Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for September 25, 2009

The tiger is rapt with attention…..

You people better hope the tiger is a vegetarian.

Hey, it’s finally a different picture of Poppo. This one’s terrifying, but not quite as much. Those ears are inhuman for sure.

Panel 2: considering the sheer illogic of your plan, the fact that you aren’t DEAD is impressive all on its own.

Lock them in the cage with me instead…………hehehe

Chucky!!! Where have you been?

Finally Mr. Pops has something to smile about!

It took me a while to get out of that air shaft over at “Annies”……..but I’m on the loose now!!!!

Whoa, whoa, wait just a doggone second! Yesterday, their deaths were supposed to look like an accident. There’s no possible way the officials, even in this lame-o story, would ever buy the idea that two cops and an intended victim “accidentally” got locked into a tiger’s cage.

Of course, we’re talking about a case where a blunderbuss fires 30 caliber bullets, isn’t even aimed anywhere near the trapeze artist and still manages to kill her, two detectives don’t even think to examine the weapon or arrest the clown, and the clown is able to walk around with an arsenal, apparently, while these days any normal person is checked at the gates for just about anything that can be used as a weapon.

Tracy’s eyebrows will leap into action and save the day.

And yet again, the tiger drawing style is inconsistent with the rest of the art. And the eyes seem to be looking sideways while the nose is pointed to the direction of the reader. This is a face-elastic tiger! And why the left eye has no pupil?

And the clown also has elastic ears!

Oh, joy!

Where’s Tracy’s backup? Outside of the tent enjoying a smoke?

To me, today’s tiger drawing is not as good as the previous ones - it looks like they were done by different artists.

…hey! Pops is SMILING!

A couple of questions, to those who may know the answers:

What happened with Junior and Sparkle Plenty? Whatever happened with Dick Tracy’s son? Bonnie braids shouldn’t be older? What happened with Vitamin Flintheart?

I rememeber seeing Diet Smith in the “giant robots saga” - and that’s it, I think.

as usual it’s up to someone other than Tracy to save the day.

Tiger’s gonna pass out ‘cause Macy’s gotten a little “ripe” since he hasn’t seen a shower in a few months. Plus, the rest of the hostages refuse to get in the same cage with Macy. Agent Ennin just told Pops, “I’d take the tiger’s breath ANYDAY over being next to Tracy!”

I wouldn’t go as far as to call it PLAGIARISM. particularly in the context of a Writer prone to FORGET. Lets diplomatically call it “reuse” of familiar material from say, someone’s repressed memory.

But alert readers will know it’s not for the first time. Already in three and a half years TWO near identical “REPLAYS” have occured and we’re NOW about to experience a third.

Right off the mark in his first story, Locher gave us the first one with Al Kinda. As a lad of 14 in 1944 he must have been suitably impressed by seeing Gould’s spy villain the Brow plunge to his death, ironically, right on to an American flag pole. We saw the symolism all over again in 2006 which Locher crafted for Al Kinda end.

By early 2007 he whipped out the next with Queenie’s jump from a raised patio (after a diamond) right into the smoke stack of a passing Tug boat,. Readers like Mr.Bribery’sshrunkenheads will have serious “flashbacks” of Ugly Christine (1965) diving to a similar death.

Now today, we are on the threshold of another trip down memory lane. This one, a near replica of a Kilian written Tracy escape from a Tiger in a cage (Red Hawk - 6-13-03) with art by Locher.. Note in both, how top of cage grows conveniently upward to facilitate escape from the Tiger below. “CLICK”! I can almost hear the camera capturing a copy of what went before.

And here we see the Locher contradiction of little hands ? One hand quick to COPY Gould, the other reaching even quicker to CHANGE ! (?)

Don’t think I’m anti-Locher. I’m just taking Martin Luther King’s sound advice, and judging Locher’s strips by their “CONTENT” and not by the COLOR of his Sunday pages !.

The tiger appears to be interested in the plan, but is the cage large enough for three people and the tiger? I bet the audience will enjoy seeing that!

The strip has given up on the pretense of being anything but head shots today – not even copypasted exterior shots.

It’s the comic strip equivalent of those old Marvel cartoons that weren’t animated, but just panning over static images from the comic books.

Do you think “Mr. Pops” might not be his real name?! Egad!

-Cougar :{)

Actually, he was “doing OK so far” until he took a gun out and confessed. That might have been a teeny mistake…

What a happy strip! Pops is smiling, Tracy seems to be giving a pleased wink… even the tiger looks cheerful! Ah, there’s nothing like a murder investigation to brighten ones day.

I asked the question last week: what caused the clown to out himself? Got no answer. I see now, there is no answer. Next question: Why would they let him force them into a tiger’s cage at gunpoint, when using the gun is the last thing in the world he would want to do? I can’t blame Locher for that. I’ve seen it happen in a hundred movies the same way. Even a gun that cannot be used still has some magic persuasive power.

If Andy Warhol were still around he could take all the panels showing the clown’s face from the last ten weeks and make them into a collage. It would be HUGE.

Me, I’d rather just have a readable comic strip.

I have a question for the clown. How are you going to get three people in the cage without letting the tiger out? You have one gun and only two hands, so you can’t point on the people, open the cage and keep the tiger in at the same time. Dumb plan pops.

Roberto, Let me attempt to answer your queries,

1) JUNIOR and SPARKLE who were married in the Collins era are still married. Since Kilian became the writer in mid 1993 Honeymoon (Moonmaid’s daughter) has not been seen. In a story, Oct. to Dec, 2002 a new daughter, Jewell (age 7 aprox) appeared in a child kidnapping case. See Archives.

2) TRACY;S SON ? If you mean Junior (?) the names the same but he now looks like Dick Locher’s son, John who died. Not seen in the strip since Pig E, Bank story May to ,Aug 2004.

BUT if you mean the last child JOSEPH FLINTHEART TRACY? He appeared in the Smokes - Nov.1995 tale by.Kilian but was called “COOL DUDE” because of copyright problems between Collins and TMS. And seen at end of stories in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Oddly, although recently Tracy is now frequently seen working out of home not a sign of Joe even before this Circus story and Bonnie having tickets. !

3) Under Kilian / Locher BONNIE was reduced in age back to being a little girl Age about 9 in 1994 and grew up to go to college in 2004 (Fiendish Fred story)

4) VITAMIN FLINTHEART. Has apperaed in only one story in the Kilian / Locher years. First Sal Monella story (1998).

I’m confused over the beginning of this story, it seemed like Ringo & Mr. Pops were in cahoots. Maybe Mr. Pops is a double-agent criminal?

And Mr. Pops’ use of the term “copper.” Is that what the kids are calling policemen these day? ;-) I’m all for hip, up-to-date lingo…

What happened to “Don’t call me Pops”? This is like amnesia every morning.

Sydney - indeed the Queen of Diamonds’ smokestack redux put me over the cranky edge and then I found this site.

I have to admit I would catch up every so often since Don Quijote’s corpse wandered around on a horse for a few months - that was inspired twisted nonsense. I miss the triviality of those days.

Mostly I miss Liz with no eyeballs :)

“Now it’s just a matter of…slowly opening this cage door…and…getting you all in there. Whoopsy daisy, watch your step. There we go…”

Now the name of this last poster above has set me to wondering. The name of the Tiger in the Red Hawk (2003) story was - “KITTY”,

What will be the “name’ of this Tiger if it has one ?

The Useless Lt. Teevo should break away from his smoke break and save Tracy.