OK, forget about Tracy’s eyes in panel 1. What I want to know is that a railroad box car that they are standing on in panel 2… or is the curb especially high? How is 3D preventing the other homeless guys from taking his money when he is sleeping?
Jefferson and Ewing, eh? Isn’t that where Nappingville opened its new Manure Recycling Center? We’ll never know what’s there, because Thick handles clues with less finesse than Nigel Bruce in an old Sherlock Holmes flick.
Cool collar on Mullet Man. Are we to gather that he’s really a priest? And why do we now see Thick as only a shadow, as we once saw Homeless Guy? Are we to infer that Thick is now morphing into the mysterious unseen benefactor, because this is one investigation that’s taken him into … the Twilight Zone!
So Thick takes the helpful advice offered by the nice man. “Jefferson and Ewing,” he says to himself as he finds the location, which lies deep in the countryside. “Where have I heard that address before?”
He gets there and he finds an old abandoned house with a flashing sign that reads “Secret Gangster Hide-Out!” And when he kicks open the door he finds–Pumpkin Head! Double Header! Bat Man! Wolf Man! Cat Man! Rat Man! Pickle Puss Jukebox Jaw! NEON NOODLE!
sigh The Sunday recap will be eight panels of Dadaistic dialogue, while SlimeSloppers gives us some sage advice on not tying your shoestrings together because that would slow you down while fleeing a gang of criminals.
So is Mullet Man, who has turned jut-jawed in panel #3. And his eyes have taken on a Tracyesque squint, as though that Twilight Zone transformation is well under way. Tomorrow it will complete itself. Mullet Man will have become Thick and Thick will have become Mullet Man, in a transformation so complete that not even they will know what has happened.
Does that make any sense? It sounds like the ravings of an utter buffoon with no storytelling abilities? Ohmigosh, now I’m turning into Locher!
Panel 1: Thick is demon possessed! Call in an exorcist.
Panel 2: Check out those silhouettes. Thick looks like a Sesame Street muppet with those elongated legs. Notice their respective positions. Is Thick and the homeless guy engaged in a mating dance?
“Tonight on PBS. ‘Nature’ presents ‘Wildlife of Skid Row.’”
Mullet Head has devised a cunning scheme to distract Thick. “When Thick reaches Jefferson and Ewing,” he reasons, “he will see the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers as Fat Freddy orchestrates one of his inept drug deals. Thick will then call in the SWAT Team to cover him while he looks for a safe chance to arrest them. This will occupy his attention for the next six weeks!”
While this plan might work with any other cop, its flaws are self-evident to anyone who has seen Thick in action.
At Jefferson and Ewing he turns left
At Ewing and Jefferson he turns right
Thinking of Firesign Theatre, you just might
If only Nick Danger (Third Eye) were on the case
Now there’s a detective we could all embrace
Dancing on the levitating walk
Engaging in some snappy talk
Thick gets down to brass tacks
Showing us exactly what he lacks
A subpar performance again today
Makes you wonder how Locher can accept his pay.
Another good one, Wonder Warthog, especially as Locher & Brozman provided such meager inspiration. And this raises two questions about Double Header.
First, a post in the archives from two years ago said that TMS pays a royalty of $30 for each paper that carries a strip. If the strip appears in fifty papers, that’s $1500 per week for Double Header to split, so Locher would get $750 per week, pre-taxes. That is a significant amount of money, and you’d expect Locher to try to protect that source of income. Actually I’d expect him to do what he could to increase the strip’s circulation by telling good stories and providing good artwork. Yet his work seems designed to kill the strip.
Second, I expect that by Saturday Locher must at least hint at a threat of action. Maybe we’ll see Mullet Head seem to reach for a concealed weapon. Maybe Thick will go to the intersection, to be watched from an alley by sinister eyes. Or we’ll see a silhouetted figure (Sue Doko, at long last?) enter the scene in a menacing posture. Otherwise we’re left with the India-ink adaptation of Waiting For Godot.
Oh, yeah, my guess du jour. Homeless Guy is D-cubed and he has amnesia. He’s being manipulated by Sue Doko who has some sinister reason for destroying both his business and his competitors. He acquired amnesia while attacked on the Cress Creek Lake jogging path, at which time he managed to kill his attacker. His widow, who hired the killer so she could inherit D-cubed’s empire, identified the body as that of her husband so she could have hubby declared dead and keep the police from investigating the true identity of Butterfly McCorpse.
Once D-cubed regains his memory and his fortune, he’ll seek vengeance on everyone by releasing a remake of “Charge At Feather River,” a 3-D movie which used tobacco juice in much the same way Locher uses this strip.
We need to see more of Sue Doku and Agent Ennin, Locher’s hotties of the year! Except Agent Karen Ennin wouldn’t take another assignment in Naperville on a bet!
morrow, If we can ‘believe’ Simon -‘Penimenti’ - Locher introduces some new “female relief” this coming month, not Agent Ennen from 2009, but a new CIA Agent.
Sydney, I’d almost bet the farm that Simon Penn is none other than Mattie - or one of his wannabes! Anyone who loses his bodily fluids over this strip has got to be Mattie.
LOL Morrow you’re baaaad :) My computer was down for over a week and the story actually moved along! I’m wondering though, once DT catches up with 3D what he’s going to do…get him for faking his death and handing out thousand dollar bills??
Thick, after having his clumsy attempt at sexual entrapment rebuffed, and failing to elicit any self-incriminatory statements from the suspect (who must be a suspect, because why else would Thick talk to him?) gets a signal from his Wrist Ouija. Yes! A familiar voice tells him there is a law under which he can arrest this “person of interest”:
Sydney, I checked out MPH’s website and announcement. I also noticed the moustache and beard, but I couldn’t connect it with anything in the current strip. Being a family-oriented strip, I am not going to speculate where he got the model for the sketch of his beard.
Has Tracy talked to 2 0r 3 different people? Are any of them 3-D? The drawing is so poor that I can’t tell them apart. Wait, maybe that’s intentional to make this more mysterious! What a plan!
Thanks, marvee. Right now I really think it’s likely that Locher will use the amnesia cliche, with Sue Doko as some kind of manipulative schemer. Sue acts like one of the forty-two-minute characters on “Law and Order.” (If, at forty-two minutes into an episode, someone steps forward and points the detectives toward a suspect, then it’s the pointer who is the real felon. May as well slap on the cuffs then and spare us eighteen minutes of convoluted logic.)
But who knows? You noticed the weird shift in Mullet Head’s face. Maybe it’s really a mask that’s about to pop off. Maybe It’s a holographic projection, based on D-cubed’s 3-D movie technology, and the projection unit in his backpack is failing. Maybe it really is a Twilight Zone transformation. Or maybe the artwork is just worse than usual today.
Is that a tree growing out of that guy’s shoulder? Could he be Frank Zappa’s legendary Billy the Mountain with his stunning wife Ethel growing out of his shoulder?
countoftowergrove, it looks more like a hand and forearm to me. Maybe Mullet Head has been infected by the same DNA that causes tiny hands to sprout from random parts of Thick’s anatomy.
Whoa! This is a comic strip — Are you all soft or what? Especially Thompson! Shut up — Locher and Thompson write pictures and draw words…If you all can do a better job - create a character, writel a story — and publish it.
You all are worse than Trekkies…please get some kind of life other than complaining about how much money Locher makes for his work.
Is it possible to construct a more delightful phrase than “Dick Tracy, undercover hobo”? I believe the answer to that question to be a firm “no,” but only because no English word-sequence can truly convey the awesomeness of panel one, where Dick’s eyes glow hypnotically out of his shadowy, bearded face. Dick’s gone undercover among the scruffy unhoused set to track down a bum who’s handing out thousand-dollar bills. As homeless man handing out thousand-dollar bills would in all likelihood be almost immediately robbed and murdered, but just in case that isn’t in process, Dick makes sure to shout out his location as loudly as possible, for no good reason.
Steve Bartholomew almost 14 years ago
There’s an alien life form on that guy’s head.
Vista Bill Raley and Comet™ almost 14 years ago
OK, forget about Tracy’s eyes in panel 1. What I want to know is that a railroad box car that they are standing on in panel 2… or is the curb especially high? How is 3D preventing the other homeless guys from taking his money when he is sleeping?
Bill Thompson almost 14 years ago
Jefferson and Ewing, eh? Isn’t that where Nappingville opened its new Manure Recycling Center? We’ll never know what’s there, because Thick handles clues with less finesse than Nigel Bruce in an old Sherlock Holmes flick.
Cool collar on Mullet Man. Are we to gather that he’s really a priest? And why do we now see Thick as only a shadow, as we once saw Homeless Guy? Are we to infer that Thick is now morphing into the mysterious unseen benefactor, because this is one investigation that’s taken him into … the Twilight Zone!
margueritem almost 14 years ago
I see that the floating sidewalk is back! How exciting! What a swell comic strip this is! Daily excitement! Hu? Wha’? It’s time for my meds, you say?
Bill Thompson almost 14 years ago
So Thick takes the helpful advice offered by the nice man. “Jefferson and Ewing,” he says to himself as he finds the location, which lies deep in the countryside. “Where have I heard that address before?”
He gets there and he finds an old abandoned house with a flashing sign that reads “Secret Gangster Hide-Out!” And when he kicks open the door he finds–Pumpkin Head! Double Header! Bat Man! Wolf Man! Cat Man! Rat Man! Pickle Puss Jukebox Jaw! NEON NOODLE!
sigh The Sunday recap will be eight panels of Dadaistic dialogue, while SlimeSloppers gives us some sage advice on not tying your shoestrings together because that would slow you down while fleeing a gang of criminals.
FLIGHT SUIT almost 14 years ago
Iron Man is looking a little furry.
Bill Thompson almost 14 years ago
So is Mullet Man, who has turned jut-jawed in panel #3. And his eyes have taken on a Tracyesque squint, as though that Twilight Zone transformation is well under way. Tomorrow it will complete itself. Mullet Man will have become Thick and Thick will have become Mullet Man, in a transformation so complete that not even they will know what has happened.
Does that make any sense? It sounds like the ravings of an utter buffoon with no storytelling abilities? Ohmigosh, now I’m turning into Locher!
Bill Thompson almost 14 years ago
And we’ve all noticed that Mullet Head couldn’t keep a straight face when he said “I think he’s been in hiding.”
Panel-Panner almost 14 years ago
Panel 1: Thick is demon possessed! Call in an exorcist.
Panel 2: Check out those silhouettes. Thick looks like a Sesame Street muppet with those elongated legs. Notice their respective positions. Is Thick and the homeless guy engaged in a mating dance?
“Tonight on PBS. ‘Nature’ presents ‘Wildlife of Skid Row.’”
Bill Thompson almost 14 years ago
Mullet Head has devised a cunning scheme to distract Thick. “When Thick reaches Jefferson and Ewing,” he reasons, “he will see the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers as Fat Freddy orchestrates one of his inept drug deals. Thick will then call in the SWAT Team to cover him while he looks for a safe chance to arrest them. This will occupy his attention for the next six weeks!”
While this plan might work with any other cop, its flaws are self-evident to anyone who has seen Thick in action.
wndrwrthg almost 14 years ago
At Jefferson and Ewing he turns left At Ewing and Jefferson he turns right Thinking of Firesign Theatre, you just might If only Nick Danger (Third Eye) were on the case Now there’s a detective we could all embrace Dancing on the levitating walk Engaging in some snappy talk Thick gets down to brass tacks Showing us exactly what he lacks A subpar performance again today Makes you wonder how Locher can accept his pay.
Bill Thompson almost 14 years ago
Another good one, Wonder Warthog, especially as Locher & Brozman provided such meager inspiration. And this raises two questions about Double Header.
First, a post in the archives from two years ago said that TMS pays a royalty of $30 for each paper that carries a strip. If the strip appears in fifty papers, that’s $1500 per week for Double Header to split, so Locher would get $750 per week, pre-taxes. That is a significant amount of money, and you’d expect Locher to try to protect that source of income. Actually I’d expect him to do what he could to increase the strip’s circulation by telling good stories and providing good artwork. Yet his work seems designed to kill the strip.
Second, I expect that by Saturday Locher must at least hint at a threat of action. Maybe we’ll see Mullet Head seem to reach for a concealed weapon. Maybe Thick will go to the intersection, to be watched from an alley by sinister eyes. Or we’ll see a silhouetted figure (Sue Doko, at long last?) enter the scene in a menacing posture. Otherwise we’re left with the India-ink adaptation of Waiting For Godot.
Bill Thompson almost 14 years ago
Oh, yeah, my guess du jour. Homeless Guy is D-cubed and he has amnesia. He’s being manipulated by Sue Doko who has some sinister reason for destroying both his business and his competitors. He acquired amnesia while attacked on the Cress Creek Lake jogging path, at which time he managed to kill his attacker. His widow, who hired the killer so she could inherit D-cubed’s empire, identified the body as that of her husband so she could have hubby declared dead and keep the police from investigating the true identity of Butterfly McCorpse.
Once D-cubed regains his memory and his fortune, he’ll seek vengeance on everyone by releasing a remake of “Charge At Feather River,” a 3-D movie which used tobacco juice in much the same way Locher uses this strip.
Donaldo Premium Member almost 14 years ago
it’s going from bad to terrible
Morrow Cummings almost 14 years ago
We need to see more of Sue Doku and Agent Ennin, Locher’s hotties of the year! Except Agent Karen Ennin wouldn’t take another assignment in Naperville on a bet!
veldy almost 14 years ago
Send in the clowns
sydney almost 14 years ago
morrow, If we can ‘believe’ Simon -‘Penimenti’ - Locher introduces some new “female relief” this coming month, not Agent Ennen from 2009, but a new CIA Agent.
Achieved by morphing a bearded bum into a woman.
Dr. Midnight almost 14 years ago
BillThompson: Thanks for the answer the other day. I can’t believe this atrocity has been going on since JULY!
Morrow Cummings almost 14 years ago
Sydney, I’d almost bet the farm that Simon Penn is none other than Mattie - or one of his wannabes! Anyone who loses his bodily fluids over this strip has got to be Mattie.
g6793 almost 14 years ago
LOL Morrow you’re baaaad :) My computer was down for over a week and the story actually moved along! I’m wondering though, once DT catches up with 3D what he’s going to do…get him for faking his death and handing out thousand dollar bills??
billdi Premium Member almost 14 years ago
yeah he’s hiding at jefferson and ewing.
sydney almost 14 years ago
You may well have something there morrow, Go to :
www.matthewhansel.com
And then click on - MPH
Note the beard and mustache, doesn’t it remind of something in the current strip ?
veldy almost 14 years ago
for someone that just got into town, Spacy sure knows a lot about the place and what’s going on
OldTracy almost 14 years ago
Why doesn’t Tracy ask Meatloaf to sing some songs?
sydney almost 14 years ago
Time for Tracy to stop fooling around, he’s achieving ‘nothing’ (and that story ended a few months ago)
Tracy doesn’t know what happened, Locher’s readers haven’t got a ‘clue’ and I’m ‘suspecting’ - that applies to Locher himself too !
Here’s the man who should have the answer to - what happened !
http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2009/08/06/
He’ll ‘EXPLAIN’ !
akado2000 almost 14 years ago
Dick Tracy has eyes?
Bill Thompson almost 14 years ago
Thick, after having his clumsy attempt at sexual entrapment rebuffed, and failing to elicit any self-incriminatory statements from the suspect (who must be a suspect, because why else would Thick talk to him?) gets a signal from his Wrist Ouija. Yes! A familiar voice tells him there is a law under which he can arrest this “person of interest”:
http://www.dailywav.com/0701/sec601.wav
Bill Thompson almost 14 years ago
VanDork, they sent in the clowns last summer and it was pretty grim.
Morrow Cummings almost 14 years ago
Sydney, I checked out MPH’s website and announcement. I also noticed the moustache and beard, but I couldn’t connect it with anything in the current strip. Being a family-oriented strip, I am not going to speculate where he got the model for the sketch of his beard.
marvee almost 14 years ago
WW, great as always! Bill Thomson, I enjoy your speculations. You should be writing this strip.
marvee almost 14 years ago
Has Tracy talked to 2 0r 3 different people? Are any of them 3-D? The drawing is so poor that I can’t tell them apart. Wait, maybe that’s intentional to make this more mysterious! What a plan!
veldy almost 14 years ago
But Bill-Not as grim as this-at least then something “happened”, and if nothing else, we did have the pig on wheels
Bill Thompson almost 14 years ago
Thanks, marvee. Right now I really think it’s likely that Locher will use the amnesia cliche, with Sue Doko as some kind of manipulative schemer. Sue acts like one of the forty-two-minute characters on “Law and Order.” (If, at forty-two minutes into an episode, someone steps forward and points the detectives toward a suspect, then it’s the pointer who is the real felon. May as well slap on the cuffs then and spare us eighteen minutes of convoluted logic.)
But who knows? You noticed the weird shift in Mullet Head’s face. Maybe it’s really a mask that’s about to pop off. Maybe It’s a holographic projection, based on D-cubed’s 3-D movie technology, and the projection unit in his backpack is failing. Maybe it really is a Twilight Zone transformation. Or maybe the artwork is just worse than usual today.
countoftowergrove almost 14 years ago
Is that a tree growing out of that guy’s shoulder? Could he be Frank Zappa’s legendary Billy the Mountain with his stunning wife Ethel growing out of his shoulder?
Bill Thompson almost 14 years ago
countoftowergrove, it looks more like a hand and forearm to me. Maybe Mullet Head has been infected by the same DNA that causes tiny hands to sprout from random parts of Thick’s anatomy.
CougarAllen almost 14 years ago
The scene has shifted to Soviet Russia.
In Soviet Russia, Dick Tracy has eyes but no face.
-Cougar :{)
jacklacan almost 14 years ago
Whoa! This is a comic strip — Are you all soft or what? Especially Thompson! Shut up — Locher and Thompson write pictures and draw words…If you all can do a better job - create a character, writel a story — and publish it.
You all are worse than Trekkies…please get some kind of life other than complaining about how much money Locher makes for his work.
btmosley almost 14 years ago
http://joshreads.com/?cat=54
Is it possible to construct a more delightful phrase than “Dick Tracy, undercover hobo”? I believe the answer to that question to be a firm “no,” but only because no English word-sequence can truly convey the awesomeness of panel one, where Dick’s eyes glow hypnotically out of his shadowy, bearded face. Dick’s gone undercover among the scruffy unhoused set to track down a bum who’s handing out thousand-dollar bills. As homeless man handing out thousand-dollar bills would in all likelihood be almost immediately robbed and murdered, but just in case that isn’t in process, Dick makes sure to shout out his location as loudly as possible, for no good reason.