Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for October 17, 2012

Sparkle, beware! There`s a BAD boy! You`ll catch Measles!

Good Morning Detectives!And ut oh……

Uh-oh… Wonder if Moon Maid will help out?

Looks like the Measles caught HER! In the words of Flo from Mel’s Diner, she should tell Measles, “Kiss my grits!”

uh oh he bit off more than he bargained for, don’t you think?

Hope Measles gets shot. Probably when and not if.

As unlikely a coincidence as this is, it does make for good drama! Does Measles recognize Sparkle? Does she recognize him? Will Sparkle lead Measles to Gravel Gertie? Will Gravel Gertie blow his ugly head off (I can hope, can’t I?)?

In Soviet Russia, Measles catch you!

I also wonder if either of them recognize the other. Sparkle could know him from her mom’s stories. He could know her from her early singing career, photo spreads in Look magazine (which mentioned her parents, and hate of Gertie.

Now the story is coming together. Measles will probably force Sparkle back to Sunny Dell Acres and hold them all hostage.

Unhand her, you Cad!

Yeah…no car bomb!!!

Maybe tess will come a’runnin with her pink pistol and shoot up the town! lol! I’d like to think that sparkle has had SOME kind of self defense classes… lord knows with EITHER of her surnames, trouble will sooner or later find its way to her doorstep.. and it looks like it just has! Does anyone know if Sparkle and Measles actually know eachother at all? (hmm, now that i think of it, i am sure there were newspaper reports of junior marrying her way back when..the city’s most celebrated detective’s son gets married again after losing his first wife in such tragic fashion? yeh, i think it woulda been all over the news for sure)

Kiss my…

Now this is real Dick Tracy storytelling! Coincidence, threads of different stories converging, something that makes many of us say “uh, oh!” – I only hope that Team Tracy has time to tell this story to it’s full potential.

Measles’s a weasel, not to be trusted. Help Sparkle, Mysta, there’s a punk to be busted!

I think it’s entirely possible that Measles has already recognized Sparkle and is preparing to make the most of it. Gertie better look out.

He’s Bad Boy…smoking by a gas pump.

To my eye it’s not bell bottoms in panel one, but one leg straight down and the other bent a bit behind the other, giving that wide taper silhouette.

Measles has him some quick reflexes. He must be hopped up on them meriwanna pills.

three things here.. one, in the first panel coudl that possibly be measles waiting outside the store? perhaps he saw sparkle going in and “planted” the can for her to trip over so he could catch and kidnap her…second, wonder if sparkle thinks its Junior catching her.. with the exception of the cigar and the spots on his forehead he could be a ringer for her husband, and third.. smoking near a gas pump could lead to… EXPLOSIONS! and we ALL know that explosions and junior tracy’s wives do NOT go good together… besides, measles was ready to blow up the trailer to get rid of bookie, so tossing his lit cigar over to the gas pump wouldnt be too much of a stretch. and as for sparkles “bell bottoms”.. it would make sense IF there was a second leg shown in panel one. i am agreeing with igopogo that sparkle is bent at the knee with one foot slightly behind the other giving the larger fluted bottom appearaance to her pants in panel one

Could Measles have been there to get some gas to torch his Airstream?And yes, Sparkle knows a few things about self-defense. Didn’t she slug her ex-husband Vera?

In yesterday’s strip, you can see Sparkle leaving Gertie’s in tight jeans. In today’s strip, even if she had changed to bell bottom pants on the way to the store, the drawing depicts a much larger image than a single bell bottom would make. So the drawing is most likely of one leg slightly behind the other.

I can’t believe there is a 24-hour convenience store in Naperville that stocks grits.

Another exciting adventure in the life of Sparkle Plenty Alldid Tracy. It really would me a major turn of events in the strip if Moon Maid is the one who rescues Sparkle.

I’m waiting for the Putz to go one day without personally attacking someone here.

Good afternoon everyone…

My opinion… I think we should stop posting images (large or small) that are not related to the DT strip. Post a url to the image(s) and then the reader has a choice.

I really like the way the strip has endured and the way it is going, but I still miss Annie. (No, the reruns aren’t satisfying.)

I’m a novice at posting links so I’m copying the entire address below…sorry to all who know the magic code to do it properly.

This is not an ideal example of the pose I feel was used in panel one (both knees are bent here) but I think it supports my position that with one leg casually positioned behind the other it may present that wide taper silhouette.

http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-58857079/stock-photo-a-beautiful-tall-and-slim-woman-in-gray-jeans-and-green-sweater-standing-in-the-studio-in-profile.html

Measles—what a cad. And I have a very bad feeling about Sparkle’s future.

Still da Man, I have no idea who you are and don’t care. I just wish you would either quit trolling or simply go away.

Sparkle!!!

I have to admit I’m completely torn. I have always liked Sparkle and hope no harm comes to her. On the other hand I’d really like to see Mysta and Junior back together again, and Sparkle’s an obstacle to that goal. Yikes! I can’t decide what I’m hoping to happen in this story!

Too bad the troll doesn’t have access to a third computer; then all the good decent folks here would have to put up with yet another lunatic.

By the way – I love the choice of gas pump design!

Who hung up the gas nozzles?

As someone who posts images on this forum I have just a few recommendations for anyone who is posting images here. I suppose these could also be seen as requests or guidelines, use whatever term suits your fancy.1. Don’t post animated GIFs or flash images. Not only are they annoying to look at, they are rather large files and take time to download, and once downloaded take up space in the internet cache on the harddrive. Also they are re-downloaded and copied EVERY TIME you refresh the page. This hogs memory for your browser and slows down your computer, also animated images use up clock cycles on the processor as well. Just don’t use them.OK, YES I have used animated images myself, but only for special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays. Even then I look for small images in both image size and file size.2. Talking about size, limit your images to a max of 320px in width if at all possible. If more than 350px post a link instead. Height can be a bit more, but over 500px is really to much. A good size is around 250px X 250px. If at all possible, use web friendly images with a small file size. For an example of what I am talking about I will use images already posted today.Stagger Lee, posted two images in his comment. Both are just above my recommendation max of 350px in width, but still aren’t obnoxious, however, they are not “made for web” images. The first is almost 58KB the second nearly 50KB, so although small in image size, they are rather large in file size and slow to download.Still Da Man! gets passing marks for his guy playing tambourine post for both pic size (220px X 278px) and file size (7KB). Unfortunately, his earlier post of bell bottoms is an absolute perfect example of what not to do. The Ken doll image is 1,200px X 1,200px image size and has a file size of 116KB, a definite fail and the three other images above it aren’t much better. Girl with yellow bag has a file size of 196KB!3. Only post images if they have something to do with the current strip. A vintage image of a villain, a clarification of some disputed panel image (today’s pants for example), etc. We have all heard the phrase “A picture is worth a thousand words”. Well if you are going to use an image to say something I have another popular phrase for you, “If you can’t say something nice. Don’t say nothing at all.”As I said, these are meant as guidelines for image posting. I try my best to follow them myself, and I hope I haven’t annoyed anyone with my own images. If everyone else follows these 3 simple guidelines as well, I believe everyone will have a much more enjoyable experience on this forum, and any other forum for that matter.

Also I’d like to voice my appreciation for the way Staton drew the gas pump today. Never thought I’d write something like that but there it is.

In addition to all the other reasons given for not posting unnecessary graphics, when I came to this page I got a notice that my anti-virus program had intercepted a malicious URL. When I reloaded the page twice several hours apart I got the same notice. The malicious URL is http://www.jeansforcheap.org/upfile/201112011207111418.jpg

I assume it is one of the pictures of a woman in jeans; did anyone else get a notice like that? Would whoever posted from that URL be so kind as to remove it to avoid any threat to others’ computers?

Copyright infringement is rampant on the internet. I am a film actor and a book illustrator and a good portion of my income is from residuals and royalties. Every time someone downloads my work without paying, it cuts into my income.

Actually, it’s quite the opposite. I would never pay a cent for reading Nancy, Alley Oop, 9 Chickweed Lane and many other strips that I read now. Thanks to this site, your work and the work of many other artists reach the minds of thousands of readers. I also read your comic strip, Mr. Hansel, and I find it, well, interesting. That would had not ever happened if I needed to pay any amount of money for reading it. I’m happy it doesn’t cost to read your comic strip, because now I can read it. I’d be sad if I needed to pay to read your work, because then I won’t be one of your readers anymore. I.e., your readers’ base would be severely reduced were we to pay in order to read your work. Besides, one should assume Gocomics is paying you for it, or else yio get some benefit for letting us read your work for free.

I wish there was a solution to this — The internet is a great way for artists to get their work seen, but at the same time, if people like it, they steal it. So the more popular you are, the more often you’re robbed.(It’s something I think of whenever I post my work.)

Jim Meddick, Guy Gilchrist, Jack Bender, Brooke McEldowney, Scott Adams, Garry Trudeau and many other artists posting in Gocomics benefit from promotional products they offer through this site, such as T-shirts, mugs, trade paperback compilations, etc. Regarding the comment about the Savage Dragon, a very plausible scenario is that an adamant protection against downloading could result in the readers’ base for Larsen’s comic book to be limited to the 20,000 that buy it. Thus losing cost-free publicity to a universe of 80,000 potential consumers of toys, trade paperbacks, t-shirts, etc. The trend will be for your characters to be, some time in the future, marketed in the same way the above mentioned currently are. Then this “free riding” that you seem to be upset about could prove to be very profitable for you.

Title 17 of the United States Code -107

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

Key words “Criticism” and “Comment”.

The point I was trying to make is that what is posted here in the comments section is not subject to the copyright laws. We comment on and critique the subject matter.