Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for November 27, 2009

Now we’ll see months and months of Tracy standing in one spot at the concert hall! Wonder what the character’s names will be? Let’s see… Nero the violinist, Harpo the harp player, Boogie Woogie the bugler, Rag Time Joe the pianist…

**No Pig-on-Wheels? sniffle, sniff, sob…..

Margueritem said, “**No Pig-on-Wheels? sniffle, sniff, sob…..”

Don’t cry, Margueritem. I’m upset, too, but it’s time to move on. We need to remember that Dick Tracy is a fast moving action strip!

VistaBill, you certainly have me laughing now!

Margueritem said, “VistaBill, you certainly have me laughing now!”

Did I say something funny?

IT HAPPENED IT HAPPENED

The same start as we have had for the past year , Tess sets the story up, is Tracy still employed ?

Lets go to a concert Dick No I’d rather a concert

So off to the concert where there will be either a murder or a bomb .

I’m afraid this story will be worse than the last.

Sidney I can’t work out who the villian will be from what I can see most of the 1938 crooks died so maybe you mean a son of .

Let the pig on wheels out to pasture I want Sam Catchem back.

Instead of standing in a big top for 4 months Tracy will be standing on a stage for 4 months having a conversation.

Sigh…

“Some long hair stuff?”

Single. Funniest. Line. Of. Tracy. Dialogue. In. Years…

And not for all the right reasons, either.

Oh, my God…I am ROFL…

“Some long hair stuff…”

No, he didn’t say that…

These stupid story openings are getting so boring and contrite! Same ‘ole thing everytime…somebody phones somebody and Tess has an idea to ease Tracy’s tensions!!!

And it looks like Locher is back on the art chores…I don’t see anything of Brozman in the last few strips.

Brace yourselves people!! The crazy train is set to depart again.

I see a crazy hippie drug story coming up.

Hello Karpse,

Glad to see they did a “Sal Monela” style resurrection (1998 & 2003) on you (Sal was minced in a garbage compactor, packaged and headed for a Golf course as - “fill” (1998), while you went up in flames). But today, a different name? possibly, to be fobbed off as an original.

But it’s you Karpse, with attitude, perhaps with a touch of gel to give the hair that horizontal, “flying” off the handle effect.

That’s what I like about Dicky Locher’s Dick Tracy work, he doesn’t let the “reality” factor spoil the needed story lines. Remember how he and Kilian bent the rules and had Bonnie Braids change from a 26 year old to a child of six (?) and then, got carried away on the size of those small Tiger “cages”, expanding them up exponententially to let hero Tracy escape ? (Red Hawk-2003 and Mr.Pops).

When questioned, he’d give a red faced chuckle and say … “Why?, it’s only a comic strip”. As if somehow, that easily excused the lack of integrity and a lively imagination in his strip !

Heck ! If you “pinch” realism once, why not do it twice ?

I wonder what kind of “cymbalism” there will be at the concert hall.

Maybe they’ll play “Turkey Through a Straw” on Oboe….

Oh wait that’s from a different strip….

Where is Flat Top or Prune Face, Sightless or Vitamins or other such classic characters like Pat Patterson?

Oh joy, here we go again…..

What a lame intro. How many weeks will we have to sit through before they get to the concert?

There a rumer going around that the pig on wheels might be at that concert! One can only hope.

GV 007:

Pat “Patton” retired from the position of Chief of Police (or should we say D Locher “retired” him) a couple of years ago. Our once famous DT cop-model Lizz re-placed him. We haven’t seen any of the others you mentioned for years.

By the way, who was Sightless? I’ve never heard of him before.

Oh, oh, it’s starting to happen aga….. ZZZZzzzzzzzzzz……….

I think the writer meant Brilliant not Sightless, altho I think a character called sightless was in one of those old movies.

Notice the face in panel 3. Don’t feel like scrolling back up? That’s OK. You’ll see the same drawing thirty more times in the near future.

Pat Patterson was a wrestler not Chief of Police :)

Hey, if going to the circus took 3-4 months out of his life, can you imagine what going to a “rock” concert is going to do? Tracy might be gone for years!!!! Come back lookin’ like Eddie Van Halen, too…

So if there’s still time to go to a concert, that means Tracy “solved” the previous caper prior to the early evening. Which means that from the time Louise got shot to the time Ringo walked off arm-in-arm with his new cop friend, less than a day elapsed?

Flight Siut - you picked up on that one, too? It stuck out like a sore thumb. Ringo has a “boy toy” with a badge!

Yes Flight Suit he’s a busy lad.

And note in between, the “one-panel” stop at HQ.

Then, I guess the Naperville P.D. is too small to have a “Major Crime Squad” what with their 2 Floor building and cramped quarters, apparently forcing the detective (like D.L. and wife) to operate out of his own Home - this past year.

With all the modernizations Locher has been introducing to Tracy’s operation (that Gould, Collins and Kilian never even “thought” about) we have to contemplate a Dick Tracy - Earth 2 scenario, and adjust our perceptions to his new functions

Even to consider that it may not be an indignity or inappropriate for the Department to call Tracy at home, on his Wrist Geenee - asking him to respond to a “domestic violence” issue, late in the night ?

Wouldn’t minor cases like these be an affront to a Senior Detective but well below his pay grade ?

But what if it were to HAPPEN ?

“You were under a lot of stress at the circus”???? All he basically did was stand around and chat. There was a brief moment when he was on the trapeze with Ennen but Tess doesn’t need to know that ;)

Oh and who describes anyone as “lanky”?

Why aren’t the Tracys taking a break to celebrate Thanksgiving?

JPBecker said, “There a rumer going around that the pig on wheels might be at that concert! One can only hope.”

Yea! Bring the Pig on Wheels back!

Let’s keep in mind that in terms of comic strip time, everything in this strip since last July was one long day. This may even be the same day we’re still seeing. Maybe it’s the next day. Whatever. Someone we haven’t seen before is on the phone, so we know it’s either the start of a new story, or the next week will be spent introducing a character of no consequence.