Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for October 21, 2010

Hey Locher, thanks for the Latin lesson.

And his victims couldn’t afford lawyers? He made this money off his associates? If this is how he got rich, how did the people who worked for him earn their money? How did Thick and Norton get out of the sewers and inside a building? And what sinister force is causing Norton to grow horn-hair?

Is that a woman from the Karen tribe of Burma in panel two? Judging by the elongated neck, it sure looks like it.

So he’s a bad good guy? Or a good bad guy? I’m sooo cornfused…

Maybe panel #2 is supposed to represent D-cubed and one of his victims. But, since the character on the right is clearly Boris Karloff in his role as Frankenstein’s Creature, are we to assume that Locher is at last giving us an interesting albeit stolen villain? Meanwhile, amid all this chatter, where is the fugitive D-cubed?

And if Thick had bothered to follow up any of the clues strewn in front of him, he might have found this on his own. Fortunately the Feds were on the case and had enough sense to avoid him.

You just have to take the good with the bad sometimes.

M. O. is B. O. Plenty’s brother.

This is the first mention that D-cubed gave money to charity before he vanished. Are we supposed to have deduced that from his freaky giveaways and his wife’s contradictory statements?

Was Butterfly McCorpse a businessman who defied D-cubed and got murdered by him? Why not investigate that body and see what, if any, link it has to D-cubed?

The term trumped-up applies to overblown charges made by a prosecutor during legal proceedings. The use of the term here is absurd.

What is Locher trying to say? Be suspicious of charitable capitalists, because it’s a ruse? Real capitalists don’t give money to charity? Don’t shake down your fellow businessmen, that’s why the public is there? Don’t trust conservative editorialists because they’re really Bolshies who make cops look like fools, businessmen look like crooks, and the same nasty Federal government that defeated Communism look sinister? Comrade Locher is showing his true colors!

On the bright side, Thick is talking to someone with experience in finding a criminal. Equally important, he hasn’t needed to check the papers to learn something.

But what about Thick’s recent mood swings? Today he’s trusting. Yesterday he was suspicious. We’ve seen him angry, surly, stunned, frantic and goofily delighted. I’d say the poor fellow has been stunned by all the wacky plot twists, but how can you have plot twists when there’s no plot?

Rightwingmoron:

You took the words out of my mouth.

“…Tracy then makes a pompous statement as if to take credit for someone elses police work.”

Thick should be in politics. A bumbler comes out ahead in that game because the people around him make him look good.

If Dick Tracy doesn’t do nothing, who will? Talk about an anti-hero.

I’m guessing that all these other officers are the “special forces” that Liz mentioned to Thick at the beginning of this “adventure.” So why he is so surprised?

Is Locher saying that 3-D is the antithesis of a true American businessman due to his twisted values, i.e., he gave money to charities instead of ripping them off like a good capitalist?

morgueritem said, “…I’m sooo cornfused…”

Ditto.

Panel-Panner, I wonder if Locher is taking a swipe at Warren Buffett and other businessmen who give to charity. I don’t know why it would bother Locher that people would choose to give away their own money, and encourage others to be charitable, but I can’t remember the last time the Locher Mess Monster made sense.

Locher still has to tie up the loose ends with Butterfly McCorpse, Sue Doko, and both Mrs. D’apostrophe and Mr.Rowland-from-my-bank. Maybe he’ll do that while Thick and Norton finish their extended break from D-cubed’s getaway.

Not only elongated neck in panel 2, shrunken head. Yep-it’s a tribal thing

Panel two looks like the scene is the Oval Office. Hmmmmm……….. ears match; motives match.

M.O. -Modus Operandi ? That was before 3-D switched into ” O.O. ” — Odious Operandi !

I think Old Tracy is on to something there - with the B.O.Plenty connection.

Panel-Panner, I looked at

http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2010/07/26/

and found that Horn Hair said “We have our special forces on the job.” I assume by “we” and “our” she meant the Nappingville PD. They haven’t been seen since, unless by “special forces” she meant that she sent an intern out to buy copies of all the local papers.

If by “special forces” she meant all the Federal agents who’ve shown up, then … it can’t be! She’s in cahoots with the government! No wonder Thick is paranoid!

So… he blackmailed in order to be charitable? Huh?

There is so much wrong with this I hardly know where to start.

First of all, there is no way you could extort billions with “trumped up” charges. If you’re going to blackmail at that level, you at least have to have something real to blackmail people with. Sure there are going to be a few cases where someone will pay to shut you up even if the charges are false, but billions? Against rich businessmen with high-powered lawyers? Don’t think so.

Second, if D-cubed found out that the feds were onto him, he would take his billions and flee the country. He certainly woudn’t stay in the same town, dress as a hobo, and then DRAW ATTENTION to himself by handing out rare $1,000 bills on the street.

Thirdly, when this story started, D-cubed had made a fortune by developing a revolutionary 3-D system. Why does he all of a sudden need to commit fraud if he is the inventor of this revolutionary system.

Finally, I called it a couple months ago: Locher is going to completely ignore the dead body of Butterfly McCorpse. Just as with the body on the stage, the only real crime in Tracy’s jurisdiction will go unsolved.

At least this one got buried, I imagine the Science Museum went through a period with some real stench floating around

Shades of Robin Hood.

Dr. Midnight has stated a perfect case…such a shame that this strip has fallen from “immortal” to so “immorally wrong”!

Entirely too late Locher. I already like 3-Cubed and I dont like Tracy. Maybe you should have laid out some sort of hints that he was shady when all of this started. Or was that too much work?

Why is Locher still doing this strip again? His run ends in December right? Hopefully theyll either get someone better or just end this series already. Its not even amusing anymore, its frustrating. I doubt theyll rerun the series from the beginning, maybe I should just give up on that hope.

Thick will arrest Sue Doko, if he feels certain she isn’t armed. He’ll accuse her of having been D-cubed’s accomplice. Locher will do this to make a bad pun when she’s arrested. “So you were a college activist who embezzled money while feeding the poor. You’ll go to jail and get three squares a day Miss Sue Doko ha ha ha ho ho ha!”

If D-cubed killed Butterfly McCorpse and the body is exhumed to prove it, “He didn’t expect this sort of box-office returns, ha ha ha ho ho ha!”

D-cubed’s wife absconded to Rio with his fortune? “She made off with a pretty penny ha ha ha ho ho ha!”

The PD won’t fire Thick because “They’re feeling charitable today ha ha ha ho ho ha!”

And Tess will have tickets to the latest 3-D movie.

More like Slobbin’ Hood, Araldite.

locher tie up loose ends? ha ha ha ho ho!

Got it! D-cubed is partly modelled after Bernie Madoff:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff

although he made his money the old-fashioned way–he stole it from the public, not his employees. And he wasn’t universally hated until after he got caught, and he didn’t try living on the streets. He did make donations to charity (it’s always a good tax write-off and PR move), although Locher never mentioned that until today.

An older example is Ivar Kreuger, the Swedish match king:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivar_Kreuger

Is that Norton, CIA in panel one? If so, who is the chick in panel three? They could be sisters, but clearly look different.

Compare this character with the one first seen on 10/10/10 and introduced as Norton, CIA on 10/17/10.