Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for April 17, 2013

Good morning all…

My kind of place!

Works for me, too. Good morning, VB.

I grew up in the Moon era too, and maybe if I hadn’t bought all those reprint books of the 1931-60 era, I might have not minded bringing back MM… but, in my opinion, DT as gritty Police drama vs DT as silly Sci-fi , well, there’s simply NO comparison, Fletcher and Collins had it right.

I like this beginning… hope the story is as good as this strip promisses

Moon Maid needs to show up and clean out this place! ;)

I thought we’d see Moon Maid and I’m sure we will… eventually. We’re overdue for the reappearance of the Pig on Wheels, too.

If you haven’t read Willy007’s post from yesterday, the long one with the MM pic at the end, it is fantastic. Hope everyone here and especially you Moon Era fans go back to yesterday’s comments and look it up. Even if you don’t like MM, hopefully by reading it you’ll understand better why so many of us do. Well said, Willy007!!!

I enjoyed both gritty drama and the sci-fi (ok, the floating garbage cans were definitely silly) please don’t start a feud, to each his-her own tastes,ok? Good morning everyone with a grear beginnin of a new story. New story!

This has a true “film noir” feel to it. I can just hear the narration over the slow, jazzy music. Awesome. Makes me hope Tess and Johnny Adonis become involved to give it that “private eye” angle.

Looks like Mumbles’ shadow, and the guy to the right of him who’s talking, is that B-B Eyes?

Great beginning of a new arc new arc.

Could that be Abner Kadaver climbing up those stairs in disguise, coming to get revenge for being set up to be the fall guy?

@Willy007:I read your post from yesterday, and you expressed your feelings very well. I must, however, take exception to one point. For those of us who did not care for the Moon Era, it had nothing whatsoever to do with “political correctness”, as you said in your comments. Mikeyj said it best in his post early this morning – for those of us who enjoyed the Tracy up to the early 60s, the sudden shift from Police Drama to SciFi just made the strip into something we couldn’t recognize anymore. But, it is what it is, and now the new team has a Moon Maid story in store for us, so I will see what happens.

Any known significance to the name of this nightspot? The closest EJ’s to Chicago I could is in Skokie, IL. Unlike that establishment, this underworld hangout is decidedly NOT kosher.

Doubleup may be cleared on the Mr. Crime mess, but someone’s coming up the steps that “knows what he did last summer”. That’s bad! That’s bad!

Is that Munden’s Bar in the second panel? I didn’t know Tracy’s jurisdiction included Cynosure…

Anyone have a link to the 1978 car bombing of Moon Maid? The one archive service I went to had only the Sunday panels and featured the (alleged?) death of Big Boy. But apparently, the bomb attack took place on a weekday panel and wasn’t stored there. And while I am a Moon Maid fan, I understand perfectly well what Ken in Ohio had to say: Dick Tracy had to decide whether to be a crime drama or a sci-fi flick. On the other hand, introduction of the two-way wrist radio back when vacuum tubes were king was pretty sci-fi, as well. Back to today’s search for balance between gritty crime and sci-fi, perhaps that detail has already been worked on by getting rid of Moon Valley, much to Honeymoon’s heartbreak. Therefore, in the search for “retroactive continuity,” I’m hoping that somehow, in those days before DNA and other testing, perhaps it was another person, not the Moon Maid, who got blown up in 1978. Last, and certainly least: Floating garbage cans? Ever look at a Segway cart? Maybe they don’t fly, but they do remind me of those moon vehicles. And to think that we all thought that Smokey Stover’s Foo-mobile was impossible…

Oh, no! Not Double-up again again!!!!!!

i think everyone is focusing on th at figure walking up the stairs just a LITTLE too much. dunno why s/he/it is there, but my gut is telling me that its nothing of importance, just an “opening scene” and that figure is there to show that mumbles, doubleup and bb eyes arent in the place by themselves. also, notice that “EJ’S” is a BOWLING ALLEY as evidences by the ball return at the heel of that person’s left foot. Does that help anyone with area knowledge as to what/where the real ej’s could be?

Re: Yesterday’s post from Willy – Well done Willy, well done! Perhaps the most thoughtful, insightful and eloquently expressed post regarding one’s feelings I’ve read over here in many a Moon! (LOL!). Not at all like all the nonsense we use to have to read from posters such as Still Da Man! ;-) You reminded me of how much I enjoy Science Fiction and the whole concept of the exploration of other worlds. Growing up my favorite toys to play with were the Matt Mason astronauts. I think my main problem with the whole Moon Maid resurrection(?) has to do with the fear it’ll be a repeat of how the stories played out in the 70’s which to me were more like Bond’s silly Moonracker then 2001: A Space Odyssey. Your defense has convinced me to withhold judgment until her story starts and finishes. For that you are hereby nominated for Aprils “YOU DA MAN!” award. .Congratulations!.

Dead characters in comics return with great frequency. Moon people may have the ability to regenerate or be regenerateed. The new Moon Maid may be a clone. Maybe Moon People’s memories and personality are stored digitally and can be implanted into new bodies.

Moon Maid’s father could communicate with her telepathically and was shown in the strip to be overly-protective of his daughter. He had no qualms about spying on her. Perhaps he sensed danger and “beamed” her out at the last minute. He has held her hostage on the moon before. Perhaps he has been holding her hostage for all these years and she only escaped when Moon Valley had to be evacuated. (I sort of subscribe to this theory but Mike Curtis has pleasantly surprised me before).

Whatever explanation is used if Moon Maid is somehow revived will seem no sillier than the revival of any other comic character who has been brought back from the dead over the years.

It is good to see that some can be gracious about what they like or don’t favor over the course of Gould’s long, impressive career as artist and storyteller. When an artist has amassed a considerable body of work over several decades, it becomes convenient to talk about this or that decade. Yet what is easy usually is not accurate. Very little of the 1960s Dick Tracy was spent on the moon, nor was it very often extensively focused on sci-fi. In addition to one of Gould’s greatest creations, Moon Maid, the legacy of the ‘60s strips lies in such classic villains as Mr. Bribery, Ugly Christine, Haf-and-Haf, Piggy Butcher, the Chin Chillars, Purdy Fallar, Posie, Mr. Intro and Painted Lady. While Purdy froze on the moon and the Chin Chillars stole a Space Coupe, the vast majority of Tracy’s time was spent on earth fighting crime..Were I to characterize any period of Gould’s as disappointing, it would be the five years leading up to his retirement. With so much wonderful work to enjoy, however, it seems churlish to pick nits. When I discovered Dick Tracy as a boy in the mid-60s, Tracy had already been to the moon, Moon Maid was already an important character. I was thrilled with Gould’s audacity and creativity. I loved the strip and bought The Celebrated Cases of Dick Tracy upon its release. Never aware that there was any “controversy,” I enjoyed all eras and searched for more. In a similar vein, I was turned on to Bob Dylan when I went to see The Concert for Bangladesh. Neither knowing nor caring that some had disavowed him for “going electric,” I was free to explore the magnificence of his work sans the baggage of expectations. So it is with Gould: I find much to enjoy and admire over a wide-ranging career with far more peaks than valleys. .Staton and Curtis have wisely decided to make Mysta a part of their incarnation of Dick Tracy. I am so very pleased and grateful that they are doing this. Having been mightily impressed with their work over the past two years, I look forward to future stories, both with and without Mysta. To find that I look forward to reading Dick Tracy everyday remains a bit of a marvel. I long ago had given up on the strip holding any real interest for me. To find that it is once again something I look forward to and relish is an unexpected delight. So hat’s off to Team Tracy. The return of Moon Maid is the icing on an already superior cake.

Can the world handle the return of Moon Maid?

Actually, several people died in that story, bedsides Big Boy, there was of course MM, Johnny Frost (The hired killer who romanced Sparkle to get closer to Tracy, then fell in love with her… deathbed confession), I think maybe another hired killed and Litte l , the bomber who killed MM by mistake

I agree that the overdressed character in the foreground, climbing the stairs, looks suspiciously like someone in disguise, perhaps it’s Tracy

I just realized, with the close of the Jumbler story, how much Team Tracy likes to do crossovers. We’ve seen Gasoline Alley, Terry and The Pirates, and Brenda Starr. So I don’t know if it was a mandated thing from they syndicate to do, but just something that Mike and Joe like to do.I think Big Boy is very dead. If he wasn’t, I doubt the character Little Boy would ever have been introduced.Today’s strip looks like the beginning of a new subplot (and I do like subplots), now that the Moon Maid story is gonna take up the next few weeks/months). I dunno who the skulking guy down the stairs is, but definitely looks like muscle, which Abner Cadaver didn’t appear to be. Definitely BB Eyes in the middle talking with Double Up, though I can’t say for sure who’s the third (I thought it was Mumbles as well).As for the 70s stuff, I might be the only one who liked the Brain story. The trap he put Tracy in lingered with me with a long time.