Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for March 01, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LStdO1idt8k

Fortunately, the storm winds held the granary together. Now that the storm has subsided, the granary is in worse shape.

First time I ever heard of rats swimming toward a sinking ship!

So what does Locher plan now? “Ironically, Mordred killed his victims by feeding them to rats?” (Rats don’t normally eat human flesh, by the way.) Or is the idea that Mordred is now broken by terror, and Thick will get credited for torturing him into confessing all his crimes?

margueritem, if you missed my post from yesterday, you can create an avatar by shrinking the picture’s file size. Open the picture in Paint and use its Resize function, then saving it. I think a 20% scale will do it.

Rats don’t chirp.

The storm is ending?

BillThompson, I can’t use any avatar at all. I tried to change it last week, and all I get is this X thing now.

Is this a new story with the characters from the previous one?

“Not so tough now are you big boy”.

margueritem, have you checked the file type on the image for your new avatar? I think Gocomics has trouble with some image types.

Ironically, he poisoned all his victims with Decon.

BillThompson, my image types are all compatible with GoComics. This has happened to a number of people that tried to change their avatars recently. Supposedly they’re working on the problem…

So it turns out that the face behind the mask belongs to Ernest Borgnine.

Remember the bit from the Mad magazine spoof of “Willard,” when the rats attacked his character? “What a shame that the stars of the movie have to eat ham!”

If the rats are going to get Mordred, they are going to get Tracy also.

And what is with that drawing of Mordreds mask in panel two.

The granary must be upstream from a dam. The dam burst and let all the water out which is why the ground is dry enough for Sam to approach the building.

Problem: The water was up to the second floor at least, which means that downstream the flood must be devastating. I wonder if Locher even gave this a thought?

Wow, rats. The macabre horror of this strip sends chills up and down my spine.

Oh No, this is bad! Everyone knows that you never feed rats that much ham after midnight. It ain’t kosher.

It would be a shame if those thirty-six sleepless hours caught up with Thick and he missed the action. Or if the granary collapsed and spoiled the dinner party Locher set up for his friends. Or if the decoy cars and the people who swore to kill Morbid show up to end the festivities. Or if Thick grabbed the FORTY FRICKIN’ POUNDS OF CHAIN and swung it to drive off the rats, thereby winning Morbid’s undying gratitude. The real shame, though, is that it ain’t the fourteenth yet.

Could it be that tracy has already been eaten? Run Mordred, run. See Mordred run.

The whole world was flooded, the populace destroyed and there’s only a few police officers left. What a great way to end a story.

pcolli, you may be right that the rats devoured Thick. That one rat does look terribly nauseated.

But now that the waters have subsided, maybe Thick finally ran away.

Does this mean that this granary is actually Room 101?

That would explain the torture we’ve been going through for this entire storyline.

13 days and counting…

Is this the prequel to Waterworld?

M. Mitchell Marmel, that would also explain why the history of Locher’s arcs keep changing. Oceania never sent an AWACS to search for Thick. Thick never made a power approach. Thick never released Morbid at any point. It’s the work of Immanuel Goldstein and his collaborators in Eurasia!

“Thanks, ladies and gentlemen. It’s great to be here at The Old Granary! How about that storm, huh? Last time there was this much rain, animals were pairing up and boarding an ark!”

[sound of rats chirping]

Goodnight, folks. I’ll be here all week!”

So we now have two weeks of Mordred getting eaten by rats. Great storytelling.

great police work, Spacy

Looks like somebody’s gone all Kathy Bates Misery on Mordred’s left ankle in panel 2.

RAT FINK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So Winston Smith’s rehabilitation worked as well as Alex DeLarge’s.

At least we’re past the same old same old.

and George Orwell is spinning in his grave too, along with Chester Gould.

I would say this story had just jumped the shark except for the fact that it has already jumped the shark so many times that there are no more sharks in the ocean left to jump.

Rats chirp now? And let me guess, they happen to be Mordreds only weakness? Entirely too convenient, but this is the 1st and its time to wrap this horrible arc up.

This is about as good as the stories I wrote when I was six.

Like, in one, I was in the garage, and a vampire showed up, so I started running, and there was a pile of gravel at the back. Running on the gravel made it all fly backwards and I found a secret tunnel to my house and escaped. Meanwhile, a flying rock knocked the vampire out, and he fell down and his fangs hit an electric wire, and the garage exploded!

Do I get to write Dick Tracy now?

I knew Tracy would end up being rescued, but I’ll admit I didn’t imagine it would be by an army of crime-hating rats.

Meanwhile, the rain outside has tapered off and the flood waters immediately went down 19 feet.

(chirp!)

I see some of the commenteriat have been given a role in this episode of Duck Spacey. As the rats.

Next thing the rats will start talking about how they have a “code” and they won’t let Mordred dishonor the rats…

Maybe Mordred is the king of all rats and just escaped from an episode of ’Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’. Tracy never stood a chance for his kung fu is lousy.

kreniigh, your stories are much better!

That granary building is the tallest thing in sight, so when the rising flood waters were getting our characters’ feet wet on the second floor of the granary, where were the rats? Hanging out in the trees? Downstairs in the ground-floor ‘pool’ swimming laps?

And now that the 15’ of flood waters are gone in panel 3, they come up the stairs for a little bite?

March 14th…March 14th…

I’m betting Modred is suffering massive hallucinations. After all, he hasn’t slept for 36 hours either and he’s been fighting off being drugged to boot.

I’m still looking forward to the granary collapsing myself.

Think of the Grannery as the Dick Tracy WORLD …

collapsing ‘all around’ Dick Locher at the end.

You might even find a Chester Gould mask in the rubble

Ben, you’re always running here and there You feel you’re not wanted anywhere If you ever look behind And don’t like what you find There’s something you should know You’ve got a place to go

Altogether now, let’s sing!!

I apologize if somebody already asked this question.

Why are the rats only going after Modred??

Why did it take Locher all this time to bring the rats out. They live living in an old granary to eat the grains to keep nice and fat.

It would be nice if Locher went into the Great Hereafter making Thick a hero of some sort by doing something smart. No, staying true to form, he has Thick turning his back on the prisoner, pointing the gun the other way, looking down the barrel, and allowing his prisoner to become unshackled. Either Testicle Chin and the Pacer or the rats will be the heroes in his last hurrah. Pitiful, Locher. Pitiful.

once again locher takes lame and stupid to new heights.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpwziyhqT5o

Michael McMillan said, about 13 hours ago

The granary must be upstream from a dam. The dam burst and let all the water out which is why the ground is dry enough for Sam to approach the building. ———————————————————————————- Why would Sam approach the building? He has no idea where Tracy is.

Why are the rats only going for mordred? Professional courtesy to Spacy, that’s why

And I believe we’ve gone through this entire arc without someone peeing on the wall

scuttlebutt99 said, about 4 hours ago

1: A fact known by 99% of the human race 2: A parallel pocket dimension 3: There’s a giant drain behind the building. 4: Did you see him in panel 2? Even I wanted to attack him. 5: At least it’s this month and not next month.

“The storm subsides.” And the sun comes out in the middle of the night. Is this Locher’s way of telling us that Mordred just died?

At least Simple Simon finally made a guest appearance. Nice profile view of him in Panel #2. Some of Locher’s most spectacular and realistic artwork ever!

I love the new color daily strips, apparently available only on the Chicago Tribute site.

I suspect they are gearing up for the new writer on March 14th.

bks253

Two more weeks!

I’ve been giving the flood a bit of thought.

It was up to the second floor, getting their feet wet. That suggests at least fifteen feet of water inside the building.

The rain stops and all that water disappears. A big problem occurs to me, which is that the water can’t get out of the building all that fast. It will place a strain on the walls. Walls that have already been asked to withstand heavy waves are now asked to withstand heavy outward pressures as the water leaves the building. Can even the strongest building take this?

How fast did the water disappear? Apparently, it did so in less time than it took you to read this. That’s mighty fast for fifteen to twenty feet of water to leave, and I suspect that even a well-built stone granary might have trouble withstanding the strain.

there are singing mice but not chirping rats rats are not that dumb nor that grotesque look like rat hyena hybrids

Michael, I’ve tried to make sense of this flood, and I can’t do it. For the water to drain away that fast, the whole region has to be steep and mountainous. But it has to be fairly level to allow the flood to persist so long. And while wood-frame buildings might survive rapid drainage, they couldn’t survive the giant wave we saw (repeatedly!) strike its side.

I figure the problem isn’t water. It’s hot air. Locher is full of it.

I’m just glad to know that whatever happens, the Dick Tracy comic strip is not going to end in this sorry state. But the next two weeks can’t pass quick enough for me.

From what I saw of Curtis and Staton’s work, they play fair with the readers. They tell a story, clues mean something and the characters use their brains. If I can’t make fun of them because they’re good, well, that’s a price I’m willing to pay.