Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for September 21, 2011

A very good start to this story indeed.

Will Brandon make it?

The hit man got off two shots from behind, at a range of a few feet, and he couldn’t deliver a fatal shot? Gunsel’s Local #666 is not going to be happy with him!

G’morning, everyone!Had to read today’s installment before I pack it in for the night. (I haven’t stayed up to read comics since I was a kid!)Now if we could only do something about the colorist (First everything was brown, now it’s gray hats for all the cops – even Cheif Patton’s). Could Shane make up a color guide for these guys? Please?

I see that Lizz’s coat has changed color yet again. (sigh)

Three bullets in Brandon’s back and he gets off two and hits the perp?! He’s one tough old dude! I think (hope) he will survive.

Wow. The Chief is still plenty tough. If he was able to fire back, perhaps he wasn’t caught completely unaware.

Sergeant Clark, eh? Hee! ;)

Fight, Chief, fight!!

Panel 1: Dialog taking place between two people in the background, while Sam looks the situation over in the foreground. Perfect. That’s the kind of art that I used to enjoy so much during Chester Gould’s best years!

Question: we saw the “perp” firing twice. Now the officer says three shots fired, and Brandon got off two rounds. That would make at least four – or did he mean three altogether from the criminal, plus Brandon’s two?

Panel 2: Notice the detail of the ink from Brandon’s old style fountain pen, spilled on his ledger pages.

Or, is that supposed to be blood, maybe?

I hope Chief Brandon pulls through & makes it. I also hope the Tellem look-a-like gets infected, arrested, convicted, molested and dies.

If you look at the stripe on comicskingdom, you will find the color better and constant with the sunday’s one.

Blood!

At least I assumed it was blood and not ink. It’s more convincing in the B&Ws.

I think that’s supposed to be blood on the ledger, not ink. I really doubt Brandon was using an old-fashioned fountain pen and ink well. Sigh, another example of why the daily strips should be in B&W—whoever’s doing the coloring on the daily strips makes a number of bad choices. Leave all the artwork to Team Tracy—they know what they’re doing! What’s next? Mike’s dialogue “adjusted?” Joe’s art and Shelley’s inks “corrected?” Shane’s colors changed to be consistent with what is in the daily strips? Once you start changing what the creators have done, where do you stop? You’ve already crossed the line, so why stop there?

@Ken I think we saw Big Frost fire three times, once from his point of view and twice when we saw his face. Perhaps Chief fired at him as he was leaving, perhaps thinking the Chief was already dead.

If Brandon was so concerned about night timef intruders that he had a loaded gun at hand, how come he sat with his back to the door?

In the Sunday, Brandon IS using a fountain style pen. I hadn’t noticed that.

Blood or ink? Who can tell. Notice that the open ledger book is partially covering two stains, and then has a stain on itself, too. Some sequencing clues here?

Brandon had 30 years on the force, retired for another 60, yeah he’s old!

Man I havent been here in a month of Sundays. Ah well. Itll be that much better to read and catch up.