Roberto,
Let me not leave the impression that Kilian and Locher never produced some good Dick Tracy work, or some top rate villains. For example they had No Face (‘93), Dab Stract (original version -‘95), Smirk (‘01), Snails (‘01) and Beau Tox ‘02). Add to that several passable creations. But 40% were so weak they smacked of “no real creative effort” (a sort of, “any old thing” will do”) and were never of a quality to be in Dick Tracy.
In this respect, today’s Clown face is (in my cynical view), effectively Locher taking a “creative holiday”. Nice dodge if you can do it. “Time”, and the debilitating effect of TWO jobs !
Locher IS (was?) highly gifted in villan designs, WHEN he put his “mind and focus” to it. His real strength ! Problem is he had too many time consuming interests including his Political cartoons, where he made his professional mark. But these also served as distactions away from the full focus needed for Dick Tracy. TMS restrictions never made the job easier and some will make out, THAT was the whole problem. NOT so ! Collins had to work with similar reigns but was flexible enough to work well around them.
Chet Gould’s writing format was consistently - Early Crime, Chase and Capture ! Kilian never grasped that formula. His 12 week stories were (usually) – build a story platform for eight to nine weeks, have a crime, a one week chase then capture or death. The heart of Gould’s stories lay in a long CHASE sequences. movement, narrow escapes, changing visual scenery (often out in the country-side), gripping death traps. Kilian’s stories never had that visual variety or propelling physical action.
Locher who had the advantage of working with, and seeing how both Gould and Collins structured their stories, chose instead, to pattern his own writing style after the worst writer of the three - Mike Kilian. And we now see it all culminating in a peak of dullness in the current Circus story. And this one is special, it’s further embellished with Locher’s unique “package” of careless contradictions.
I’ll leave with a quote from Kilian on his initial thinking and approach –
“We have deliberately inserted some ‘extremely serious themes’ into the program … hate crimes …. frightening car jacking …. but didn’t think we could approach the story as something cute and colorful. So the old style villains had to take a back seat on that one”
That was the passage that implied he was writing an Editorial, and not a comic strip for entertainment. His first two stories were all that, AND that’s when the “rot” set in.
Roberto, Let me not leave the impression that Kilian and Locher never produced some good Dick Tracy work, or some top rate villains. For example they had No Face (‘93), Dab Stract (original version -‘95), Smirk (‘01), Snails (‘01) and Beau Tox ‘02). Add to that several passable creations. But 40% were so weak they smacked of “no real creative effort” (a sort of, “any old thing” will do”) and were never of a quality to be in Dick Tracy. In this respect, today’s Clown face is (in my cynical view), effectively Locher taking a “creative holiday”. Nice dodge if you can do it. “Time”, and the debilitating effect of TWO jobs !
Locher IS (was?) highly gifted in villan designs, WHEN he put his “mind and focus” to it. His real strength ! Problem is he had too many time consuming interests including his Political cartoons, where he made his professional mark. But these also served as distactions away from the full focus needed for Dick Tracy. TMS restrictions never made the job easier and some will make out, THAT was the whole problem. NOT so ! Collins had to work with similar reigns but was flexible enough to work well around them.
Chet Gould’s writing format was consistently - Early Crime, Chase and Capture ! Kilian never grasped that formula. His 12 week stories were (usually) – build a story platform for eight to nine weeks, have a crime, a one week chase then capture or death. The heart of Gould’s stories lay in a long CHASE sequences. movement, narrow escapes, changing visual scenery (often out in the country-side), gripping death traps. Kilian’s stories never had that visual variety or propelling physical action.
Locher who had the advantage of working with, and seeing how both Gould and Collins structured their stories, chose instead, to pattern his own writing style after the worst writer of the three - Mike Kilian. And we now see it all culminating in a peak of dullness in the current Circus story. And this one is special, it’s further embellished with Locher’s unique “package” of careless contradictions.
I’ll leave with a quote from Kilian on his initial thinking and approach – “We have deliberately inserted some ‘extremely serious themes’ into the program … hate crimes …. frightening car jacking …. but didn’t think we could approach the story as something cute and colorful. So the old style villains had to take a back seat on that one”
That was the passage that implied he was writing an Editorial, and not a comic strip for entertainment. His first two stories were all that, AND that’s when the “rot” set in.