Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for January 23, 2012

That can’t be the drugs, that’s gray powder…

Good morning Det.DanDone and all the other DT fans…

Good Morning Marge and VB! It’s pretty bad when the colorist messes up, and the color is actually WRITTEN OUT!

Even worse than grey powder explicitly called “white powder” in the dialogue, in the Comics Kingdom version (e.g., in the Chicago Tribune), Lizz in panel 3 seems to be wearing a short black mini-skirt and high off-white/greyish boots, with lots of leg showing in between. Whereas here the goofy coloring has her wearing purplish leggings or tights with one purplish cuff and one golden, above lavender shoes! YEOOGH!

I’ve seen some coloring slip-ups in my time, but Panel 3… yeesh!I wouldn’t mind the colored strips, if the daily colorist would be consistent. That’s all I ask…

Getting out through the front door? Yeah, that’ll be easy.

Through the front door? Oh Boy. … here we go … there is going to be a lot of action here. Gun fire, hostages maybe? This just keeps getting better & better!

Or maybe the GoComics colorist is color blind. But the story and graphics are GREAT…

anyone notice putty puss’ suit changed colors too? now that lizz and lee have discovered the drug trafficking cello case, and putty puss is gonna try and make an escape thru the front door.. WHICH one will tracy go after first?

And this is why Putty Puss will never make the “Most Wanted Top 10.” As the guy whose name is over the door, he could have waltzed right out the front door with the deposit.But no, it’s “let’s find the locked door that isn’t even marked exit.” And then think of the front door when his disguise is slipping.Of course, Cueball isn’t exactly a contender for crook of the year either. But he’s sure to win “Most Likely to Become Fish Food.”

Any chance we readers can get GoComics to change their colorist – or simply get them to follow the guidelines from the Sunday strips?“Dick Tracy” is the best continuing strip out there, and it’s being mucked up by GoComics’ erratic colors.Personally, I read the strip on ComicsKingdom, then come here for the commentary.You would think GoComics would try to present the best product possible to lure readers from places like ComicsKingdom, but noooooo…

After looking at today’s “Brewster Rockit” (where Doctor Who’s London police box is colored bright red and white), I think the colorist is most likely the robot that Brewster made from a coat rack and a bucket!

@sisyphos:Sunday’s strip clearly shows that Lizz’s outfit is, as you said, mini-skirt and boots. So, using Sunday as a reference because the Sunday colorist works WITH the rest of the creative team would be a good idea. It’s also a laugh to see the powder colored, when the dialogue clearly says white, unless, as was suggested earlier,it’s in a shadow.That reminds me of the books I read as a kid, where there was an artist’s illustration of a particular scene, but the artist didn’t bother to read the text, and got the details all wrong. That used to drive me nuts!

Like the strip itself, I’m sure that the GoComics coloring is done some time in advance of the strip appearing on the website. The GoComics colorist may not have seen the Sunday strips in color before coloring the dailies.

Personally, I don’t see why TMC doesn’t have Shane color the dailies and then lease the strip to GoComics, Comic Kingdom, et. al. already colored. It seems that TMC could charge more and the websites would save a bit by not having to hire a colorist.

While I like the noir feeling of the strip in black and white, the fact is that newspapers are declining and reading on the web is more prevalent. Black and White on the web does not draw attention while color does. Eventually, color will become more of a necessity. I believe this is another example of newspapers not keeping up with technology or the changing habits of readers.

The serif “I’s” don’t seem to bother anybody but you.

I didn’t realize that comic lettering was governed by rules. I guess I didn’t get a copy of the rule book.

The major color goof today is the color of the fake Cueball’s jacket. It has always been green on the Sundays, the same as Sam’s. And as KNIGHTWATCHMAN speculated three days ago on the 20th, (check out his comments), Putty Puss, who is now regenerating, WILL BECOME SAM.

And the KNIGHTWATCHMAN speculated that it will be Tracy’s keen eye for the obvious that the non-smoking Sam is our Clayface. Great Detective Skills Mr. Knightwatchman. Who was that masked man?

The goofy and inconsistent coloring does tend to put a bit of a damper on an otherwise excellent strip.

Maybe you ought to tell Jim Scancarelli. He doesn’t follow this standard on Gasoline Alley. He uses upper and lower case lettering rather than all caps.I guess he is not PROFESSIONAL.

Like I said, it doesn’t bother anybody but you.

There is a simple solution to the coloring snafus; BLACK AND WHITE!!!!!

PLEASE!

btw for the record.. i kinda find putty puss’ nervous tic somewhat annoying, lol

They speak for themselves and I haven’t heard anybody mention it but you.

Who else does it bother? Why do you believe that the Tracy team is obliged to use the DC style manual? I imagine that Shelly uses Illustrator or some similar program to ink the strip electronically. I would also imagine that the lettering is laid in using a font rather than hand lettering. I am just surprised that as an artist yourself, you are so rigid that you cannot allow for a different artist’s personal style in presenting the dialogue. So, believe what you want. I suggest that you write to Tribune Media Services and tell them that you believe the letterer on Dick Tracy should be aware of the DC style manual if they are working on a PROFESSIONAL comic strip as you stated. I’m satisfied with the way it is now and yours is the only complaint I have heard or read on this subject. I have nothing else to say about this.

As Ray Toler stated Shelley Pleger is using a font to letter the strip. The font has serifs on the capital “I” so the “I’s” in words likeCRIMESTOPPERS and SPIKE are capitalized and have a serif. All BOLDED text is also treated as capitalized. The lower case “I” also has bad padding to the right, so it sometimes looks like it isn’t there at all. Shelley has a special padding character she uses just to fix that. This problem is most noticeable in the word “Railroad” where unless you zoom it pretty large you can’t tell the “I” is there at all. The font has been approved for use in the strip, and will continue to be used.

For the record, the serif controversy doesn’t bother me. I say let the SERIFS STAY.As far as INDUSTRY STANDARDS. If the standards don’t change in comics (or anything else for that matter) nothing would not evolve, move forward, and/or improve.

All this stuff about serifs is interesting to me, because I am a printer and very interested in type styles. However, there ARE other examples of well known, highly successful comic strips which break tradition on this point. My best example would be the way Harold Gray (or his staff) lettered Little Orphan Annie. He used a slightly serifed style for ALL the letters in the descriptive boxes at the top of his panels. So what? That made Little Orphan Annie distinct; it gave the strip a “look” that added to the mood of the story.

So the stories are better now but the coloring is bad. Oh well, I guess we can’t have everything!

Well Matthew, you know they’re doing that on purpose just to mess with you. I’d quit reading it if I were you.

Ask for an opinion? Sounded like an observable fact to me!