Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for July 24, 2014

Good morning fellow DT and Annie fans!

Things are looking grim for Paulo. I think Punjab might have to step in and save him.

Morning, Vista Bill! Hmmmm……I know this is a comic, but the coincidence of this meeting is really stretching it, lol. I’m really enjoying the story, although it seems more like Little Orphan Annie than Dick Tracy at this point…..

Paulo is about to meet his doom…..

Good morning fans. Will help arrive in time?

I’m thinking this has the makings of a great screenplay. Does anybody know if Warren Beatty still owns the rights to Tracy? Or is he a free agent?

Paulo, Henrik, Asp, Punjab. All together now.Who do think you has the lowest life expectancy? Or, another approach: which thug would have the most intel of value to offer to the Special Methods of Interrogation of the two friends of Annie?

Didn’t the informant have some kind of heart attack at the station a week or so ago? Did I miss something during then & now?

Speaking as a long time fan of both Dick Tracy and Annie, I really think this is the best comic strip arc I have read in a very long time.

Yesterday, tsull2121 in his ’ critique ’ of the current DT writing STYLE - observed . . .

" . . . agree or disagree I don’t really care, but it would be NICE if the stories didn’t jump all over the place and leave other stories hanging.

Maybe one of these days we’ll get a story that’s allowed to run straight thru, from beginning to end - without “cutaway scenes” that build up to the next story running thru them."

Perhaps you haven’t read a Tarzan novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs ?

The first tale was “Tarzan of the Apes” (1912) and in the series some 23 further full-length books APPEARED Happily, I’ve read most of them !

One thing a new reader noted almost immediately was the superb skill the Author used by Chapters end, to have a tense, critical situation, and most (I for one) . . . could hardly wait to ‘flip the page’ to read the new chapter to see HOW the character survived / escaped ! And then came - the DISSAPOINTMENT !

Chapter 2 went ’ somewhere else ‘, like a completely new story, (different characters) Yet, one in which you would soon become equally involved, only to find that at Chapters end there would be yet another crisis - AND Chapter 3 would then open with the solution to the problem from back in Chapter 1 ! Chapter 2’s crisis scenario, would be addressed in Chapter 4 !*

It’s a scenario that would be repeated in chapter after chapter, and putting aside one’s initial ’irritation*, you eventually realized it was a BRILLIANT story writing technique. Hard to put the book down ! !

I’m going to guess that Mike’s read these books too, perhaps with a similar experience (?) - and give credit, was ASTUTE enough - to ’ borrow ’ part of the technique to keep readers like us in DT (on occasion), possibly annoyed ? But still firmly " hooked ", waiting - impatiently for the Answers ! ? ;- )

I’d think, it’s a part of the reason we have so many readers commenting here ! ??

Another day of stellar art as the tension mounts. There are two major arcs in this story: Thunder Island and Tracyville. On Thunder Island we have Annie and Tracy. Axel is a villain who is very interested in the progress of Kenyon’s work. In Tracyville we have the MCU and Asp & Punjab: two main threads of the Tracyville arc. The MCU is working with Warbucks, whose ward has been abducted. The MCU, led by Sam Catchem, is focused on finding Tracy and Annie. Asp and Punjab are working on their own, unfettered by traditional law enforcement constraints. They have located the escaped informant, Paulo, and, by happy coincidence, the infamous “Butcher of the Balkans.” Diet Smith’s current R+D focus may or may not play a role in this case. Smith is questioned by Catchem because he has Tracy’s Wrist Wizard. Alas, Smith can shed no light on Tracy’s whereabouts. .Looking over the crossover, we see approximately five days or so spent on each arc as the story shifts back and forth. I don’t find these transitions confusing or jarring, simply the result of a story complex and rich enough to include many characters and locations. I find the twists and turns captivating.

The Butcher is working for Axel too—but he doesn’t think its 1944. Interesting….I think this means there’s a mass hypnosis on the island, and not time travel…

One two three fourdid I tell you not to talkfive six seven eight nine tenI’ll kill youA B C DYou never should have betrayed meE F G H I JI’ll kill youAll together nowZZZzzzz. LOL!

Really like today’s installment, especially the art.The pupil-less eyes glowing from a shadow is a very effective image.-—It makes sense that Henrik would be looking for Paulo. Find out what he told the police, before a final good-bye.

I must agree with Pequod77 that I consider this superb writing.

The problem is that we only get 3 panels per day. I believe that the most celebrated, page-turning novel would seem slow and plodding if one only read 3 paragraphs per day. However, read in sequence in one sitting, the story moves along just fine and the scene changes are not jarring at all but seem to add to the suspense.

I would suggest an experiment. Buy a copy of your favorite comic book, cut it up into 3-panel chunks and only read 3 panels per day until the comic is finished. It might take a month. Then report if the story was as exciting and action-packed as you expected or if the story was slow and plodding. Or, just try reading the strip once a week and read a week at a time and see how the story flows.

In this particular DT arc I am not sure all of the exposition has been exposed yet. We, as readers, are still uncertain of the logic of what is happening and we are still being introduced to new characters. However, we anticipate that those questions will eventually be answered.

We have discussed on this forum the idea of comic strip time running differently than “real” time. Comic strip time runs much slower—3 panels a day.

Tim, I can promise you this: if Locher was doing this strip and the storyline was the same, he would be the first post here at GoComics wondering what the writer was doing. He could read his own folly and not have a clue to its relativity.

Just dropping in to tell you how much I am enjoying this, thanks so much!

The “Butcher” is fixing to meet a real butcher!

This is Cool….Watch & Wait…to be continued,,

sydney, what happened to SPEC and Odd Spots?

BTW, regarding the Warren Beatty/Dick Tracy comments. Beatty was involved in a very protracted court case over who retained rights to the character and whether there could be any future productions of said character. It makes interesting reading and I wouldn’t expect anything like a movie or TV production in the near future.

Thanks mumbles.

It looks like the real problem most of us have with this story is that we’d like more of it.

tsull – Where are you?I hope I haven’t irked you too much, and apologize for having done so.I also hope you saw my response to your later comment yesterday. I’m glad you took the time to detail your opinions.

You’ve gotten others thinking and talking, and that’s the best we can hope for in this forum.Looking forward to your return (and I won’t complain about it).

Jon Hamm from Mad Men could play Tracy, if there were a new movie.