Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for September 29, 2010

Sigh.

Gee, Thick, if he knew would he be sitting here like this? If the local homeless community knew, don’t you think a large number of them would flock around the guy? And if you’re so bright, copper, who stole his bags and the part in his hair? Put on your thinking cap, Thick!

He lost his thinking cap several years ago…

I know, margueritem, but ever since yesterday’s hair-raising strip this Bill has been brimming with hat jokes.

I wonder what the S on DT’s right ear stands for?

barticle35 said, 5 minutes ago

I wonder what the S on DT’s right ear stands for?

The easy answer would be ‘stupid’…

But the real answer is ‘Simon Penn’. Yes, Thick is really Simon Penn, and as such, he tries to persuade the readers that this is not swill.

“Stetson,” barticle 35, “Stetson.” It’s Locher’s unwitting way of telling us that in the brains department, Thick is all hat and no cattle … or maybe no hat and all cattle excrement.

Showing his sharp interrogation skills Dickie bests the bum in a test of wills He treats the guy to some snappy patter And gets right to the heart of the matter Never have I heard dialogue so rich But for some reason I have a this twitch Today’s strip will send Simple Simon to the moon I think it will positively make him swoon The streets are deserted in Naperville tonight The good citizens have hurried to get out of sight Where are the people, where could they be Why can’t there be something other than Tracy to see Why, why, is the question forming on our lips Why couldn’t Tracy be a police woman with great big …. But he’s not, and with him we are stuck So I guess we are just …. out of luck.

Thank you margueritem, morrow, Panel-Panner and Bill T.

Bill Thompson said an hour ago “…no hat and all cattle excrement” . Trouble is the analysis of the end product would be the lowest of any ever produced and even weeds wouldn’t prosper on it.

The “S” is to remind Tracy where the stereo headphones go.

Thick is so subtle, so gracious. He probably plans to walk away without even offering the guy a nightcap. But won’t he be surprised if the transient turns out to be the man he wants, and to protect his secrecy pulls a gun and starts capping away at Doofus?

Well, that ‘nose’ does suggest it’s the man Tracy is trying to locate. It’s been the main physical feature - even earlier on when the Beggar looked more like a woman

Subtly is not one of Dick’s main points.

I’m certain you’re right, Sydney Phillips, but with Locher and Brozman’s Alice-in-Blunderland style it’s impossible to feel confident. And will it turn out that Homeless Guy is D-cubed? If so, will Thick remember to ask him about Butterfly McCorpse? Or will Locher cap off this week with another random non-event?

Thought you were new in town?

“Looking for a guy giving out $1,000 bills. Oh, left Dubuque, hard times there, by the way. Heard of him, Brando?”

This is just sad

And if you want a weird illusion, stare at Thick’s face in panel #3 and cover up the left-hand side of the frame. Thick will now appear to look right at you with half his face, and while wearing a clown collar. This may be the crowning artistic achievement of Brozman’s career.

Meanwhile, count the transient’s fingers in panel #1. Yesterday he had eight fingers and two thumbs. Today he is missing digits on both hands. I guess the Case of the Missing Hats made him so nervous that he chewed his nails to excess.

BillThompson: the hair’s different because it’s not the same guy. If you look carefully at yesterday’s strip, you’ll notice the guy with his hair parted in the middle is carrying a big (if somewhat floppy) toilet plunger over his shoulder. In the first panel of today’s strip, it looks like Macy’s talking with another guy, no part, no plunger, but making use of the facility that yesterday’s guy unclogged.

Alas, with all the you-know-what being produced in this strip, it’ll probably be clogged again soon. So I expect plunger-man to return…

puddleglum1066, I think you’ve uncapped something sordid here, yet inevitable given Spacy’s recent behavior. When you look at the transient’s posture, and the tile-like surfaces around him, it’s clear that he and Thick have entered a men’s lavatory. I don’t want to think of where this will take Sunday’s recap, but I hope that for his own sake Thick recalls that “hat” is also a slang term for a prophylactic device.

Poor Thick, he sees so little of Tess that he’s become restless, and after getting nowhere with the widow he’s forced into a situation that will provoke awkward headlines on all the local newspapers.

How long ago did this story arc start?

3D is thinking: “Man-o-man! Things must be getting bad in Dubuque when they are sending creeps like this guy up here! ”

Macy’s thinking,” AM I COOL DADDY DICKIE, or what!”

3D thinking: “What’s he taking me into a public restroom for? This guy’s a pervert!”

So he had to go undercover to ask THAT?

Dr. Midnight, Homeless Guy was first seen on Sunday 18 July. Tracy slacked around for a week, acting like the last case was a real feather in his cap (a white feather, maybe). On Sunday 25 July Horn Hair and Testicle Chin idly mentioned that a local entrepreneur had vanished a week ago.

Taking 25 July as the start, this is now Day 66 of Realism Held Hostage. Thick is yet to come up with any substantive evidence of a crime, and the readers can only guess at what the actual crime might be–murder? Kidnapping for ransom? Embezzlement? Obstruction of justice? Receiving stolen money? Whatever the crime, Tracy had better get his act in gear before the statute of limitations makes everything moot.

Macy had better watch his step! He might be tippy-toe’ing around a Moral Turpitude charge! 3D already is suspicious of the new bum on the street with the 50’s-era trash talk.

You’re right, captainzero. Thick could do much better if he had asked a sketch artist to work with Boy Toy, then taken to the streets with the sketch and asked everyone in sight “Recognize him? He’s been handing lots of money to young boys and we’re suspicious.”

Given that there is no definite crime here, I wonder how the Nappingville PD can justify any of its efforts. D-Cubed evidently vanished before 18 July, but there’s no evidence of kidnapping or murder. The ME never established a cause of death for Butterfly McCorpse, or a definite ID … and so it goes.

The irony is, this is the closest this strip has come in two or three years to showing Dick Tracy doing any detective work. Seriously.

The sad thing is that the strip has decayed to the point where we joke about Dick Tracy’s mind and morals. Has Thick gone undercover to score a quick thousand dollars? Is he cheating on his wife? Does he know anything about police procedures, law enforcement and the Constitution? Will he run or cower when the bullets fly? If the strip survives Locher and Brozman there will have to be a massive punch of the Reset Button.

Judging by the “Blank” episode, Tracy will both run and cower when the bullets start flying.

“If the strip survives Locher and Brozman there will have to be a massive punch of the Reset Button. ”

Well, it managed to survive Chester Gould’s declining years wherein we saw utter foolishness like Moon Maid and extraterrestrial breeding. Macy’s granddaughter is 1/2 alien!

But this strip is a lot like Popeye. Both were at one time or another the most popular comic strip in print, and look at them now. King Features Syndicate has never gotten over the death of Segar in 1938, and Sagendorf’s work since is at least as poor as Locher’s is here. TMS is bound and determined that this strip will continue, at least until it is down to 20 papers or so like Little Orphan Annie was at the time of its demise.But its best days are definitely 60 or more years behind it.

popeye’s still better than this while thimble theatre was better, and annie was still fun now, we seem to be doing recaps in the middle of the week