Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for July 02, 2023

♪♪♪ Oh, how I love stucco, it means so much to me!

Square, round or oval, a beautiful sight to see

Makes everything pretty, fills my heart with glee

Oh, how I love stucco, causes my blues to flee! ♪♪♪

I may be in the huge minority here, but today’s strip is a total waste of valuable space.

It advances the story less than a Gweedo pickup line at the petting zoo!

I just don’t get it.

Good morning™, everyone!

This style of architecture was popular about 90 to 100 years ago. I’m pretty surprised that an entire district was built in this style in the 1970s.

The freeways in Tracy’s city are pretty intimidating-looking but they do have very wide lanes.

And the stucco from the front of the Nomar buildings wound up in the Argo office how, exactly? Is the building shedding its exterior onto everyone who comes out of it?

nothing today worth my text-time and my breath to comment about…

‘cept that vengey said it all in HIS commentary about today’s installment…

And naturally, only one building will have a piece of stucco missing.BTW, when I was a toddler, my parents lived in a stucco house with half-timbering. The last I was back there, the present owner had covered it with aluminum siding.

Stucco structure sits on the route

Art Deco style sure stands out

Second story wraps around

Tracy’s find could be profound.

Stucco found there

Stucco is here

Connection real and yet unclear

Anders was not left alive

Sam and Tracy take a drive.

Maybe the assassin worked in the demolition buisness as well.

It looks like the Nomar District is in an area time forgot. No cars and no foot traffic. Chances are that it will be rezoned for residential use. Apartments priced at three figures and that is what the future looks like.

Shooter must have stepped on that old piece of stucco. Unless the guy is a neat freak, what kind of clues do Tracy and Sam expect to find?

An entire neighborhood was built in the Art Deco style in the 1970s?

Good morning™, times ago travelers !

If all this old style of building is so popular then why is this Grand old structure just gathering grime and spider webs ?  Where’s the graffiti, vandalized and boarded over windows you normally see on old long unused buildings ?

Ivan says three figures for an apartment but it would easily be 4 figures in most places. Trendy homes do not go “for a song” but rather for a tidy profit.

Amazing visuals today! Love it!

That’s a rather large piece of stucco to carry around on one’s person WITHOUT knowing that it’s there

The trend in art deco architecture faded fast after 1939. Fifty years ago was post WW II and art deco was definitely out at that time and Modern very well established. (Don’t ask me when post-Modern started. Students hate the phrase, and I can’t say I blame them.)

This’d be where weeks 3-6 started.

Could the call centre be behind or next to the building? And with it being a derelict building the assassin stepped on a piece of stucco as he walked past it getting it stuck in his shoe.

Is it just " me " or is this story very " slow " ?

Ooh. The suspense is building up!

Oh, Sam, Sam, Sam. WHEN will you learn Tracy does the detective work, and you’re seldom right? Like that time you arrested and pistol whipped that fire hydrant, then said (beaming in pride, yet) that it had been ‘casing’ the nearby store for ‘weeks’. The repairs and water bill cost the department a small fortune.

Did spending the next week having to paint the stripe down the middle of Main Street using your tongue as a brush teach you NOTHING??

The USAF runs the military’s fire fighting school on Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Tx. They train at night to avoid the deadly heat.

The building reminds me of some we used to see on the Miami Vice tv show.

Okay, the stucco probably came from the Nomar area of town, but unless it’s very small area, how does that help Tracy? It’s not like he’s going to have a bunch of uniforms try and match that chunk to all the buildings in that district-is he?

@avenger9 – Basically, I agree. At times the art over shadows the lame story line!

The Roll of Honor text had me interested enough to check it out further:

https://wildfiretoday.com/2019/09/24/autopsy-shows-cal-fire-firefighter-died-of-heat-exposure/

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/report-provides-timeline-of-cal-fire-firefighters-death-during-training-hike/77275/

1-DT: Step on it, Sam…

2-…That last loaf of bread Tess baked was a f’in freak o’ nature. I can’t make a sandwich on something shaped like that!

3-…There’s a Campbell’s Grocery just off this exit…

4-…I’ll pick up a few loaves of Wonder Bread and smash Tess’s bread maker when I get home.

5-SAM: I’ll “smash” with Tess while you’re doing that. DT: Good. That’ll give me 3 minutes to finish off the bread maker. SAM: Better get it done in 2 – just to be safe…

It is often said that Chicago is the model for Tracyville. The lack of stucco facades is a major difference between Tracyville and Chicago.

The last Chicago Sears store called 6-Corners (now under demo and remodeling and changed into condos had a stucco facade:

https://chronicleillinois.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/cook-041818-Six-Corners-Sears-PHOTO-1.jpg

OT: Well, there was a slight breeze today, so cutting down the latest branch (3 in as many weeks) that fell into the front yard with my hand saw SEEMED doable. Yes and no. Air conditioning and movies on the tablet for the rest of the day. Or I could try the new Fujiko Mine episodes I picked up off Amazon streaming.

I’m kind of guessing Mike originally had a different way of telling this story, but when they had to bring in a pinch writer midway in, it was decided to just get this train to the station in the shortest, most direct way possible. It’ll be interesting to see what role, if any, Sprocket plays when Tracy & Sam finally do arrive at Audie’s boiler room.

Art Deco was futuristic now retro still very nice.

Bring back Dilbert.

And that, Sam, is the potential problem with Tracy’s triumphal detection of this stucco “clue”: “Lots of colorful stucco frontage” in the NOMAR district. How does Tracy expect to track down this relatively tiny and undistinctive bit of trim to one particular building?! Oh, boiler room, where art thou?

Also: given the fluidity of Time in the strip, even though Sam and Tracy are in a relatively current-looking style squad car, “50 years ago” for the building of the NOMAR district does not automatically mean we should think “1970”; maybe for Tracy and Sam’s time-dimension, 50 years ago could refer to the 1930s….

And one might compare that aerial view of expressways to the photo in this link of Chicago’s recently completed Jane Byrne [former mayor] Interchange: https://tinyurl.com/22bget6s

Firefighters deserve so much praise. How sad to lose one so young.

Nice scenery,but that looks like the sort of highway where you go around in circles and never do find a way out