Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for January 10, 2014

Looks like Tracy is paying back the favor where Blackjack is concerned….and looks like Kadaver made a miracle escape from his own death trap. Wonder if Vitamin is paying his old friend Richard a visit?

“just a rumor…” of all people you wouldn’t expect to lie to a police officer, ha ha…

Hey, wasn’t Abner presumed dead anyway? Blame slow work by the DA, not Dick…….have a feeling this story is a little quickie like the Jumbler, etc, before another one that rocks our world once again….

@WellHungHippie

Because Mike said so, over in the Yahoo Group

Tracy, are you deceiving Chief Patton, or do you two have a secret code of mutual understanding?And who’s visiting? Bonnie and Uncle Ray? Or some other duo?

Tracy’s not worrying his old friend with something he might have to officially take notice of.

Why doesn’t Tracy have that chunk of concrete broken to retrieve Kadaver’s cadaver? I would think the people who let him out of prison without an autopsy would have that much snap! Is Locher ghost-writing this strip again?

The story-telling is rather odd. Lead-ins are lengthy and detailed. The “showdown” or confrontation with the villain is comparatively brief, and the denouement nonexistent. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy the strip again after a long while, but it is unusual and leaves a lot of obvious questions unanswered.

I’m 99% SURE that Kadaver has survived, somehow

wait til wendy wichell finds out that tracy let a wanted fugitive (blackjack) escape police custody simply because he rescued hsi daughter and uncle, and disarmed kadaver!!!

and if ANYONE knows.. it’s gonna be… RIKKI MORTIS!!!!!

the on ly problem tho gweedo is that team tracy DELIBERATELY took their time with that one and let it unfold over MONTHS… almost everything since then has seemed “rushed” and what starts out as a GREAT story (the just ended abner kadaver story for example) gets “suddenly swept under the rug” and ended much too prematurely.. hence, the “sweatbox ending” denomination

First, with nothing to say!

One of the key elements of Dick Tracy has always been the police procedure. The Tracy of Gould’s day would certainly have had the concrete removed, in an effort to locate Kadaver’s body, or escape route. Likewise, the classic Tracy would have had Stilleta’s hideaway swept for clues, and he would have found something that she left behind that would have helped the cops discover where she was. Tracy would have followed up with the body of Davey Mylar, an unexplained civilian casualty of the Mr. Crime shootout, and the cops would have tried to figure out just who he was and what he was doing there.I realize that Mike’s story telling style is different. He likes to leave threads hanging, with the hint that they will be picked up again later. That’s fine, but sometimes it has the unfortunate result that it makes our favorite detective look somewhat inept. Just my opinion, and I still greatly enjoy reading this strip since Mike and Joe took over.One other thought: This is the first time in the history of the strip (to my knowledge) that Tracy has ever lied to Pat or Sam or anyone on his team. He has kept certain things secret before.

I’m confused about Patton’s comment about Abner Kadaver: did the Feds lose a 2nd chance to turn Kadaver on the murders because there was no body found? I agree…they should jack-hammer the concrete to verify that there was a body. Knowing this delightful comic strip, A.K. like burrowed through the wet concrete to an escape hatch but we would have seen a huge air bubble should he have opened any kind of hatch. to be continued…

As usual Joe’s penciling is excellent today, but Shelley’s inking is even better than usual … great work S. P. … I just wish the daily strip colorist could follow your very clearly depicted coloring prompts. For example, the left side of DT’s face was clearly meant to highlighted by reflected light … and that panel would be much more dramatic if it had been.

A number of you have mentioned this, which is that Mike and Joe seem to be changing the character of Dick Tracy. Noted is that, in the past, Tracy and friends would pick apart the entire crime scene, leaving no stones unturned (in this case, concrete)..And it seems very, very out of character for Tracy to out-and-out lie to not just another cop – but his boss!.We can hope that perhaps Tracy didn’t want to tell him in front of others, but Sam isn’t exactly someone Tracy has kept secrets from, either..Of course, I could be wrong..Li’l Abner’s death? I’m not so sure about that one. Abner is popular, though I’m not exactly sure why. He’s flashy, but he has proven ineffective. I’m not sure he’s “worthy” of saving..Was it a mistake for Gould to constantly kill off his villains? Again, not so sure. For one, it forced him to be creative – he had to create new villains to replace the ones that just got killed!.But another problem is, let’s face it, the name of the strip makes Dick Tracy “immortal.” (Which is why I wished Sam or Lizz had fallen into Abner’s traps – far less certainty of survival).If the bad guys become just as immortal as Dick Tracy, then we will have gone all the way back to 1960s Batman and other cartoons, such as Hercules, even the Smurfs, where it is always the same old bad guys, same old bad channel!

Much as I am enjoying the new era of this strip, the stories do seem to end prematurely after long, intriguing build-ups. It would be nice to see a lengthy chase at some point… So many of the classic stories only ended after weeks (months?) of pursuit (the Brow, Flattop).

Turn the page folks, there’s a new arc starting if you haven’t noticed

NG, I am sure you meant “cocoon”, and not “raccoon”. The latter being the equivalent to Chateaubriand in Duck Dynasty world.

Good afternoon, SDM! Sunny day here and I hope you get to share in the good fortunes of the day! Best of wishes from the goat!Morrow

Good afternoon all…

Late again! The cold weather has me hibernating more than usual.

I, too, believe that Abner is still among the living. What would be cool, would be to see Rikki speeding along on the death coach with a block of concrete inside!

Sam can still smoke in the office!? I thought that had pretty much been banned everywhere, especially in government buildings.