Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for August 08, 2015

Seems as though this story has been in the planning stages for quite some time. Curtis & Staton are proving that they are THAT GOOD! Loved Gould’s work from the time I was about 8-or-so, but always read that he mostly wrote bits & pieces as he went along, never really plotting many stories much in advance. (Minor points: Still spelling Chin ChillAr wrong, and now Purdy FallAr) , but there is NOTHING that could ever change the way I feel about this strip…THANK YOU, TEAM TRACY!

Conquest of Space!

Two spelling mistakes to start: Fallar, Chin Chillar. They need to be more careful.

So, Mysta helped them develop defences against the Moon people, then they erased that knowledge from her memory. That was a waste of money. There are no longer any Moon people on the Moon to defend against!

Spelling errors aside (and I’m glad cpalmeresq and Neil caught them), shazam!! This is fantastic stuff. Conquest of the moon! Bribery definitely thinks big.

Mr. Bigg is babbling on so much he almost ran out of room in his first panel word bubble! LOL!

One or two things Bribery hasn’t counted on- number one being that he seems not aware that Moon Valley is a ghost town and that may also mean there are no treasures there- number two being that Mysta was not really a moon person and her powers have evolved since when Dr. Sail was using her for testing the defense suit.And now Honeymoon is nearby.

Mr. Bigg’s appearance in the first panel definitely conveys the aspect of someone who’s both certifiable and diabolical. Darn near sent chills down my spine!

Diet Smith could only sitAnd listen to this babbling twitHe could’nt do much being tied to the chairExcept to fight his feeling of dispairThis is all my fault my ego’s to blameI’ve endangered so many it’s truly a shameI suppose the irony deserves an LOLIf i’m wrong then Kenny’s certainly sure to tellHow despite my clout, my wealth and my brainI’m unable to undue my mistakes which leaves me in such pain.

.

Happy Saturday morning everyone!

This has been so exci…..ZZZZZZ.

LOL!

One or two things Bribery hasn’t counted on- number one being that he seems not aware that Moon Valley is a ghost town and that may also mean there are no treasures there- number two being that Mysta was not really a moon person and her powers have evolved since when Dr. Sail was using her for testing the defense suit.____________________

Only Smith, Tracy and Honeymoon know that Moon Valley is now deserted, assuming none of them have shared that information.____________________

And now Honeymoon is nearby.____________________

Hm …

Mr. Bribery might have opportunity/occasion to test those defenses against a Human/Lunarian hybrid.

I hate to point out another mistake, simply because A) it’s great to see Mysta again, and B) she looks terrific as always. BUT since this is supposed to be a flashback scene, shouldn’t she be wearing a bandage on her face — since her plastic surgery was still healing at the time?

Hmmm… I’m perplexed.

Diet Smith has just been given an “ace in the hole”. Bribery has no idea there is no longer anyone living on the moon and Smith could use this to his advantage I’m thinking…..

If there’s any justice, Smith’s “Warehouse Relics” will turn out to be …

… because I’m craving an Air-Car Chase!

Okay, so Mr. Bigg (formerly known as Mr. Bribery) IS very like a typical cinema evil genius, with visions of conquest and dominance of the riches of the moon (so he thinks). I expect his exposition to his captive, Diet Smith, to drag on accordingly, until it is too late for him to avoid some unforeseen upset. In this case, I suspect a sudden intrusion is forthcoming by the Méliès group, which will distract and delay his plans long enough for the MCU to get in on the action, too. —But I expect that all this will stretch out over quite a bit of our Real Time (as versus strip time, which will no doubt be moving faster than ours)….

I think we’ll get to see Bribery’s head spin 360 degrees when Diet Smith tells him the moon valley is deserted.-There’s long range planning and loooooong-range planning. Bribery’s plan took so long to implement that it became obsolete!

Another great strip with Bribery and Smith in silhouette, the Space Coupe in flight and Mysta in action. As Bribery is telling Smith of events he never witnessed, we can’t really be sure if the bandages had already come off. Since her memory was wiped after the testing was completed, I suppose it is possible the tests were done off-panel after the bandages were removed. Mysta did say that her first memory was waking up in the lab. Whatever the particulars, it is more fun to imagine Mysta without any…bandages on.

Top of the morning everybody.-—————@Pequod77: Your poem fits perfectly with today’s comic.Aare you getting inside information before the comic is posted? Or are you psychic?-—————@AnyFace, Willy007, et al: Great flashbacks and comments today. -—————Have a prosperous day my friends.

When Bribery mentioned that Chillar-out and Purr-D were his “spies” is he implying that they were spying on the Moon People and at the moon spying?

I forget, but have we actually seen Purdy? Or, just ChillAr?

If Bribery has already developed these Moon Power resistant suits, have they already been to Moon Valley and trashed the place?

Bribery is speaking in past tense as if he is leading up to a big reveal that they already attacked Moon Valley and possibly had his troops and his stolen Space Coupe were destroyed there?

Hmmmmm

Today’s candidate for the Mr. Bribery Look-Alike Contest …

…is ‘Batman’ voice actor Olan Soule!

It appears my posts never posted yesterday. Better than being 5-7x I suppose. I was supporting KenInOhio about LOL “I don’t think that word means what you think it means”.What LOL….that the team have brought back many of our favorite neglected and conflicted eras, the 60s?

I really appreciate the strip these days. Mr Gould did not plan ahead and sometimes it showed. This has been a LONG game aimed at the folks who read the strip. What else would want from a homage? DT running from bad guys for years? It Happened.

As my previous lost handle was ShrunkenHeadsOfMrBribery, I fully support this story. I would like to finally learn who some of the heads are, particularly the new ones. Or did he buy his collection back off eBay?

As a kid in the 70s, I used to scour basements and abandoned buildings for old newspapers with one question…how did the Bribery story end?! Much later I discovered the second chapter with Chin Challars. Being able to read a continuous and well thought out storyline with the same characters brings out that UrbEx kid in me.

One small issue…Mr Bribery’s neck is a tad too long. Though so is Meiles head, keeping in tradition of the team to have even grotesquer villians.

Because the ShrunkenHeadsOfMrBribery handle worked so well, can we get some Liz centric stories like zzwelz? He has to be getting pardoned soon, with a huge vendetta. And whatever happened to Perfume and Dale Plenty? Perfume was the original ManicPixieGirl.

LOVE the Moon Maid…

Good morning all!.Gads! This story will have a larger cast than a Cecil B. DeMille epic!.More money, Mr. Bigg/Bribery? Are you trying to compete with Bill Gates?

The closest you will get to a chase like that is on Jonny Quest. Two man hovercrafts shaped like that were used. Faster and more maneuverable than a car.____________________

Loves me some Jonny Quest …

[Actually, all of my favorite Jonny Quest episodes were the super-scientific ones.]

Here are the Jonny Quest hovercraft which Night-Gaunt49 had invoked …

All of these clips are from an amazing stop-motion recreation of the Jonny Quest Title Sequence …

… available in full on YouTube

Thanks for the recommended viewing list, I really need to watch these again.

Gonna do some research on the Pawnee now.

In development from 1953, first flown in 1955 …

Here’s the wikipedia page for The Hiller VZ-1 Pawnee

Chester Gould is said to have used real people as models for many of his characters – even himself! In the “Pantsy” story, one of the henchmen (he isn’t even a major character) looks incredibly like Bob Hope! I’ve often wondered if Gould did that on purpose.

Ooops, Of course, I meant “grinned.”

During the late 80’s or early 90’s, when Hanna-Barbera was producing TV Movies for the syndication market, one of the ones which was almost produced was Judy Jetson Meets Jonny Quest.

If you think that was an odd notion, here’s an even more bizarre idea which actually happened …

This makes slightly less sense than Dr. Benton Quest retroactively having a hand in the creation of DynoMutt, as depicted on an episode of Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated.

Jumping back a bit …

Given when it was developed, the Hiller VZ-1 Pawnee may well have been an inspiration for those Jonny Quest hovercraft, as well as for Chester Gould’s air-cars and the Fantastic Four’s original “Flying Bathtub” style Fantasticar.

Jonny Quest creator Doug WIldey is said to have scoured issues of Popular Science, Science Digest, and Popular Mechanics for inspiration, so why not?

And Chet may have been watching *The Andy Griffith Show."

Who knows?

Another factoid I’d uncovered is that Jonny Quest began life as an adaptation of the radio series “Jack Armstrong, The All-American Boy” …

… but Hanna/Barbera either couldn’t secure the rights, or chose not to.

From wikipedia …

Although they do not appear in any episode, scenes from the Jack Armstrong test film were incorporated into the Jonny Quest closing credits. They are the scenes of Jack Armstrong and Billy Fairfield escaping from African warriors by hovercraft. The test sequence and a number of drawings and storyboards by Wildey were used to sell the series to ABC and sponsors.

I’d always wondered why “Jonny” didn’t look like Jonny in those shots.

For comparison …

Here’s an episode of “Jack Armstrong, The All-American Boy!”

As the Olan Soule pic doesn’t load properly on all platform (… including my mobile one – Ye Gods!) here’s a slightly smaller version of the same shot from a different source …

[Sort of a demented “Mr. Rogers” type.]

I guess I’m on a different page than most of the readers here, but 1) I think Gould’s “write as you go” was a GREAT method……it mimicked real life, where you never know what’s next, and made his stories more realistic and cliff-hanging and 2) I have no idea whether Mike writes THAT far ahead, but two things I DO know…..he’s an excellent writer and superb storyteller, so it’s entirely possible he came up with the Mr. Bribery/Moon Maid angle long after deciding to bring her back……and that would fit in with another big plus of his……he really aims to please his readers, and some of them WERE clamoring for Bribery’s return a while back, remember? All I can say is, this comic has no “filler” stuff anymore, just straight out top of the line plot all the time!!!

Ye gods! Many things happening and converging…a lot of fun! Looking forward to Sunday’s poetic recap by Pequod and other posters’ poems!

@AnyFace and Night-Gaunt49: I bought the Johnny Quest cartoons in the Apple iTunes Store last year.

Have a blessed night everyone.

Howdy

Planning ahead, have arcs within larger arcs etc. My kind of writers. And the illustrations are to die for.

I was reading recently where Mike was saying that his method was to introduce sub-plots that then become the main plot of a later story. I’m not sure if that’s still the way he’s doing it.

I think the drawing in this strip is the best in current comic strips.

Planning ahead, have arcs within larger arcs etc. My kind of writers. And the illustrations are to die for.

I was reading recently where Mike was saying that his method was to introduce sub-plots that then become the main plot of a later story. I’m not sure if that’s still the way he’s doing it.

I think the drawing in this strip is the best in current comic strips.

This story is getting so complicated I’m wondering when we’ll ever see Dick Tracy again. There are many details to talk about and there are many pieces of story that don’t fit together if you think about them. It might be better to wait and see what happens first. The status of the gold has been a problem right from the beginning when the train was captured. Where it’s been, who moved it, how will it be moved? The key thing is that it is heavy and takes a lot of work so I hope what’s coming up will be realistic about this.

I hope the Bribery story doesn’t end quickly. It’s been almost 50 years since he last appeared so I hope they keep his appearance going longer even though we may lose some of the Blackhearts along the way. I’m guessing Melies will be one of the first to go. History shows you don’t last long if you doublecross Bribery.

Do you know if “Tom and Jerry: Spy Quest” is on YouTube?____________________

It just came out in June on iTunes, so not sure.