Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for January 24, 2010

They’re not likely to forget it anytime soon.

This is tha bomb, yo!

Great Crimestopper’s:

“Hi, it’s me, Flight Suit! Yeah listen, I unexpectedly ran out of violins in the middle of my concerto, so I have to run back out to the music store. I just wanted someone to know where I’ll be. You know, like, in case I fall victim to a crime while I’m shopping for violins.”

lmao@Flight Suit.

Too many puns! My head is going to

EXPLODE!!

‘Morning Flight Suit and leetle Roseann!

That was the name of my band…….The Exploding Heads………………how is your back doing Aunt Marg??

OMG, it’s morning already!? I musta over-slept!

Ambassador looks like he borrowed the Doorman’s uniform with every Boy Scout merit badge he could get his hands on.

Speaking of maladies………my stomach is in my throat. We have a major ball game tomorrow, and I’m a wee bit edgy. Fingers crossed please.

Phil Harmonic looks like he should be a member of The Blue Circle.

leakysqueaky712 basketball? Good luck!

It strikes me that yet again, Dick Tracy is doing pretty much nothing in his own comic strip. After standing around in the circus all summer, he’s done nothing in this story except go to a concert, ask the maestro if he wants to press charges against his son, and get invited to the reception. It’s just so very BORING.

Locher doesn’t let readers know his little secrets, but how does Virgil KNOW that the Ambassador of Cassabooboo (sorry, Cambastan) is having a function and also exactly who will be providing musical entertaiment ? Which instruments will be used (?) known, so well before hand, that he shells out $2.0 mil in advance to get the Strad to “electrify” it ? And how can *he* know that the Strad will find it’s way to the Ambassador’s function ?

Hopelessly inept writing! These are the “pitfalls” (contradictions) that arise when an Author apparently has other priorities and his stories are made up from day to day without much advance “thought” on outcomes and scant consideration on how events are logically arrived at.

It would seem that Locher now stands guilty of having wandered away from home without advising his wife of his destination, now apparently lost and revealing a strong stench of incompetence!

Since Locher started writing the strip he has had 2 stories with “terrorist bombers”. Al Kinda (2006) and Gretchen Von Klu Meister (2007). Significantly, both were tales which carried Tracy to Washington DC. And, here we are now with a new one that some suspect is also “terrorist” related. But it comes charged with a new contradiction - the Embassy is not located in Washington DC, but rather somehow in Tracy’s home town, which for years Locher has clearly stamped as in Naperville IL.

No Aunt Marg, football. NFC championship. And I will be at the game. I cant sleep now. dang.

Perhaps this is really all happening in a “small town” after all (as RayC speculated). Which might help to explain a lot of puzzeling factors in the plot outlined earlier.

A town so small that they have only TWO Violins. The “Strad” and the “back-up” one at Symphony Hall … so then it becomes a good “guess” by Virgil that the Ambassador must for his Gala event use the only String Quartet within a 200 mile radius.

But then, that assumption has a setback. If there are only 2 violins in town, why pay $2.0 mil for a $12.0 million dollar asset and then risk destroying it ? Keep it, and “electrify” the cheaper one - which the Quartet will then be forced to use ! Makes better commercial sense. Not so?

All things considered Virgil must be the worst gambler in town to let a $10.0 mil “after profit” slip through his fingers like that. That’s the real “Low note” in the whole plan. Good thing he’s in Naperville and not Las Vegas.

Tigger may well have been right yesterday. Perhaps Locher has been spending too many late nights watching Maxwell Smart old bomb “reruns” on TMC instead of focusing on working up “believable” Dick Tracy plots for TMS

Seems we may have some commonality here, his Virgil - the worst gambler in town and Locher the worst …… ?? in town ?

Let me get this straight: The ambassador is located in Naperville, and he’s throwing a gala event in town when Chicago is only thirty miles away and has much better venues, not to mention being the location of most of the area embassies?

It can’t be cheaper rents, Naperville is fairly expensive. It can’t be better police protection, first because most embassies provide their own security and second because, in these stories, Naperville employs Dick Tracy as a detective which should automatically eliminate Naperville from consideration.

Michael McMillan: it’s even worse than that. There are no embassies in Chicago; at most there are consulates, which are service locations (visas, passport issues, dealing with problems that visitors have), not diplomatic stations. The embassies are all in Washington.

The only reason I can think of for the “ambassador” (who, again should be no higher than “consul” if he’s outside Washington) to have a party in Nurpleburg is that he’s bringing all the guests in by private jet, through Pate Philip Interational Airport.

Hey, Puddleglum! ACORN has its head embassy in Chicago. Ask Rahm.

Thanks puddleglum, you expressed to point clearly. In particular that outside of WashingtonDC (the Capitol, where the Ambassador is stationed) all other representations in the country are Consulates.

As I’m sure you know, the premisies of an Embassy (and Consulates) are soverign territory of the Ambassador’s country. And as Michael rightly noted they have their own Security. Local police, the FBI and other agencies have no ”locus standi” whatsoever, on what is in effect “foriegn” territory.

It was surprising therefore to note last Sunday that Chief Lizz arranged Tracy’s invitation to the function as “added security”. It would be ludicrus for Tracy to attempt to go there to secure anything, or “packing heat”. Unless he plans to stand outside the gate

Let’s see what happens this coming week

Locher has forgotten that violins doesn’t solve anything.

Speaking as a Cambastanian-American, I am shocked and disappointed that Sydney would stoop to using the deeply offensive ethnic slur, “Cassabooboo,” in referring to my nationality and people.

I may just have to write a letter to the embassy about this.

Flight Suit said, “I may just have to write a letter to the embassy about this.”

Better do it before Half Note gets there with the violin!

We had dinner with my son and his wife today. She is a superb violinist. I was describing the Tracy plot to her, and when I got to the part about the screwdriver, she laughed so hard I was afraid she’s hurt herself. “Just so we don’t bomb.” A foreshadowing? A red herring?

Leakysqueaky: Third quarter, and Peyton is really feelin’ it. I’m sure you’re enjoying the game.

Joe, Best laugh of the day. He pretty much stays on topic, though. ;-)

Yeah, when he’s denigrating my people!

Leaky, good game so far!

It’s going to be a night with something for everyone! There’ll be rock music! There’ll be classical music! There’s even gonna be a father-son floor show spectacular!!!