Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for November 18, 2012

The PENGUIN!

Okay, which one is the evil twin?

Good morning everyone…

This is the best yet from our team!!!!!

Broadway Bates – 1932Belle – 1932

Oh Blimey!!! This just keeps getting better and better!

Even if we never see the Penguin again (how great is it that he’s only in silhouette & never speaks), this is still THE best crossover ever!

HOLY GENRE BLENDERS BATMAN!The Dynamic Duo and Dick Tracy?Stay tuned.

I stayed up late to get a glimpse of today’s strip. This is some seriously cool stuff. Blimey is right, Dick Tracy is unbelievably fun to read these days.

Back To Chicago!

Somebody complained yesterday about re-introducing another old villain that they hadn’t heard about before. #1: Look him up! Google any info, if you are that flummoxed by this! #2: Broadway Bates is now being given a fresh introduction as the Penguin’s brother! Run with it & enjoy the ride!

Still anxious to see Moon Maid again but D@#^ if this isn’t some fine entertainment.

I’m sure that both Mike & Joe have been in the “comics” business long enough to have developed a great many friends & contacts that they would be able to do what they are doing with Oswald. I don’t think we need to worry about any legalities. Once again, let’s all just enjoy the ride!

This could be the start of an interesting story, but what happened to Dick Tracy’s checking out tales of Moonmaid sightings? That story seems to have ended before it began.

I’ll be damned if Broadway Bates real surname isn’t Cobblepot . . .

Since the Penguin had apparently killed his brothers, they should have been cousins, but, w/e

Wow! Some serious retconning here! Love the Penguin in silhouette, in Gotham City, and his [newly coined] brother, Broadway Bates, anxious to get back to his hometown [“Tracyville”/Chicago]—where he no doubt will somehow come under the scrutiny of Cops Who Don’t Wear Capes (but do wear yellow fedoras and trenchcoats)!

This is a great “tip of the hat” (top & otherwise) to Kane, Sprang, & Robinson!

Bat Tracey…

The Penguin???

Vintage villains galore! Who today wears a monocle and smokes with a cigarette holder? How quaint! How can an exquisitely thirties villain fit in today’s cell-phone Internet and Ipad world?

…Or smokes at all, come to think of it.

Where’s Haf-and-Haf & Two-Face?

If the team is going down The Brave & The Bold route, I’d rather it was along the lined of the more recent non-Batman exclusive series. Would’ve loved to have seen Joe drawing Plastic Man again!

Leaving town is crooked Broadway Bates Sky light signals being what he hates That and cops with masks and capes Makes him long overdue for a swift escape. Yet where he’s headed, this familiar city, sports a crime fighter both mysterious and pretty. She wears her own special cape and mask, a Maiden most formidable, up to any task. So come on with it, Bates from Broadway, just don’t assume that you’ll have things your way. A fancy monocle and cigarette holder won’t be any help once you behold her. The stage is set for a clash of wills: anticipation grows for breath-taking thrills.

Relatives of Batman crooks dealing with Dick Tracy? Holy crossover, Batman!

How cool that Team Tracy have made them brothers and have given us a Penguin cameo. I seem to recall reading that Kane modeled Penguin after Gould’s Bates (tho I don’t think Kane ever admitted it). In any case, it’s great to see Bates’ return — after 80 years!

Broadway Bates appeared in 1932. Batman did not make his first appearance until 1939 (Detectrives 27) with Penguin appearing in 1941 (Detectives 58). So Bates is the older of the two characters.

If there is a “copyright violation”, it would be on the part of Bob Kane, who copied from Bates, not the other way around.

However, since the character remains in the shadows, never speaks, and is not names, it is not a copyright violation, but a “parody” of the character. This is what allows things like Mad magazine and SNL to use copyrighted characters with violating the law.

As for the relationship between Oswald and Broadway, it is true that the Penguin killed all his siblings. But since the Penguin is surnamed Cobblepot and Broadway is surnamed Bates, they most be (at best) half-siblings and could even be step-silbings sharing no blood. Thus Oswald did not include him in his murderous spree.

Having said all that, people, remember that this is a comic strip. Do not take it that seriously (LOL)

Love what Mike and Joe are doing. Looking forward to the December 23rd promised “big event”. (Could it be MM gatecrashing the traditional Tracy family Christmas??)

One more trivia fact for you. Burgess Meredith, who played the Penguin on the 60’s Batman show,was a non-smoker. So he made them get him the largest cigarette holder they could find to keep the smoke away from him.

Dick Tracy is my favorite comic strip, and Batman is my favorite superhero. So this is the best of all worlds for me. Booyah!

Yet again, Team Tracy top themselves!And as for legalities, just remember, Broadway is calling Oswald his brother. Hence, Oswald is really Oswald BATES. No copyright infringement there!To quote Black Jack – “Woo Hoo! It’s Dick Tracy!”

Good Morning Caped and Cowled Detectives!Today’s homage brought to you by Mike & Joe, the Jokers!

Has Joe Staton ever drawn The Penguin? Maybe as part of DC’s late 80’s Millennium cross-over event?

Broadway Bates is the only one alive of the great villains of the very first years, prior to the Arson Gang story. Big Boy, Stooge Viller, Spaldoni, Jimmy White , Doc Hump, Boss Herrod and Kenneth Grebb are all dead, Steve the Tramp has reformed, and Larceny lu must be dead, too. Come to think of it, the then major had penguinesque traits. And The Penguin, if I recall, in the Batman movie, at last, was a malformed infabnt abandoned to die by his parents, and raised by, you got it, penguins! Broadway Betes wasn’t malformed at all!

My morning coffee and a Batman crossover. What could be better?

OMG! What a way to wake up in the morning! Mike this introduction of Broadway is sheer genius! As coming from a BIG Batman fan, I thank you!!!

Damn this is fun. Just when I think Dick Tracy can’t get any better, Curtis and Staton outdo themselves again.

not impressed

Whaaah whaaah whaaah! Burgess Merideth was just featured on STeve McGary’s TRIVQUIZ earlier in the week.

I wonder how many people are still around that remember the Broadway Bates story from February 25th, 1932?

Well, many of us have the IDW reprints, I think. But Broadway Bates was called “Broadway” because of his links with New York’s Briadway, and teathre show Biz? I must reread the story. But I think he should change outfit and appearances, as he is is good for a Broadway piece set in the Thirties.

So Broadway Bates is Penguin’s brother? How did that happen? I’d love to see someone explain that!

Well in fairness I was trying to explain to my wife about Groovey Groove the hippie policeman and couldn’t find a picture of him anywhere on the web. And I never heard of this guy either. But DANG, I am enjoying Dick Tracy these days.

What a pleasure to see Shane’s coloring. If only the weekday strip was done as well.Joe, Mike, Shelley, Shane and Jim … -THANK YOU!

@JumboBrainhttp://dicktracy.wikia.com/wiki/Groovy_GroveThere’s also an entry on our Mr. Bates.

When are we going to see Alec Tron, Nova Kane and Michael Mauser?

Back where cops wear yellow raincoats.

I know I’m late to the party, and this has been said already, but OMG HOW COOL IS THIS??? Another crossover AND the return of another villain from yesteryear! I think it’s great that there has been mention of the Broadway Bates/ Penguin connection here even before the start of this storyline, and I love how Joe and Mike decide to address it. This is really terrific stuff! Team Tracy can do no wrong in my eyes.

Guess I’m in the minority here, but this doesn’t feel quite right to me. I have been a big supporter of Mike and Joe’s work, I’ve been a Dick Tracy fan for years, and a life- long Batman fan, but this just doesn’t quite fit. I feel that costumed super heroes just don’t fit in Dick Tracy’s more “realistic” (although populated by a fantastic looking rouges gallery of grotesques) world. Also not a fan of the retrofitting of the back stories of Broadway Bates and the Penguin. Anyway… not here to complain or snark, but this just isn’t my cup of tea.

Rogues Gallery:

http://mikelynchcartoons.blogspot.com/2009/06/200-characters-from-dick-tracy-1931.html

I have to wonder if Mike hit across Broadway Bates (and the idea for this story) while researching last year’s 80th anniversary – Dick Tracy’s origin – story.

..Love it…

So, are is Moon Maid just being dropped without resolution?

Me too, Gweedo. I’m not sure if it’s the mystery about her identity or that sizzling outfit or just seeing her again after all these years that has me so pumped for her story (probably all those things). But I’ve never in my life been so revved up about a Dick Tracy story as I am for Moon Maid’s. And judging from the comments here I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one.

While the homage is cute the problem is Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot (the Penguin’s full name) has ALWAYS been shown as an ONLY child and despite the continuity nightmare the New-52 Batman is (Five Robin’s in five years?! DC just WHAT are you smoking?!?) there is nothing to say that has changed.

While not everyone makes the distinction, I would call this a pastiche (having no satirical intent) rather than a parody (generally considered to be satirical in nature). See the wikipedia article for a discussion of the issues involved in either one:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parody

We’ve had a lot of these tip-of-the-hat moments since Mike and Joe took over – character names,characters from former and current Tribune strips appearing, but there’s a point where it can be over-done, and the strip just hit it.

The writing is still top notch beyond that.

Dick Tracy and Batman ARE in the same universe, or is it Multiverse. The mind reels…..

Leaving town is crooked Broadway Bates

Sky light signals being what he hates.

That and cops with masks and capes

He’s overdue for a swift escape.

Yet where he’s headed, this familiar city

Sports a crime fighter both mysterious and pretty.

She wears her own special cape and mask

a Maiden most formidable, up to any task.

So come on with it, Bates from Broadway,

just don’t assume that you’ll have things your way.

A fancy monocle and cigarette holder

won’t be any help once you behold her.

The stage is set for a clash of wills

anticipation grows for breath-taking thrills.