Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for August 23, 2012

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Wonderful drawings today! Day three, VB!

Good morning all…

My buddy’s calling Tracy and not me? I’m a bit disappointed! I’ve been a faithful member of the Dick Tracy Junior Detective Club although I lost the diploma that Tootsie V-M Chocolate Drink Mix sent me in 1944.

HA! Nice V.B. I was just thinking this guy outside the fish aquarium is the one that “didn’t get away.” I could also see Vitamin using the old line, “It’s worse than that, he’s DEAD Jim.”

You should call Ted Tellum. He knows what to do with dead bodies found in your parking space. (grin)

A special thank you for your support and wonderful comments these past three days to my fellow commentors.

And, thanks for making an old man happier Mike, Joe, and Shelley! I’ll be around if you want me to reappear next year!

Looks like Flintheart is using an iPad! Love this mixing of old fashioned scenarios with new tech! Joe Staton and Mike Curtis are super-COOL!

And who is the bespectacled guy? Davey Mylar’s cousin?

Mornin’ Vista Bill (you deserve top billing)!Considering the dialogue, it sounds like Vista Bill (the movie one) was a detective. Now that’s a film I’d like to see!A frontier detective with Vita – I mean, Blowhard – Flintheart as his sidekick! (Do I smell a spin-off? Along with the adventures of the Scarlett Sting?)

Love the pun about it being his first panel!

Thank you for bringing back Vitamin !

The poor stiff is dead! I like the dramatic phrasing of Master Thespian Vitamin “Blowhard” Flintheart in panel 3! Is Chief of Detectives Richard Tracy up to the task after his recent bloodletting?

this is more important than your career? who are you, and what have you done with the real Flintheart?

I think that’s the pocket-size version of the Ipad, the Iphone. Jobs introduced it first to open up the market for the larger version.

I still think of the Ipad as an Iphone with a big enough screen. I’m expecting that it won’t be long before you can get software to make phone calls from the Ap store.

Well if anyone had doubts as to IDENTITY (?) - it seems Vitamin Flintheart Is right up to SPEED. He’s got his old friend’s, Dick’s number, and calling him direct !

You’ll be his very next call, VistaBill!

6:03am and i’m ONLY number 18?!?!?! WOW you guys are quick! lol

i know vitamin and tracy have been friends for YEARS (heck, he is joe’s godfather for cryin out loud! lol) but when and how did they meet? anyone?? bueller??

But whatever happened to the Moon Maiden sub-plot they started with a short while ago?JimCo

@tsull2121:That six week limit is really starting to crimp their story telling style, I think. It’s causing changes in Tracy’s character. The way Tracy was depicted in days of old, he would be tenaciously pursuing clues, trying to find Stiletta, not sitting around waiting to “hear from her again” I realy enjoy this strip, but each story seems to start out with a bang and then fizzle just as it’s getting really good. I have hopes that somehow the bosses at TMS can finally be made to grasp that it is not the length of a story, but the quality of the story’s contents, that determines if readers will stay with it. Mike, Joe and Company certainly have the quality. Let them run with it!

Time was, you could go away, return and very little had changed

Now you have to play catch-up so frantically, you become absolutely deranged

Oh how I remember those Saturday matinees with a thrill

Going to the cinema to see our great hero, Vista Bill

He rode the range where the buffalo roam

Wherever he laid his hat, he called home

A tall, lean man, face bronzed by the sun

His constant companions were his horse and his gun

A true American hero, so stalwart and so true

And the love of his life was the Sweet Betty Sue

Now this love could never have run its course

You see, Sweet Betty Sue was Bills’ faithful horse

He raised her from a filly, one of beauty and grace

A pinto pony with a blaze on her face

They traveled the mountains, forests and plains

Through blazing sun and torrential rains

Helping the oppressed and righting wrongs

All the while singing those old cowboy songs

Living a life so easy and carefree

No marriage for him, no never, not he

Then one day while taming a town

He spied Little Ruthie in her blue gingham gown

With auburn hair, eyes of blue and a cute freckled nose

She stood barely five foot two, from her crown to her toes

Beauty and wit, with loads of charm

She had the job as the local schoolmarm

Just one look and Bill was smitten

By that bug of love he knew he was bitten

Bill now has finally settled down

He and Ruthie moved to Hollywood town

His exploits are now on the silver screen

His rugged good looks there to be seen

Riden’ and ropin’, gunfights galore

But never any sign of blood or gore

Bill retired at the top of his game

Even has a star on the walk of fame

So cheers to Bill, in all his glory

It really has been quite a story.

Another great poem, Wndrwrthg! We’ve sorely missed your contributions and hope you’re back to stay!

I’ve also wondered about the identity of the bespectacled character in today’s strip. What if it’s really Davey Mylar who survived all the gunplay at his headquarters? Mr. Crime could be making a return appearance, then. Something for us to think about.

Maybe he should call Inspector Danger. lol

That sure looks like Davey Mylar, aka Mr. Crime, less his stash! Need to find Blaze for that. As for VB, your stock keeps on on going “up limit” every day, as they say at the Chicago Merc. Now we need to see a movie poster of Aunt Marg (Margaritem) on the billboard. I can see her now – lookin’ exactly like Marjorie Main, even with her Sunday curlers on.

where’s phishface?

would that number begin with “Dumont 5…” lol

Gordon – hope you don’t mind me lifting your letter to pass along to the folks at “contact” (with proper credit to you of course). I just couldn’t improve on yours and I told them such.