Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for September 16, 2022

Trying to pull in the younger crowd?

Good morning™, everyone!

Looks like Vitamin Flintheart’s Patterson Playhouse is going to be the setting for at least part(s) of the new story. I have read Derby Dugan’s Depression Funnies and I promised to write a review of it here, but it took me a long time to read it. I bought a used copy by mail order, but the mildew smell was more than I could stand, so it took a lon time to read it. That book is about a strip, Derby Dugan, that is similar in some ways to Little Orphan Annie, so around the time that Dick Tracy also debuted.

I’ve just started reading Funny Papers, but I’m only about 10% in. It’s about the very beginnings of U.S. newspaper comics (like The Yellow Kid and Buster Brown). The main character, Pinfold, seems like the “real-life” person that Derby Dugan was based on, at least in physical characteristics. I’ll try to read faster so I can write up a better review.

Tom De Haven did a tremendous amount of research in writing this trilogy and he really gives a flavour of the period(s).

Good morning™, cop shop Funnies !

Are Sam’s eyes about to fall out ?  He couldn’t be happier if that crook harboring deli, with the great samiches, has opened back up, with the guy who made those great samiches.

Crossover time. Garage guy has to wait another day

I was about ready to think Mike had gone off the deep end of romanticizing nostalgic musty archaic comic strips, until some quick research revealed the “Derby Dugan” books are actually contemporary (well, from the 1990s) takes on the history of comic strips, & have some really dark context (Art Spiegelman contributed to one volume) & subject matter. Now I’m very interested to see what Mike does with it here in the Tracy strip.

I think may enjoy this story.

The Funny Papers, The Only Section in the Newspaper, That CHEER YOU UP! Thank Heaven for that

Looks like Sam Catchem might be the primary focus in this storyline…..

There was an actual strip titled DIXIE DUGAN…

Nice profile of Liz in panel 2.

today Lizz looks like one of those “Hollywood Actresses’ Plastic Surgery Gone Wrong”

Vitamin has become a little more daring in his Dotage!

Sunofa…… great, now we’re gonna have to deal with vitamin and Kandilame for the next four months

Hehheh. What a ‘surprise’.

The Yellow Kid’s actual name was Mickey Dugan.

The only comics Dugan I know is Timothy Aloysius Cadwallader.

…oh yeah, and somebody robbed a bank.

I thought Liz has black hair. The colorist today made it almost match her top.

A play based on comic strips…I waited with baited breath for this? Well, I hope the developing storyline will have “legs”.

Are there going to be any cameos, such as Beetle Bailey getting leave to see the production? Maybe the Sad Sack will have an Uber driver transport him to the theater.

“Funny Papers”…another opportunity for Mike and Shelley to take the readers down Memory Lane.

Lizz no longer has the look of Lizz of old… she’s just about unrecognizable these days… her trademark heavy eye makeup she was identifiable by is long gone and a thing of the past…

I read “Funny Papers” years ago. I should really read the others if I ever have time to read novels again.

Derby Dugan suspiciously resembles Kayo from the late MOON MULLINS

Annie WARbucks will be playing herself onstage.

SOMETHING’S going to happen,as no Flintheart theatre production has ever gone smoothly.

MOVIE QUOTE—-“There are only two sure cures for love.Marraige and suicide”.

Title card—Buster Keaton’s SPITE MARRAIGE—1929

1-SAM: HA HA! Old Man Vitamin has realized that no one watches his plays so he’s providing the audience with comics to read while he drones on and on!

2-LIZ: Yeah. I don’t think that means what you believe it does…

3-SAM: I hope he provides some Derby Dugan comics! I could last through a whole play if I had a couple of those to read!

LIZ: Sam? You’re an idiot.

SAM: Yeah, well I’m also rubber and you’re glue! BURN!

DT off panel: I LIKE COMICS! GET ME A TICKET!

Sam acts like he won the Lottery!!!

Sam, Lizz, and Ebony return to [comics] life! Sam, if anything, may be hyper-ventilating over the chance to see a stage production of Funny Papers at the Patterson.

It is not clear how this evident set-up will play_(ahem!)_ out, but the “Curse of the Patterson,” ill-fated to be a repeating crime magnet, seems likely to befall it again. Poor Vitamin! He’s lucky that audiences are still willing to shell out for tickets to this Danger Zone. Gotta wonder, too, if Kandikane will be a player in this arc….

“Uh…Sam? I don’t care f it ‘tasted like grape and now you can shear colors’. That wasn’t Kool Ade powder you found down in Evidence. Now, be a good boy and hand me your gun for the next 48 hours.”

It’s comic books, not strips, but there’s a new game coming called “Age of Comics: The Golden Years.” If you’ve ever wanted to be a comic book publisher, now’s your chance! Kickstarter beginning Sept. 19. https://youtu.be/qm4OPR64Yo4