRACY in it somehow depriving the paper, or the creative team, or money it would otherwise have?.And, ethically or morally, how is reading that free paper materially different from reading a free website?.Nor, for that matter, do I feel any ehtical or moral obligation to buy the goods or services of those who buy advertising space in the newspaper, or ‘Net site, any more than I do buying the goods or services of those who buy commerical time on the television shows I regularly watch or the radio shows I regularly listen to. .In such a case, the newspaper features, the material on the website, or the TV/radio show is the bait, and I (and the rest of the public) are the fish. Do you really think I (and the rest of the public) have some moral obligation to be hooked?.I won’t try to talk you out of following your conscience, but I just don’t comprehend the moral or ethical reasoning behind the choice you’re making, particularly when the product you’re paying for is inferior (because of the bad color job) to the product you could get for free at Nation or CHRONICLE.

Matt, If it helps your conscience by all means PAY for the strip here. But please your eyes and TASTE too and READ it IN B&W at ComickStrip Nation.

The best of bothe Worlds. And exactly what I do, PAY here,and READ there !

Well you are right in the sense I can’t prove WHAT you are thinking !

But I cab with cofidence note that unusual, , NEVER before SEEN ACTIONS speek louder than WORDS !

fantastic art & writing !!!

This is a strip I enjoy to a level I didn’t think possible. Team Tracy has made me love DT just like when I was a kid reading “The Celebrated Cases”.