Each time you refresh the page, you get a new sort of panels from the current story arc. Note that no matter how the panels are sorted, it makes no more or less sense than the actual strip.
Thick got an idea? What a mind-blowing concept! Good thing Liz is there to guide him through that new experience!
Now what dumb plot will Thick cook up? I know! He’ll dress up like a Cub Scout and meet the widow downtown, where they’ll engage in some roleplaying at the No-Tell Motel–wait, he’ll indulge his private fantasies later. His professional fantasy will be to have another kid appear to help the Widow D-cubed to cross a street, which Homeless Guy will automatically see because Nappingville’s downtown/skid-row area consists of one small street.
But whatever Thick does, it will allow him to avoid doing any real detective work.
At some point the Locher Mess Monster will have to remember the existence of Sue Doko and the We’re-Lyin’-twerprises executives, not to mention the tiny issue of the dead guy they fished out of the water.
That little light bulb above Tracys’ head
Portends something I’m sure we will dread
Rather than merely seeking out the guy
A far fetched scheme that no-one will buy
Is about to be hatched by our mighty dick
Lordy, he is really thick
What lame-brained idea has Locher wrought
Will the mysterious benefactor indeed be caught
Performing a good deed in front of every bum in town
Would be the act of a demented clown
So another day passes in Dick Tracyland
A place where reality just pounds sand
What absurdity will we see next
At what will we be sorely vexed
As Locher leads us down that garden path
Where at our expense he enjoys a laugh.
Bill Thompson, if your ideas were to be used, this would be an entertaining strip.
Hey, waitaminnit! On 26 July Liz announced that the Nappingville PD had its special services on the case! Nobody’s heard from them since! They’ve been kidnapped! Quick, somebody call the police! No, wait, that won’t help, the whole PD is missing except for Thick, Liz and–hey, where’s Testicle Chin today? They got him too! Snatched him right out of that huge, deserted Police building! I bet Thick is behind it all! He’ll do anything to get alone in a building with a woman!
Ludwig, the unfortunate thing is that he’s going undercover with the widow. Ick! But it will be cool to see Doofus Travesty get out in the open. With luck he’ll get mugged, prompting him to take his work more seriously. Although it’s possible he’ll get busted by members of the Nappingville PD, who think he’s impersonating a police officer. Who can blame them? Can anyone remember the last time they Thick on the job?
Inevitably, Thick’s inane ploy to flush the suspect into the open will work; that’s how it goes in Nappingville. It will work because how else can we get the dramatic, shocking moment when Thick discovers Homeless Guy’s identity?
VanDork, the minor reason for calling him “Homeless Guy” is that both some passers-by (22 August) and several newspapers have referred to the homeless, so it’s a convenient tag. The major reason is that “Crudely-Sketched Character” might be more accurate, but for obvious reasons it would be too confusing to call him that.
We don’t know that he’s homeless, of course. Locher has done a brilliant job of keeping everyone in the dark, and Thick hasn’t dug up any clues.
There are four possibilities:
1: Homeless Guy is D-cubed, who is masquerading as one of the homeless while he plots to destroy his enemies both real and imaginary.
2: Homeless Guy is someone modelled after the Unabomber or Eric Rudolph, masquerading as one of the homeless while he plots to destroy his enemies both real and imaginary.
3: He really is some homeless guy, who has somehow stumbled across a large number of thousand dollar bills, no doubt lost when Mrs. D’apostrophe and Sue Doko made an abortive attempt to ransom D’imwit. He is now handing them out because he’s off his rocker.
The readers know that #1 and #2 are the only real possibilities. Doofus, however, has never seen Homeless Guy and has no reason to assume he’s directly involved in the D’eranged case. For all Thick knows several homeless people are handing out the money. So he should seriously consider #3, while he’s out examining the crime scene, investigating D-cubed’s last known activities, asking the widow and Sue Doko for their alibis, and otherwise doing detectivish things.
Oh, possibility #4? Locher will dump some idiocy on us, then never explain it.
Special Services stopped off at the Dunkin Donut several weeks ago and is still there. That leaves Macy to figure out something (?). Other than someone stumbling across a badly decomposed cadaver that the ME can’t ID, there ain’t no crime! Since they stupidly buried someone they thought was 3D, where’s the crime? Is Macy getting paid for this?
Now if 3D had life insurance and a claim was made, Macy might be on the trail!
Need to thank poster btmosley for that facinating “random” panel link (and Flight SuitFOR repeating it today). It dramatically reveals the confusion and repetitive nature of the ludicrous story line.
And then BillThompson for the best ’laughter’ LINE I’ve seen on this board in months - when he refered to the current version of Sam Catchem as “Testicle Chin” - It even had a Gouldian like descriptive ring to it. (I suspect that while Chet may have refrained from using it - with a smile, he would have ‘quitely’ approved.)
Tracy is going to break out his Buster Brown suit
and help Liz , dressed as an old lady, across the street!
Wouldn’t it be easier to just look for this rich bum?
“yes liz, I’m going to dress up as a little girl and you’ll dress up as a little boy, we’ll go downtown and find that homeless guy and then take that $1000 and party!”
“Well it doesn’t work for me! Take that bright idea of yours buster and shove it!”
BillThompson -You’ve rightly noted Dick Locher’s peccant for reusing earlier drawn panels . Its been a ‘long time’ work avoidance practise of his.
His favotite, is one of B.O.Plenty’s home - “Sunny Dell Acres”. And the main attraction (in addition) for him, is that this version of the house design- was crafted by his late son, and one time art assistant John Locher.
Here is the John Locher design published after his death (but ‘signed’ by him :
http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2003/02/07/
And the identical panel signed by Dad 3 years later :
http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2006/04/12/
In the latter story reproductions of the ‘identical’ art (some truncated, some blown up and brought forward appear … and you’ll see the same ART everytime, every that building ever appears e.g. http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2006/04/13/ - and again in 2009 :
http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2009/03/06/
And everytime you see it, every pen stroke in the art is IDENTICAL.
A former poster here grockstein labeled it photo copy panel ‘paste ups’ !
morrow, makes a SOLID POINT. What’s the crime? Why is Tracy bothering to investigate anything ?
He’s made some ‘bleatings’ about murder but Author Locher hasn’t put any ‘evidence’ on Tracy’s plate or any real reason to be suspicious of a crime (?)
Well, we’ve reached the two month annversary of the homeless guy’s first appearance. Think about that…many of Chester Gould’s classic storylines were 4 to 6 months long and here we are, two months into this Locher classic, and pretty much nothing has happened. And what are the chances we’ll find out who the corpse in the swamp is?
Burial plots move faster than the plot in this strip does.
Sydney Phillips, thanks for the info. I guess the use of paste-ups explains so much of the variation in the art. Without templates or boilerplate, many of the guest characters look far cruder than the regulars. It would also explain the dearth of people in the scenes; neither Locher nor Brozman are up to the task.
Now what does Thick do tomorrow? He’s just been handed a clue–a meager and trivial clue, granted, but still a clue. The obvious plan would be to set up a trap for Homeless Guy, drawing him into the open with someone who does a random act of kindness. But when was the last time Doofus acted on any clue?
It’s possible that tomorrow Dipstick will have forgotten what the kid said. His logic will hopscotch around and we’ll see a headline that reads “3-D Industries Bought Out By Wehrli Enterprises!” Thick will have deduced that Homeless Guy is 3-D, and that he’s an egomaniac who will have to break cover to respond, so Travesty will persuade the papers to play along with his lunacy.
Sydney Phillips and morrow, based on the evidence available to Doofus, the only crime I can see here might involve the money. If Thick can prove that the money belonged to D-cubed, he would have grounds to question Homeless Guy; a detective should want to know how the missing man’s cash ended up in a stranger’s hands. And the IRS might be interested in the tax aspects of the handouts, but that isn’t Thick’s business.
Hey BillThompson….. you are giving Locher WAAAYYYYY to much credit for cleverness. My good friend, Ludwig, can tell you how far off the scale of random probability you are! I liken it to Locher sitting back and recapturing a half dozen time frame stills from his past and putting them into a blender and hitting the puree button for 2 minutes. He then pours out the mixture and that is his story. And he gets paid for it !
It reminds me of a man I once knew who was employed by a large waste company to go around and service porta-cans. His side job was a home-based enterprise where he sold liquid fertilizer in plastic milk jugs. Everyone on his street bought it. Locher is in the same business, more or less.
morrow, if the Locher Mess Monster is recapping his past in this strip … that means he was once a homeless guy with delusions of grandeur. Much is now explained!
Hey, waitaminnit! On 26 July Liz announced that the Nappingville PD had its special services on the case!
OMG! This has been going on for two months?
Actually, Liz said Special Forces was on the case. Those are the guys who earn a Green Beret. Special Services are the guys who run the post gym, rec centers, and coordinate USO shows.
Why not just ask the kid where this happened, go there and question Homeless Guy. We don’t know that he’s homeless, but he looks like he might be. He also looks like a panhandler except he’s giving out money. That in itself is suspicious. I would have thought the newspaper article would have tried to find out more about it. He appears to be in plain sight, on a street corner or something like that. But maybe he is in semi-hiding and Tracy will try to flush him out. Or the next installment will have no logical connection to what has gone before.
marvee, another question is, why did Thick say he only wanted to see one of the recipients? Why not all of them? Once he talked to all the witnesses, Dipstick might detect a pattern in what they said. He might learn that Homeless Guy stays in one spot, or moves around according to a pattern. He might even get them all to work with a sketch artist–but that would spoil the Big Surprise of identifying him after Twacy’s snark hunt.
Are any of the recipients adults? We don’t know, thanks to Locher’s ineptness. If they’re all little boys, this would sound like a matter for the vice squad.
Sydney Phillips, I saw your comment on Locher’s editorial cartoon. You’re right, the two characters do resemble The Grin and The Slow Burn. Too bad Locher can’t be bothered to give DT the same effort.
Nothing to do with this sorry excuse for a comic strip, BUT if you know and appreciate who Carl Barks was, then enjoy!
http://disneycomics.free.fr/indexbarksdate.php
FLIGHT SUIT about 14 years ago
Oh Good Lord, Tracy is going to help someone!
That’ll be a first.
FLIGHT SUIT about 14 years ago
For anybody who missed it yesterday, here again is the Dick Tracy comic scrambler:
http://joshreads.com/images/10/09/Random%20Dick/comic-scrambler.html
Each time you refresh the page, you get a new sort of panels from the current story arc. Note that no matter how the panels are sorted, it makes no more or less sense than the actual strip.
margueritem about 14 years ago
I smell wood burning, Tracy must have an idea…
Steve Bartholomew about 14 years ago
Are you sure you want to have an idea, Tracy??
Bill Thompson about 14 years ago
Thick got an idea? What a mind-blowing concept! Good thing Liz is there to guide him through that new experience!
Now what dumb plot will Thick cook up? I know! He’ll dress up like a Cub Scout and meet the widow downtown, where they’ll engage in some roleplaying at the No-Tell Motel–wait, he’ll indulge his private fantasies later. His professional fantasy will be to have another kid appear to help the Widow D-cubed to cross a street, which Homeless Guy will automatically see because Nappingville’s downtown/skid-row area consists of one small street.
But whatever Thick does, it will allow him to avoid doing any real detective work.
OldTracy about 14 years ago
Tracy has an idea and so Liz is worried.
Bill Thompson about 14 years ago
At some point the Locher Mess Monster will have to remember the existence of Sue Doko and the We’re-Lyin’-twerprises executives, not to mention the tiny issue of the dead guy they fished out of the water.
wndrwrthg about 14 years ago
That little light bulb above Tracys’ head Portends something I’m sure we will dread Rather than merely seeking out the guy A far fetched scheme that no-one will buy Is about to be hatched by our mighty dick Lordy, he is really thick What lame-brained idea has Locher wrought Will the mysterious benefactor indeed be caught Performing a good deed in front of every bum in town Would be the act of a demented clown So another day passes in Dick Tracyland A place where reality just pounds sand What absurdity will we see next At what will we be sorely vexed As Locher leads us down that garden path Where at our expense he enjoys a laugh.
Bill Thompson, if your ideas were to be used, this would be an entertaining strip.
Bill Thompson about 14 years ago
Hey, waitaminnit! On 26 July Liz announced that the Nappingville PD had its special services on the case! Nobody’s heard from them since! They’ve been kidnapped! Quick, somebody call the police! No, wait, that won’t help, the whole PD is missing except for Thick, Liz and–hey, where’s Testicle Chin today? They got him too! Snatched him right out of that huge, deserted Police building! I bet Thick is behind it all! He’ll do anything to get alone in a building with a woman!
Bill Thompson about 14 years ago
Thanks, Wonder Warthog! Of course, this strip would improve if the Locher Mess Monster used any ideas.
And another good poem, too!
LudwigVonDrake about 14 years ago
Dick’s going undercover!!!
Donaldo Premium Member about 14 years ago
Dick wants one of those 1.000 $ bills.
Bill Thompson about 14 years ago
Ludwig, the unfortunate thing is that he’s going undercover with the widow. Ick! But it will be cool to see Doofus Travesty get out in the open. With luck he’ll get mugged, prompting him to take his work more seriously. Although it’s possible he’ll get busted by members of the Nappingville PD, who think he’s impersonating a police officer. Who can blame them? Can anyone remember the last time they Thick on the job?
Inevitably, Thick’s inane ploy to flush the suspect into the open will work; that’s how it goes in Nappingville. It will work because how else can we get the dramatic, shocking moment when Thick discovers Homeless Guy’s identity?
puddleglum1066 about 14 years ago
Tracy got an idea? Poor thing must be lonely…
veldy about 14 years ago
Just wondering-everyone refers to the bum as “the homeless guy” How do we know he’s homeless?
Bill Thompson about 14 years ago
VanDork, the minor reason for calling him “Homeless Guy” is that both some passers-by (22 August) and several newspapers have referred to the homeless, so it’s a convenient tag. The major reason is that “Crudely-Sketched Character” might be more accurate, but for obvious reasons it would be too confusing to call him that.
We don’t know that he’s homeless, of course. Locher has done a brilliant job of keeping everyone in the dark, and Thick hasn’t dug up any clues.
There are four possibilities:
1: Homeless Guy is D-cubed, who is masquerading as one of the homeless while he plots to destroy his enemies both real and imaginary.
2: Homeless Guy is someone modelled after the Unabomber or Eric Rudolph, masquerading as one of the homeless while he plots to destroy his enemies both real and imaginary.
3: He really is some homeless guy, who has somehow stumbled across a large number of thousand dollar bills, no doubt lost when Mrs. D’apostrophe and Sue Doko made an abortive attempt to ransom D’imwit. He is now handing them out because he’s off his rocker.
The readers know that #1 and #2 are the only real possibilities. Doofus, however, has never seen Homeless Guy and has no reason to assume he’s directly involved in the D’eranged case. For all Thick knows several homeless people are handing out the money. So he should seriously consider #3, while he’s out examining the crime scene, investigating D-cubed’s last known activities, asking the widow and Sue Doko for their alibis, and otherwise doing detectivish things.
Oh, possibility #4? Locher will dump some idiocy on us, then never explain it.
Morrow Cummings about 14 years ago
Special Services stopped off at the Dunkin Donut several weeks ago and is still there. That leaves Macy to figure out something (?). Other than someone stumbling across a badly decomposed cadaver that the ME can’t ID, there ain’t no crime! Since they stupidly buried someone they thought was 3D, where’s the crime? Is Macy getting paid for this?
Now if 3D had life insurance and a claim was made, Macy might be on the trail!
Dr. Midnight about 14 years ago
Can’t wait to see Tracy prancing around in a Cub Scout uniform!
harkherp about 14 years ago
The goofy kid looks like 80’s rock sensation Rick Ashley: w.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
Perhaps he can show Tracy some moves… :)
sydney about 14 years ago
Need to thank poster btmosley for that facinating “random” panel link (and Flight Suit FOR repeating it today). It dramatically reveals the confusion and repetitive nature of the ludicrous story line.
And then BillThompson for the best ’laughter’ LINE I’ve seen on this board in months - when he refered to the current version of Sam Catchem as “Testicle Chin” - It even had a Gouldian like descriptive ring to it. (I suspect that while Chet may have refrained from using it - with a smile, he would have ‘quitely’ approved.)
akado2000 about 14 years ago
Tracy is going to break out his Buster Brown suit and help Liz , dressed as an old lady, across the street! Wouldn’t it be easier to just look for this rich bum?
Groundzero7 about 14 years ago
Does Liz have mind-reading powers?
Tracy thinks: “I have an idea” Liz says: “Are you sure you want to do this,Tracy?”
Also,how can Liz talk with her teeth clinched together like that?
Fusnr about 14 years ago
I think Bill Thompson has it right in option # 4
billdi Premium Member about 14 years ago
“yes liz, I’m going to dress up as a little girl and you’ll dress up as a little boy, we’ll go downtown and find that homeless guy and then take that $1000 and party!”
“Well it doesn’t work for me! Take that bright idea of yours buster and shove it!”
sydney about 14 years ago
BillThompson -You’ve rightly noted Dick Locher’s peccant for reusing earlier drawn panels . Its been a ‘long time’ work avoidance practise of his.
His favotite, is one of B.O.Plenty’s home - “Sunny Dell Acres”. And the main attraction (in addition) for him, is that this version of the house design- was crafted by his late son, and one time art assistant John Locher.
Here is the John Locher design published after his death (but ‘signed’ by him : http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2003/02/07/
And the identical panel signed by Dad 3 years later : http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2006/04/12/
In the latter story reproductions of the ‘identical’ art (some truncated, some blown up and brought forward appear … and you’ll see the same ART everytime, every that building ever appears e.g. http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2006/04/13/ - and again in 2009 : http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2009/03/06/
And everytime you see it, every pen stroke in the art is IDENTICAL.
A former poster here grockstein labeled it photo copy panel ‘paste ups’ !
sydney about 14 years ago
morrow, makes a SOLID POINT. What’s the crime? Why is Tracy bothering to investigate anything ?
He’s made some ‘bleatings’ about murder but Author Locher hasn’t put any ‘evidence’ on Tracy’s plate or any real reason to be suspicious of a crime (?)
The strip has hit ‘rock bottom’ !
Nimblejack about 14 years ago
Well, we’ve reached the two month annversary of the homeless guy’s first appearance. Think about that…many of Chester Gould’s classic storylines were 4 to 6 months long and here we are, two months into this Locher classic, and pretty much nothing has happened. And what are the chances we’ll find out who the corpse in the swamp is?
Burial plots move faster than the plot in this strip does.
coratelli about 14 years ago
The boy is different…
Bill Thompson about 14 years ago
Sydney Phillips, thanks for the info. I guess the use of paste-ups explains so much of the variation in the art. Without templates or boilerplate, many of the guest characters look far cruder than the regulars. It would also explain the dearth of people in the scenes; neither Locher nor Brozman are up to the task.
Now what does Thick do tomorrow? He’s just been handed a clue–a meager and trivial clue, granted, but still a clue. The obvious plan would be to set up a trap for Homeless Guy, drawing him into the open with someone who does a random act of kindness. But when was the last time Doofus acted on any clue?
It’s possible that tomorrow Dipstick will have forgotten what the kid said. His logic will hopscotch around and we’ll see a headline that reads “3-D Industries Bought Out By Wehrli Enterprises!” Thick will have deduced that Homeless Guy is 3-D, and that he’s an egomaniac who will have to break cover to respond, so Travesty will persuade the papers to play along with his lunacy.
Bill Thompson about 14 years ago
Sydney Phillips and morrow, based on the evidence available to Doofus, the only crime I can see here might involve the money. If Thick can prove that the money belonged to D-cubed, he would have grounds to question Homeless Guy; a detective should want to know how the missing man’s cash ended up in a stranger’s hands. And the IRS might be interested in the tax aspects of the handouts, but that isn’t Thick’s business.
Morrow Cummings about 14 years ago
Hey BillThompson….. you are giving Locher WAAAYYYYY to much credit for cleverness. My good friend, Ludwig, can tell you how far off the scale of random probability you are! I liken it to Locher sitting back and recapturing a half dozen time frame stills from his past and putting them into a blender and hitting the puree button for 2 minutes. He then pours out the mixture and that is his story. And he gets paid for it !
It reminds me of a man I once knew who was employed by a large waste company to go around and service porta-cans. His side job was a home-based enterprise where he sold liquid fertilizer in plastic milk jugs. Everyone on his street bought it. Locher is in the same business, more or less.
Bill Thompson about 14 years ago
morrow, if the Locher Mess Monster is recapping his past in this strip … that means he was once a homeless guy with delusions of grandeur. Much is now explained!
trekkermint about 14 years ago
tracy has an idea - quick, throw some water on him before his brains burns up (i’m thinking of Patrick from spongebob)
countoftowergrove about 14 years ago
BillThompson said, about 20 hours ago
Hey, waitaminnit! On 26 July Liz announced that the Nappingville PD had its special services on the case!
OMG! This has been going on for two months?
Actually, Liz said Special Forces was on the case. Those are the guys who earn a Green Beret. Special Services are the guys who run the post gym, rec centers, and coordinate USO shows.
marvee about 14 years ago
Why not just ask the kid where this happened, go there and question Homeless Guy. We don’t know that he’s homeless, but he looks like he might be. He also looks like a panhandler except he’s giving out money. That in itself is suspicious. I would have thought the newspaper article would have tried to find out more about it. He appears to be in plain sight, on a street corner or something like that. But maybe he is in semi-hiding and Tracy will try to flush him out. Or the next installment will have no logical connection to what has gone before.
Bill Thompson about 14 years ago
marvee, another question is, why did Thick say he only wanted to see one of the recipients? Why not all of them? Once he talked to all the witnesses, Dipstick might detect a pattern in what they said. He might learn that Homeless Guy stays in one spot, or moves around according to a pattern. He might even get them all to work with a sketch artist–but that would spoil the Big Surprise of identifying him after Twacy’s snark hunt.
Are any of the recipients adults? We don’t know, thanks to Locher’s ineptness. If they’re all little boys, this would sound like a matter for the vice squad.
Bill Thompson about 14 years ago
Sydney Phillips, I saw your comment on Locher’s editorial cartoon. You’re right, the two characters do resemble The Grin and The Slow Burn. Too bad Locher can’t be bothered to give DT the same effort.
btmosley about 14 years ago
Nothing to do with this sorry excuse for a comic strip, BUT if you know and appreciate who Carl Barks was, then enjoy! http://disneycomics.free.fr/indexbarksdate.php
btmosley about 14 years ago
Oops - wrong URL. Use this one instead.
http://disneycomics.free.fr/indexbarksdate.php
Donaldo Premium Member about 14 years ago
wow. Great site, btmosley. Thanks for sharing. You just stole my weekend