Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for November 23, 2009

What!?

So much wrong here!

“Witness protection rights?” What the heck are witness protection rights? I’m pretty sure there’s a little number called the US Constitution which says all of us have the same rights, and they’re inalienable.

Also…

Wasn’t it Ringo being blackmailed, and not the other way around? If Ringo was blackmailing the freaks, how was he doing so, and with what? Moreover, blackmailing them to what end?

Oh, I forgot:

He wanted to seize control of the circus’s extensive real estate holdings!

My brain, my brain, it hurts my braaaaaiiiiiinnnnnn!!!!!!

AAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrggggggghhhhh!

Isn’t this over yet??

Alas we must suffer further with this nonsense…..

More confusion. Where’s the Pig on Wheels?

Dick will have this story wrapped up in time to spend time with his family at Thanksgiving.

I guess Ringo is not being arrested but he’s going out for drinks with the cop? If he’s being arrested he should be handcuffed…

Ringo and the cop amy be “pals”. They aren’t too far from holding hands.

Miranda rights, anyone?

Can someone draw this plot on a pece of paper? Will it look like a plate of spaghetti?

Flightsuit - Please stop trying to make sense of this nonsense. You are going to explode your brain. Because only the smartest minds of Naperville really understand what’s going on here.

I thought this was over last week, but it’ll prolly be dragged out for another week at least.

The writers should go read “Annie” for a while. Maybe they could learn something about brevity.

ridenslide65, just give me another minute! rshive’s idea about diagramming the plot was a good one! Just need to connect Elephant Girl over here to the defense contractor they all worked for, and then…

BRAIN EXPLODES

Everyone Thanksgiving is approaching lets hope DT gets to observe this with his family with no crime. Curious how are some going to, that is if turkey will be used, cook a turkey, we here will smoke ours and use a hickory flavoring. Lot safer then frying it and less hasel just use a breatheable area.

Flight Suit: Sorry about the brain.

please, someone can post the link to the DT strip preview. I want see the next storyline.

I don’t think I want to be giving thanks for this turkey of a story.

WHEN is TMS gonna wise up and get some people on this strip who can bring it back to life??? Locher’s writing contract must have a “void-if-you-turn-the-strip-into-a-banal-pointliess-abomination” clause.

And as we contemplate this work, we ponder on why our little pal considers this qualiy contribution to the Dick Tracy strip, as being so “superb”, that he’s currently doing a “Batman style” comic strip as a TRIBUTE to him ! and his work (?)

This seems all visceral, what does he (and a buddy or two) see that 99% of readers can’t ? Where is he when it counts (?) A time when he should be standing up and putting his mouth behind his convictions ? *If*, he believes in them ?

Easy to note that all the Dick Locher “drum beaters” have quietly slipped away, as regetable too. has the best Circus creation of all - the Pig on Wheels (?)

Two ‘amended’ verses from a well known English poem seem appropriate :

“Not a drum was heard not a funeral note As the ‘corpse’ to the rampart we hurried Not a Woodstock Guard discharged a farewell shot O’er the grave where our ‘Pig on Wheels’ was burried.

Not half the heavy task was done, Maestro to come, When the clock struck the hour for “retiring” And we could hear the sound of distant gun That foes called ‘fans’, were sullenly firing !”

Thanksgiving?!? Hell we will be lucky if it is over by Christmas!

Jumbo,

Locher was technically fired (err… diplomatically it was called - ‘he retired’) last year October, to be fully effective by 12-31-08

There was a hue and cry that the newspaper strip would end, and with appeals (on both boards) to write in to TMS to reverse the decision. Bad as the strip was readers didn’t want that. so many did, and TMS then “denied” it had ever happened. Story is that Locher was re-instated. And by the following March (2009) Brozman was brought in. But I suspect (no firm knowledge here) that Locher “suggested” him. Locher’s five year contract still has ONE more year to run. Perhaps the current thinking is Brozman will take over or at least be a stop gap !

JPBecker,

This story ends tomorrow, with a one panel stop at HQ,

New story starts Wednesday.

Sydney, I had to Google your poem. Never heard it before. I don’t know who “Sir John” was, but it’s a stirring poem and a reminder of men and women we need to be thankful for.

http://www.bartleby.com/106/218.html

ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz……………

Send Locher’s ideas to the Brenda Starr strip and let them roast in flames….

Please Dick take a vacation after solving this caper. And stay away, forever.

At LONG last.

RayC and Gweeno Murray,

Thanks for the nod on the verse which I pinched for the occasion. For those that may appreciate that sort of thing, see…

http://poetry.eserver.org/light-brigade.html

You may already be familiar with it - “The Charge of the Light Brigade”. To me it’s one of the best ever. As one reads, they can actually “feel” the mood and chilling presence of the moment and action. I’ts very moving !

http://shockdom.com/open/carl/

Strip number 6 online. Enjoy!!!

@Syndey– what’s your source for that info? It seems odd to me that TMS would respond to fears of Dick Tracy being cancelled by bringing back a writer who consistently generates massive criticisms here.

I have always assumed that Locher knew Brozman since they both live outside of Chicago, and that’s the only reason he was brought on the strip. It’s hard for me to imagine that he was hired on the basis of talent…plenty of struggling (and talented) artists would jump at the chance to draw this strip, even for bleeep wages.

Actually, I think the only way to save Dick Tracy now would be to leverage the character’s fame and get some big-name talent in to work on it, each agreeing to do a story of a preset length. It’s radical, especially since sameness is supposedly the selling point of a comic strip. But the sameness here equals awfulness, and something must be done. Getting some buzz going is the only way they’re going to get back some of the many papers that have jumped ship.

Sydney, greatly enjoyed your take on the poem.

Carlo, I’m enjoying your strip!

marg,

See my post to you on the Annie board. And thanks for yours above.

Like you I’m enjoying Carlo’s strip and art. The style of the latter reminds me so much of Hergés Tintin. Good memories ! Probably the best ever out of Europe !

Last year the haunted house caper went from Halloween to nearly Christmas. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the next story go to at least Presidents’ Day.

DL needs to get a move on, what with the world ending in 2012, and all that.

Carlo, great stuff, as always!

Sydney, thanks for the “Charge of the Light Brigade” link. I have always liked Tennyson’s poetry. I still remember “Gareth and Lynette” from high school. We had to memorize the opening stanzas, and I can recite it till this day.

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/IDYL-GAR.HTM

If we don’t have a good comic to read, good poetry is almost as entertaining. ;-)

What is this “Syndey” and “Gweeno” stuff? Are you guys having a screen name butchering contest? Joe will have something to say about that!!

Hey Sydney - I might be mistaken. Tennyson was popularly given credit for the verses, but wasn’t it Mattie P. Tennyson who originally wrote it? I think he was a distant relative of our beloved Batman II creative genius.

Dick Tracy dishing it out to the bad guys.