Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for June 02, 2010

Tracy wait! Come back! Without you there’s no play! For that matter there’s no comic strip!!!

He was just pretending to be scared.

I’m sure he’ll come back any second now….

Go look at Frog Applause and you’ll see that Johnny Nothing has paused there to take a breather before continuing to pursue the “fearless” Dick Tracy.

O M G….look at those two distoted faces in the last panel… They must have watched ‘The Ring’, and they’ll be dead in 7 days.

See Dick run.

Run, Dick, run!

And since he’s such a coward, let’s use this appropriate saying for the occasion: “Break a leg, Tracy!”

It’s too bad this fleeing scene isn’t in the full color Sunday strip. It would make it easier to see Tracy’s yellow stripe.

“How clever! The gunfight takes place offstage…”

The keen detective power of Sam Catchem! Is that why his middle name is “Clueless?”

So these idiots can’t tell when something’s REALLY happening?

Sigh…

Ah well, at least they REMEMBERED that Sam exists for this storyline.

To be fair, guys, Dick’s armed with a gun full of blanks going up against Blank Jr. who has REAL bullets. Dick’s actually being smart, drawing the gunfire away from other innocents.

Of course, if he’s smart, he’ll have a real pullet on him somewhere.

Oh, wait, I forgot who was writing this. Poor Dick.

Is that a chameleon’s tong speeding past Dicks face?

It’s a good thing The Blank can’t shoot well even though he’s only a few feet from Tracy. Anja Nu doesn’t have a clue.

Absolutely ludicrous.

The two idiot cops appear to be standing off somewhere by themselves now, at least they’re not surrounded by the little floating pieces of bubble wrap

Sam and lizz: two morons.

It’s not Dick Tracy, it’s Rush Hour.

Macy’s gotta go change his pants. That smell is beginning to waft through the audience now.

Does anyone think Al Capp would have named his parody - ‘FEARLESS’ Fosdick if this sort of Dick Tracy had been around at the time of inspiration.

What would be the name of Li’l Abner’s favorite comic strip ?

Someone on the DT Yahoo board, posted this ‘quote’ from Comics Curmudgeon :

”The current Dick Tracy storyline. in which one of Dick’s old adversaries (or possibly said adversary’s grandson) has gone to all the trouble of being cast opposite Dick in a dramatic re-enactment of one of his old cases just so he can murder the detective and one of the bystanders in front of hundreds of onlookers, is painfully dumb, dumber than usual for this feature, and I’ve been studiously ignoring it. However, I do have to pause to offer appreciation for the fact that Director Lady Whose Puny Name I Have Forgotten has chosen to only thought-balloon that “Oh, No! Sure there’s a crazed murderer on the lose and the entire audience is at risk, and it’s important to tell people that, but we wouldn’t want to start a panic with unseemly displays of emotion.”

http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2010/05/29/

Why is everybody putting Tracy and all the others down? Let’s go after the writers, Ha Ha. Wouldn’t help, huh. Oh, by the way, I don’t like the actor playing Sam Chatchum, he don”t look like him very much. But it’s been so many years since our newspaper dropped the strip. Said there was too much violence in it. Wow, look at TV, but that’s okay, isn’t it. Later … .

I think we’re suppose to forget that Anja once said “We’ve got a real murder!!” This is just another all too common blatant inconsistency we find in Locher’s writing.

The keen observation by Catchem…why didn’t he pick up on the offstage shout of Anja Gnu, “Stop the show! We’ve got a real murder!!” followed by gunfire and a running Dick Tracy…

Sam Catchem, clueless cop, creative critic

Liz has a look of realization that something is amiss, or is just in awe of the magic of Science Museum Murder Theater.

They both appear to be standing in some sort of void instead of sitting in a crowded theater.

I’m reminded of the movie Running Scared, where two guys decide to rob a bar. Unfortunately for them, the bar was where all the off-duty cops hung out. They come crashing in with their guns, and all of a sudden, every cop in the bar is pointing their guns at the crooks…

I’m reminded because this is the exact opposite of that movie…

In looking back over the last three years of DT, this strip’s story and “art” has deteriorated as fast as our country. I have only discovered these online comics some 6 months ago. I grew up with DT, Little Orphan Annie, Steve Canyon, Rip Kirby, Prince Valiant, etc. Just 3 years ago, the art work done by Locher was fairly consistant. Buildings were the same each day, autos and planes were distinguishable as autos and planes. Some of his proportions were a little off, but not like now. Building signs were those huge freestanding letters, but the buildings were recognizable, they could be entered by a front entrance. Now, I don’t know if Brozman is just inking in what Locher has penciled without objecting or if he just doesn’t care. Surely, he has to be embarrassed when there are blatant inconsistences from one day to the next, or even one panel to next. There is no story line! Is Brozman just being paid for robotically inking a childish delinenation? Who is really drawing this and who is really writing it? Will this all vaporize in December? We will stay tuned just because we care about what once was a great strip.

If only all the action could take place offstage! At least, action that’s supposed to make sense. Action that requires a building to be shown more than once, and look like the same building, too – if only that kind of thing could take place offstage! And action that requires normal-size hands and arms….

-Cougar :{)

How did Sam morph into Karl Malden?

And why is the chief wearing a matador’s hat?

Does Sam have a mouthful of “chaw”?

Tigger…your link isn’t working for me. I tried it with Explorer and Firefox.

And while Tracy runs like a coward, Sam today looks neuterd, meek, and ready to bleat like a Lamb