Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for February 26, 2016

More homage to Tracy history paid.

Wonder if Joe’s long-term desire is to draw every Tracy rogue at least once.

Tracy knew that yapping was definitely his friendTo stay quiet now could certainly cause his endThe smartest thing to do was to make Magilla thinkAnd hopefully the effort would make this dummy blinkPutting all the blame on his brother was a riskA chance he had to take before his life went on the fritzTracy hoped this Einstein didn’t know how the mighty Tuco would stalkHe lived by this one motto; “When you have to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk”.

So many characters …

How many has Joe already drawn?

Kiko’s logic doesn’t make much sense. Police or no police, there’s a very good chance they would have drowned anyway after crashing the plane into the water in the hurricane. Besides, even if Tracy hadn’t been there, the police would have gone to investigate the very suspicious crashed plane.

I know — it doesn’t matter whether his beliefs are logical — he wants revenge anyway.

I love Joe’s drawing today, as usual, but he missed out on The Dropper’s most distinctive feature, his pock-marked face. Compare the 2016 version (below left) with the 1958 version (below right).I wonder if Joe had good quality reference material to go by. I must admit that the Dropper had a hood over his head for much of the story, but there were several good images of him without the hood.

Why do I have a feeling that DJ might wind up helping Tracy out of this jam?

In case anyone’s interested …

Here’s some backstory on that 200 character collage

Because Wunbrow will call in one of of DJ’s chits.

Chester had quite a palette of characters !

I’ve been wondering if the strip has more characters these days than it did in Chet’s day, but I haven’t tried to count the characters in any of Gould’s stories yet.

The current story will probably have almost 70 different characters and character references by the time we get to the end of it. Midnite Mirror and Fall of the Blackhearts each had a similar number of characters. The two storylines before that had less.

There are many old characters, but also many new ones. I’m planning to add to my character list which ones are new, but I haven’t done it yet, so I don’t have numbers. It occurs to me that the strip’s age is about double what it was when that character gallery was made!

My question was whether there are too many characters to keep track of these days, but I’m not so sure that there are more than there used to be.

Just from memory, some of the characters from the “200” list that Joe has already gotten to draw …

Chief BrandonPat PattonTess TrueheartJim TrailerJuniorBoris ArsonLittlefaceFrizzletopPruneface88 KeyesGravel GertieSnowflakeMeaslesThemesongShouldersChristmas EarlyMumblesThe MoleBB-EyesFlattopVitamin FlintheartThe BrowB.O. PlentyDiet SmithBrilliantInfluenceSparkle PlentySam CatchemWormyBlowtopTonsilsMr. CrimeFlattop, Jr.Willie The FifthFlyfaceBonnie BraidsLittle WingyLizzWunbrowThe 52’sMoonmaidMatty SquareMr. BriberyHoneymoonUgly ChristineVera AlldidThistle DewThe Chin ChillarsPurdey FallarPoseyPouch

At least I think Joe got to draw all of the above in some form – including flashbacks, actor potrayals and displayed photographs – though in some cases the character might only have been mentioned and not depicted.

If we’d asked Chester Gould about these things, would he have felt compelled …

… To Tell The Truth?

Gweedo stated,If only Vista bill would hop off that silver screen and cloppity-clop that monkey on his noggin by the might of Comet’s heavy metal shoes !-After you do that, stop by for your good morning greeting, Bill !-—————————————————————-.A fantasy, Gweedo? That guy would scare me! Vista Bill’s no super hero!.Good morning fellow DT fans!

Good morning everyone from Ohio…

I want to see what the two small drones will do…

Dick can take these guys down with no problem…He’s a pro..

I see that Chicory, Little Gorilla and the Dropper didn’t make the list of 200 characters (although Wunbrow did).

wake me up when tracy is back in tracyville wouldja?!?! this whole sidestory is too darned jumbly to follow…at least in tracyville they have TRAINS to end stories that go nowhere and make no sense

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Because, that’s a lot of names to try not to forget !

It is a lot of names and they’ve had problems a few times trying to keep the spelling consistent and even the names consistent. Actually, there are probably about 10% of those characters who haven’t been given names, even though they have speaking parts, so that helps a bit. I am (very slowly!) developing a fan site focussing on all the characters in recent stories.

It’s looking as though Kiko has no good in mind for Tracy, so why the change of clothes is necessary is hard to say. Maybe he’s taking precautions to separate Tracy from any useful stuff he might have been packing. If so, he wasn’t too successful, since the micro-drones got launched and Tracy still has the newest and most advanced model of the Wrist Wizard. A curious lapse on Kiko’s part, suggesting incomplete intel….

There is little logic in vendetta.

I’m sure that more illogical “justification” is coming, but you’re right, you can’t expect logic from such a character. As long as he believes that what he says is true, he will carry out his vendetta.

Some people don’t get names. At least you can see them in the strip.

In many cases, characters who only appear once, or even twice, don’t really need names. It’s the same way in movies. There are often many characters who are not named.