Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for September 24, 2009

Maybe the tiger will escape and do the clown in. I think Tracy’s falling asleep. Wonder what the audience thinks about what is going on right in front of their eyes.

Love that tiger! You’d better laugh clown, and join the rest of us out here who laugh ourselves silly at this nonsense.

How many people can one tiger eat at one sitting??

Panel One:

Enough talk? I beg to differ! Let’s have another month of talking before anything happens!

Panel Two:

More card references, Tracy? Have you forgotten which story arc we’re in?

Unless…

Maybe Mr. Pops really is Big Ace or the King of Clubs?

Also:

The expression on kitty’s face has changed. He actually does look like he’d be interested in eating somebody.

You know, in the old days it used to be harder to get the drop on Dick Tracy. Now you just stand there while he talks and talks and then you pull a gun on him. At a crime scene. Next to someone you’ve said is under 24 hour protection. In a clown suit. While he’s standing next to an FBI agent who knows you’re actually a vengeance-seeking ex-con working alongside someone in your witness protection program, but forgot to mention it while standing around there talking to Dick. And also standing next to the target of your vengeance, who said he thought you were friends, but apparently never realized you were also the person he blew the whistle on at his old job, before the witness protection program gave him a new identity working in front of hundreds of people. And now you’re going to stage a scene where a cop, an FBI agent, and someone in the witness protection program are eaten by a tiger at a crime scene and everyone will think it was an accident.

MAN, is this some great writing!

And if Louise Trapeze was a hired gun after Ringo, why did the clown kill her anyway?

Panel 1 “Enough talk”. We’ve been saying that for weeks.Didn’t the bird gang (remember them?) have a tiger? Didn’t that plan end rather badly? “He’s holding all the cards, Ringo!” No, no, no. No more cards puns, Tracy. That was your last absurd outing. This is a whole new mess. How does the clown know the tiger will attack or eat anyone? Isn’t it likely to just run off or refuse to leave its cage? Possible outcome: the clown gets killed, Tracy disguises himself in clown make up in an impossibly short time to trick the other gang members…

jumbobrain professional jealousy…

I’m just kinda wondering what happened to oh I don’t know, how bout ALL THE COPS AT THE CRIME SCENE? Sorry, I feel better now that I got that out of my system. I think I’ll stick with my volume of Classic DT for the forseable future.

I actually think Mattie, with his circus train full of nuances, could do a better job. As far as Tony-the-Tiger goes, it sits up and jumps through hoops for a living. It’s a stretch to expect it to eat a bunch of cops. Remember Agent Hot-body Ennin still has her piece in her purse.

Enough talk? I’m agree with the clown.

Tiger, tiger cut and paste Lord this strip has become a waste Boring script, questionable art Were does one really start We had hopes (we really did) Maybe this time they wouldn’t kid Circus freaks, deadly trapeze On these things we eagerly seized Tracys there to see a crime Oh the possibilities were sublime A pig on wheels, elephant foo Surely the writer knew what to do Then the days came to pass With Tracy just sitting on his bleeep Day passed into another day Much to our great dismay Characters came and characters went All inside that stinking tent Where was the detective we all knew Sadly he’s mired in this goo That has become our daily fair Causing us to pull our hair Evil in the guise of a clown Will he put old Tracy down Ever so slowly we twist in the wind Looking forward for this to end.

Yep, I have a plan. All I have to do is quietly get Tracy, Ringo, and Miss FBI into the tiger cage and they will all eventually end up as tiger turds. Then, I take off my makeup and nonchalantly walk past the fifty cops surrounding the circus who won’t hear a thing or suspect a thing.

“Laugh, Clown, Laugh”? Oy!

Sidney. I think Brozman is improved in the last weeks. Are you agree?

That is an EXCELLENT tiger drawing.

Too bad the rest is garbage. Apparently, the entire tent has been emptied and they all know this without looking.

Lame, so very lame.

Tracy is falling asleep and so are we. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ………………………….

Carlo - Yes, Brozman’s art is getting better but still too much black face. has been used lately.

Well Said Jumbobrain!!!

Check out this banner image that’s being used at the Comics Curmudgeon:

http://joshreads.com/images/09/09/Banners/ClownB.png

Too funny!

“He’s Holding All The Cards Ringo !”

NOT REALLY ! Tracy (read “Locher”), called in a heavily armed Police Squad (8-27-09) to provide PROTECTION for ALL in the Circus. So where are they when Mr. Pops pulls the GUN ?

Seems big BOSS Locher squeezed the “Matrix pack” and before you realized it one whole part of the story changed so it would look as if that (now inconvenient) Police Squad had never ever been there

Then Homicide arrived (8-07-09), and big surprise, it was Teevo,. But before the neophyte could even utter a word, like saying he was no longer in “communications”, or even listen to Ringo’s story, Locher gave him the Punjab ‘blanket’ treatment and he immediately dissapeared

Tracy could have turned the Wrist Geenee to transmit mode to quietly alert Chief Lizz to his plight. But, Big Boss Locher knew Tracy had a “Secret Weapon”. Question is would he remember it or FORGET it ?

A look at the past might be a good indicator. But we worry, Big Boss Locher is a FORGETTING Man. Let’s see –

2008 Against Baskerville’s Hounds - As a defence he used T-Bone steaks Instead.

2008 Against Braces’ robot Magnum Force (gone wild), revolver bullets bounced off, he dived in a hedge Instead !

2009 Or, to disarm Angelorious - burning caustic perfume in her eyes Instead

2009 One Eye Jack (?) “SECRET WEAPON” not used. He’d rather King of Clubs shoot Jack in the back Instead !

The SECRET WEAPON is a TASER GUN afixed to Tracy’s Wrist Geenee (see 7-13-05 - Shaman story) afixed to his Wrist Geenee

CHOICES (?) A) Disarm Mr. Pops and hancuff him. B) Later, thake down the Tiger in his cage and call in a fresh Police Squad C) Later, fire the man who removed the forst squad. Who’s that ? “Forgetting” cousin Dicky Locher !

Sydney,

Thank you for the references of the “good villain design” from the Killian and Locher era. I will check the earlier strips available - or at least Smirk (‘01), Snails (‘01) and Beau Tox ‘02 - that are available in the earlier GENIUS strips.

Today’s Clown face is a creative disaster - and yes, I agree it is probably due to bad payment, old age and two jobs. Not that I think that old age can be detrimental to artistic creation (Just look at Franz Liszt, Matisse, Dalí or José Saramago)… but something is really stale in this strip.

And personally, I don’t think Brozman is getting better:

The art is inconsistent, poor and uneven. For example: the tiger is not drawn in the same style of the rest of the characters, and as it was placed in a single panel, it almost looks pasted from another comic.

We were talking about how strange a “Realistic” Dick Tracy looks - if everything is stylized, why do we need a “Realistic” tiger in the strip? Just to distract the reader?

Until now the tiger has not contributed to the action, besides looking like he was listening to the conversation and had something to say. Why do I need to look at the tiger when Ringo and Tracy should be the “actors” (even if the “action” is just verbal?)

The clown and other details are inconsistent from day to day - and I see lots of amateurish mistakes:

There is no depth in the drawing (everything looks like a 2-dimensional stage - no perspective Point of view is always the same (the view angle barely changes and all we see are just heads, not even body language) Figures are not correctly placed/planned in the composition of the scene (why the gun was cropped in the first panel? - is it not relevant to the action?) The little perspective that is shown, is freaky (like the gun in the first panel of the Sept 21 strip)

Please, read the first page of the “COMIC STRIP ARTIST’S KIT” and check how many of the “common errors” are made with the art in this strip: http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1250/2135/1600/page1.0.jpg

If someone is interested in the complete document, it can be found here: http://sevencamels.blogspot.com/2006/09/comic-strip-artists-kit-redux.html

Roberto, To complete all he has to do in a day (Tracy, Political Cartoons, sculpture etc, requires a rationing of TIME, Only so many hours a day for Dick Tracy, Not enough “THOUGHTFULL” energy on story building aspects to get real “quality”. Gould gave it a full 100%. Living it, breathing it, dreaming it. A lack of time to make that extreme degree of commitment is the insidious factor at play allowing all those laughable contradictions to further ruin Locher’s presentations

And you have to wonder IF he really cares anymore ?.

Yesterday afternoon DONNIE TEVAULT in assesing the quality of this story speculated that Dick Locher and Jim Brozman might, like the Elephant be “working for peanuts” for producing Dick Tracy.

You have to take that as a strong possibility given the fact that it’s only a paltry 50 newspapers pulling the whole show.

My concern immediately went over to Mattie as he has bee parading on the board that he might, just might (by choosing NOT to deny it outright)

He said he’d been doing some gun “inking” And that naturally set us all up to thinking As a little Assistant dude, you working for nothing ? Shakels ? or only Peanut Shells (?) – we worrying !

Man cannot live by “bread” alone, but heck, he still needs the “bread” !

Maxine…that was cute! Comics Curmudgeon must keep up with DT. (crunch, crunch) Popcorn? :)

Sydney,

I really think he just doesn’t care anymore. Which is sad. But then, if political cartooning and sculpture and such helps him earn more money, why would he care about details or originality in Dick Tracy ?

By the way, what happened with Dick Tracy’s son? I remember reading somewhere something about a legal problem about using him on the strip because of Max Collins? It was a long time ago - and I couldn’t find the information anymore. I think it was related to the end of the “Collins Casefiles” books - that I started collecting, and then they ended.

Thanks Roberto. The link was awesome.

JanCinVV,

My pleasure, glad you liked it. This is one of my “personal bibles for comic creation” - too bad Locher and Brozman are not aware of the content of the document!! :(

You may well wonder who the clown is speaking to when he says, “Laugh, clown, laugh!” I figured it out. The clown is halfway through disguising himself as a different clown. He’s put on one glove and stuck star stickers on one sleeve, but he hasn’t done the other side yet. (That’s why all this talktalktalk with the people he is about to murder. That might appear pointless, but it does have a purpose: to gain time to disguise himself.) So, right at the moment his right half is disguised as a different clown but his left half is still the original clown – and his disguise is SO GOOD that even he himself is fooled! He thinks there are two clowns in there! So he’s telling the OTHER clown, “Laugh, clown, laugh!”

As soon as he finishes disguising himself he will walk his three prisoners out of the tent within a tent at gunpoint – out of the tent within a tent and over to the tiger cage! The cops swarming all around will pay no attention because they will think he’s a different clown. He will force his prisoners into the tiger cage. The tiger will eat all three of them. He is a very hungry tiger. However, he is not hungry enough to eat four people! So he will not eat the clown, or eat any of the policemen (not counting either Dick Tracy or that FBI agent as policemen – obviously they are not policemen; they are idiots).

-Cougar :{)

Leave Dick Tracy alone! He is doing the best he can with his 50 I.Q. !

Jumbobrain, Mr, Pops didn’t kill Louise Trapeze. Someone else in the Circus did. The “thriller” is the motive. I think even Locher surprised himself with that one ! The killer’s identity will be introduced in this talkathon (phase 2) next week Friday.

Tracy, right now has a “secret weapon” that could end. this all in seconds Locher knows but won’t use it. He takes an easier way out ! The mind doesn’t seem agile enough to write interestingly with that one !

One other hilarious item is how a “hit woman” goes to a Circus and “fakes” it as a trapeze artist ? It’s not even revealed. exactly who hired her to kill Ringo.

The whole story is a barrel of loose nuts and bolts. Nothing coherent, nothing fitting orderly togteher. It has all the blurred fingerprints of an unsure man going to his desk each morning and asking - “Well, let’s see now - what will I make happen today (?)”

If Mattie were to later do Dick Tracy he could use a Locher cartooned face with larger (puzzled) eyes as a model. Name suggestion - “Fuzzybrain” Loco.

And remender to draw him with head slightly bowed - to reflect shame.

Free tip Mattie ! You’d be in good company. Remember Big Frost and Pearshape ?

Nevertheless, Dick Tracy has a writer and artist and it’s still a crappy strip. Schulz did almost fifty years of Peanuts without even one assistant, and I believe the same was true of Bill Watterson. It’s not about the number of hands, it’s about the competence of the hands. Or in this case the incompetence.

Hm, it seems the link I posted earlier is now broken.

Or could it have been … eaten?

http://joshreads.com/images/09/09/Banners/Escaped%20Tiger.png

jumbobrain,

That was precisely the example I was going to say! Watterson never used an assistant and always managed to create fantastic, wonderful strips! I assumed Shulz also did, but I was not sure!

“Holding All the Cards”?

Thought Tracy was holding the - Ace of Spades ?

beautiful tiger :3