Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for January 04, 2015

Exciting!

At Goofy Golf the snow doth fall, giving Einstein quite a chillGruesome immune to frigid cold, hides out in the windmill.Gaining shelter from the storm inside the caretaker’s shedEinstein shivers to the bone, feels bitter remorseless dread.Cold winter night calls for firelight, soon trash is ignitedGood citizen calls it in, the smoke that her eyes sighted.Sam and Tracy on the case, know where there’s smoke there’s fireThe flames dance high, out of control, become a raging pyre.Gruesome seeks out higher ground, his hideout far too hotTracy passes through the flames to arrest sans fired shot.With eagle eyes Lizz soon spies Tracy up on the roofWith nerves of steel, his courage real: look to see the proof.The windmill now engulfed in blazes, an inferno lights the nightTracy would arrest, not kill; his training taught him right.

Looks a lot like a setup we’ve all seen before….hopefully this one has a more coherent ending.

“Top of the world, ma!”

Okay, Gruesome was played in the movie by Boris Karloff, who rose to fame playing the Frankenstein monster, And how did the monster seem to die at the end of its debut in the 1931 movie?

Great stuff! Love the art today, especially the scenes with Tracy and Gruesome!That windmill looks like it’s beginning to collapse – and we have to wait until tomorrow! This is great storytelling.

What in blazes was Tracy thinking? He will burn, too! Or are his coat and hat fireproof? How they stand the heat?

For those wondering where Lizz was, it appears she wasn’t far behind.

I’ve been thinking for a while that Gruesome was suicidal, but he seems to be pushing Dick to fall backwards while the windmill is collapsing. Right at the moment of the last frame, it doesn’t look good for Dick at all.

Thanks once again Pequod for your poetic summary.

Tracy got himself into this hot mess. Now he’ll have to get himself out. I will guess that he fall backwards, towards the vanes of the windmill, and they break his fall enough for him to survive. It will seem that Gruesome perishes in the flames, but we will not be sure; no remains will be recovered, leaving the option for him to reappear at some future date, looking even more gruesome due to the scars of this fire….

Love the “disposable” panel of Gruesome atop the windmill.

As everyone knows, some papers drop the entire upper tier to save space on their comics pages. :(

Good morning guys!

A great Sunday strip! Has the windmill grown in size? I’m glad Tracy thought to wear his radium lined asbestos overcoat today! It looks like Gruesome is prepared to go down with his windmill!

Morning, Tracyville!

Pequod, my friend,You did it again.We all express our thanks.Among the bestof the poets who rest,you will always rank.

Good morning to all. Tracy will miraculously escape the fire. Not necessarily true for Gruesome? Have a peaceful day y’all.

JEEPER’S What awesome artwork,Give’s me goosebumps.

Exciting? YES! Dramatic? YES YES!! Realistic? NO NO NO!!! I know, I know, it’s just a comic. They should both be dead already, but if Abner could get out of a cement grave I guess anything’s possible. Why they knock off Measles i’ll never understand.

Great story and awesome artwork! I’ve been a Dick Tracy reader/collector since the 5th grade and I love it. I can’t wait until tomorrow’s strip.

Looks like the climax to the 1931 film “Frankenstein” starring, you guessed it, Boris Karloff.

I betcha if the Popo knew that Gruesome had Mel-O-Dee’s payoff in his pocket, they’d have the Fire Department there waiting! And guess how long it would remain in the Evidence Room!

Excellent verses today, PQ! I am convinced you have all but the last few lines ready-to-roll by the time the strip is posted. But how do you type that fast? I’ve timed you several times and it is all done inside of a couple of minutes! In those two minutes, you wrap up the poem, which includes that day’s summation, and you type it in. How?

Uh oh, there goes another fedora to add to the collection. This one will probably be burnt to a crisp rather than shot full of holes.

It occurs to me that if Pequod posted all of his Sunday verses, it would be a great poetic summary of the year of Dick Tracy. Mike and Joe should consider using some of his poems in their next volume of strips.

Another great Sunday strip from Team Tracy. The nod to the 1931 Frankenstein movie is an effective homage to Karloff. It is worth recalling that Tracy was off duty at the theatre when he spotted Gruesome. He confirmed his suspicion and called in backup: Sam and Lizz. He rode with Sam in search of Gruesome in the aftermath of the explosion. Lizz could easily have commandeered a car from Police arriving at the theatre in the aftermath of the bombing. She wasn’t going to abandon Sam just because her car was knocked out of commission (I assume it was). Seems that with only three panels some events must transpire in the imaginary 4th panel of the mind: our imagination. While we caught a glimpse of Vitamin and Kandikane on the decimated stage in the aftermath of the explosion, I agree it would be good to learn the fate of others. Emergency responders are life-savers, so I would like to see them on the scene..This escalating fire reminds me of the Brow’s predicament. Pat was rightly concerned for Tracy’s safety, yet it was Brow who needed medical attention when Tracy was finished with him.

Thanks to Night-Gaunt49, Neil Wick, unclescrooge, VistaBill, davidf42 (well done!), Ray Toler, Morrow, Jonathan K. and JPuzzleWhiz. Very Much appreciated!.Were I to find myself at Diet Smith Industries, I would, of course, seek out Mysta. It is always a pleasure to see one of my all time favorite characters.

Superb!

BRAVO Joe, Mike, Shelley, Shane and Jim!!! … and, I might add, Shane’s coloring is especially excellent today.

why does Einstein look like Fu Manchu today?

Wow! this fight between Grusome & Dick Tracy is going great. My question is will Dick Tracy get any severe burns after this fight with Grusome? If Grusome survives, it wouldn’t be any surprise that “Boris Karloff” survives any goes back to the burn unit to be stitched up.

Wonderful poetry as always, Pequod!

…thank you Mary Shelly_______________________The 1931 Frankenstein movie is quite different than the novel written by Mary Shelly. The novel takes place in the 1700s and the monster is not killed but lives in exile at the North Pole. There is no windmill scene in Mary Shelly’s novel.

Unless someone mentioned this earlier, does anyone realize the meaning of the burning windmill?? As many people know, Karloff’s most memorable role was that of Frankenstein’s Monster. And in the movie “Frankenstein,” the Monster met his (or its) doom in a burning windmill.

Of course the monster came back in the sequel….will Grusome have a sequel in his future??

Great and subtle reference to Karloff’s first film demise (well, not demise since he turned out to survive for Bride of Frankenstein) but you know. Fighting it out on a burning windmill. I love this strip lately.

Hope Tracy’s coat is flame retardant-flame resistant

I’d feel better if Tracy’s coat had “Naperville Fire Department” written across the back. Same with his britches.

At Goofy Golf the snow doth fall, giving Einstein quite a chill

Gruesome immune to frigid cold, hides out in the windmill.

Gaining shelter from the storm inside the caretaker’s shed

Einstein shivers to the bone, feels bitter remorseless dread.

Cold winter night calls for firelight, soon trash is ignited

Good citizen calls it in, the smoke that her eyes sighted.

Sam and Tracy on the case, know where there’s smoke there’s fire

The flames dance high, out of control, become a raging pyre.

Gruesome seeks out higher ground, his hideout far too hot

Tracy passes through the flames to arrest sans fired shot.

With eagle eyes Lizz soon spies Tracy up on the roof

With nerves of steel, his courage real: look to see the proof.

The windmill now engulfed in blazes, an inferno lights the night

Tracy would arrest, not kill; his training taught him right.

“Guys, if this kills me, tell everyone I died somewhere cooler than ‘the windmill at Goofy Golf’!”