Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for October 09, 2009

Another day… wonder how Tracy and Ennis are faring with the “nice kitty”?

Pops is making those freaks nervous with his finger on that trigger. Needs a class in firearm safety.

The Leno chin is back….

Pops is just like the Ever Ready bunny. He keeps going on and on.

Okay, see, if this were written in an INTERESTING way we would have met all these people a long while ago. And wow, after twelve weeks we see the clown in profile. Who says there are no surprises left??

So Mr. Locher, still not figured out how Dick is going to escape the tiger, hu?

POPs won’t be very POPular if he keeps pointing the gun at his friends. I presume Fee Fi is the giant and is standing behind Della Contessa.

fee, fi, so, dumb

So Sloppy the Clown is banking on the idea that NO ONE will roll over on him when push comes to shove. I guess he’s never heard of blackmail.

Sydney - that’s a characture of Bush! Complete with the frontal lobotomy look!

More Nonsense. A wasted day. Tomorrow we’ll meet the folks selling the concessions.

Roll call is required at a circus every hour. It’s state law. Look it up.

…”Have a nice day”? Are you KIDDING us? Not only is this a waste of a day, but it lengthens this insipid nonsense even longer! Just wait for Sunday’s thrilling “name the characters” recapping action!

Remember, one of the circus people is an informant. Apparently Locher only now just remembered. But it’s OK, every classic detective story waits until just before the reveal to introduce all the suspects – that way the audience doesn’t get distracted with all that suspense and guessing.

What’s Smalley’s act, doing Al Jolson impersonations?

Dick Locher could have picked up an “eye-openening” lesson on the technique of building SUSPENSE by simply reading Jay Meader’s ANNIE comic strip

This started Sept. 25, on the point of Warbucks and Grimm about to break into an apparently abandoned Underground Facility in the middle of the New Mexico dessert, Inerest in WHAT they might find was at a peak. And some readers commented on it !

At that point the writer FROZE activity there for TWO weeks taking readers off on two related side stories (one with Annie) - - - while we all waited ! Today, TWO weeks later we are back with Warbucks about to make that interesting discovery. Impressive !

It’s a technique you won’t find used in Dick Tracy. Rather, they attempt to achieve SUSPENSE with a combination of WITHOLDING information, flogging REPETITION and DELAY by rationing out progress.

This slow-poke agenda doesn’t provide suspense, it only serves to create irritation and frustration - openly expressed on the board every day !

Those who have read Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan novels would have recieved an excellent lesson on INTERESTINGLY achieving SUSPENSE. He’d have TWO connected stories going at the same time. At he end of Chapter 1, you had to wait for Chaptrer 3 to find out what happened in the “cliff-hanger” in one ! Same thing in the other story sequence over in Chapter 2, where another tense situation would arise and then frozen until a return to it in Chapter 4.

And so Burroughs would alternate this focus throught the book, chapter after chapter. Occasionally, bringing the two stories together, only to seperate them again (or start a new one entitely, to repeat the suspense using that technique until concluding the story.

Older people have moch greater difficulty in aquiring NEW skills. And perhas what we see playing out here is an Old Man failing to adjust, having stayed in his “art trench”, unfortunately, paying little, or NO attention, to the “writing” aspects when he had decades of exposure. He seems to have learned so little and his judgement on making CHANGES in the strip are poorly thought out, if not near catastrophic

It should be apparent to most that TMS made a big mistake to put Locher in as the “writer”.

The TIME to correct that is NOW !

ok ok……lochner is evil and incompetent , I get it! off with head!

If I remember right, we “met” all of these characters weeks ago. So this is just a recap of suspects, a la Ellery Queen….

Saturday, 10/10 at 9am EDT parts 11 and 12 of 1937 DT Serial. on TCM.

Mr. Locher, tear up this story arc!! Puh leeze, this is reaching soap opera lengths.

My vote is on Fee Fi - Fee Fi of the F.B.I. get it?

Yes, the perfect plan. Can we go over it just one more time?

Sydney, “Older people have much greater difficulty in acquiring NEW skills” is a bit of a cheap shot. I know plenty of people well into their “senior” years who’ve continued to grow intellectually and creatively.

Remember: 70 is the new 50.

If Tracy still has his Wrist Geenee, that will save them.

Everybody complains about Locher’s art work, but in the fifties everybody complained about Chester Gould’s in exactly the same way.

Whoops, sorry for getting the wrong guy. Actually I just signed up and was trying out sending a message. I do remember everybody thinking Gould was nuts and complaining about his artwork, though.

Mattie has united this board just about the same as Ringo has united the performers! Good for you, BB!

BASSMANBOB – Thanks for making the point (as I’m speaking from both daily “obsevation” of others and of course my “personal” experience) - even though you had to exaggerate my Age by a year or two ;-p

Flight Suit – Trust me it’s very REAL as one grows older !

Joe Allen Doty – There are many things that Mattie says that are colossal exagerations (eg. Locher is “superb”, and his “SHOUTING” announcements) but I “believe” him when recently he said here that Locher is still involved in the art. And, I suspect the character “designs” (or lack of them in the current story). It’s human nature - you don’t do something all your life and then just toss it out the window

Nighthawks – no, no, Locher not EVIL, but at least you got the “incompetent” (as a writer) part right. That’s all you need to get in your “head” ! Simple isn’t it ?

Mattie – Locher has a contract that still runs for a YEAR and three months. Why didn’t Locher recommend YOU instead of Brozman. He knows you both, although the latter may have more experience and better ‘bono fides” having been an art school chum of son, John. (?) Not so ?

Or did you hear that TMS is “retiring” him early, AGAIN ?

Unless you’re looking for an assistant “wuk” to help Brozman with ruling up panel pages and such ? But Dick could HELP you with all that, if he want’s to (?) Not so ?

That’s why I was wondering WHY you were throwing the hat in the ring while the man was still there. Reasonable assumption ?

Then how could I presume to be BORING when the King of TEDIUM and REPETITION still reigns supreme in Dick Tracy ? Coming from you it’s a sort of compliment to put me in the same ROOM knowing how highly you think of the man. ;-p

Way to grasp at a compliment Sydney…I would prefer anyone take over the strip right about now. I am a much bigger fan of Burroughs and all things considering the Apeman than I am of DT even. It has been great picking up the Dark Horse Jesse Marsh reprints. I collected the 10 centers back when they were new and these reprints take me back to a better time in the late 40’s and early 50’s. I’m considering getting the Turoks now from Amazon.

Margueritem: thank you for your kind words of yesterday

My ability to draw is really quite minuscule So I shall not hold the artwork to any ridicule My complaint now and always has been The plots that are inane and exceedingly thin There are those who say “well can you do better?” “If you can’t, then go knit yourself a sweater” Though as a writer I would surely fail I had hopes that clearer heads would prevail And write us a story so crisp and so clear That we would stand up and give a great cheer Now I have the ability to read and comprehend And what we are subject to, is a nightmare without end Day after day we see the same scenes And day after day the dialog fairly screams “We care nothing of what your petty concerns may be” “We are in control and to us you are nothing but fleas” Is it really the plan of the folks at TMS To foist on the fans this tragic mess Or is it that the writer seems to no longer care That he serves up as gruel such an unpalatable fair We grouse and we grumble, snicker and snerk Some even loudly opine that Locher is a jerk Yet we always come here day in and day out Only to sadly retire to our favorite corner and pout Is there a lesson here for us to learn Or is it our lot to be continually burned Maybe one day the sun will shine, the skies will clear And we can enjoy Dick Tracy and not shed a tear For those glory days of yesteryear we so fondly remember And hope this excremental arc will be over by December.

Does Mr. Locher have some plan with these panels, other than to list every possible circus-related pun in existance?

There’s absolutely nothing in this story that has any semblance of credibility. It’s just a hodgepodge of nonsense stumbling along like a drunk in the dark. It’s clearly written for people who have no ability to think. Locher is just insulting the intelligence of DT readers whether he knows it or not. It could easily be written in a way that is at least reasonably plausible with a little imagination, but I can’t stretch my imagination far enough to get beyond any description other than nonsensical. The comment section is really the only reason to come here.

Wonder Warthog, you put more time into writing for this strip than anybody getting paid to do so, and you do much much much better. I would rather see your poetry illustrated than this strip, that’s for sure.

Mattie,

Another late night query !

It you wrote your script for Apollo back in January (?) Per chance, did Dick Locher get to peep at it ? If so this is looking even more serious. I see where you seem to have a copyright on the Apollo strip, I hope no one has been pinching “ideas”. Particularly if they’ve had a history of doing so before or recycling others (?) ;-p

Seems Brozman’s penchant for using face shadow has impressed you (?). On the positive side it’s really good to see that you draw NORMAL sized hands. So glad you never picked up that bad habit

So the bad guy was the dead girls boss (?) But I note that despite blacked out face, he seems to have Crandall’s hair style at the back.

Leading a double life ?

Don’t get over-excited on the first paragraph. I’m just pulling your leg ! ;-p

And how come you’re giving a freebie to those that you say don’t pay their fair share ?