Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for July 05, 2016

.Good morning guys!.It’s Abner and Rikki time! We’ll see Abner’s air tomb soon!

That sounds innocent enough….but we all know that won’t last for long.

Gweedo implied,I hope he doesn’t become a casualty.-—————————————————————.Rikki would never harm anyone or anything, Gweedo. Good morning.

Night-Gaunt49 stated,I have heard about this and saw a still from some footage that was shot but ultimately was lost.-——————————————————————————.You obviously have good vision, Night-Gaunt49.

State of the World of DT

July 5, 2016

The “plot map” for Fearless Fosdick has been added to the page for the Abner story. I think I will leave it this way as a story within a story. For details, look at the page. http://dt.canadatoyou.com/faceoffwithabner. As usual, red is for bad guys, blue is for good guys, grey is both together and the circled numbers can be clicked to see each strip on GoComics.

A character roundup for Fearless Fosdick will be posted a a later time. During 8 days, 17 characters were shown or mentioned. I want to finish making thumbnails for the ones that were just mentioned.

Where are we now?

Now that Tracy’s Fosdick dream is done, we’ll get back to our main story. There are several things going on (as usual). About a month ago, Abner and Rikki were “finalizing plans.” Plans for what? It’s hard to say, but Rikki was being reminded of a series of contracts to be carried out, all except for the contract on Tracy which Abner insists on doing personally. It was revealed just before last week’s dream sequence that Abner is making plans to go to Europe, presumably leaving Rikki behind to carry on the business in the U.S.

Meanwhile, we recently learned that Tracy is planning a trip to Iceland, England, and Europe with Tess, leaving the MCU — mostly Lizz and Sam, I suppose, because Lee is busy — leaving the MCU to continue with the Bribery case.

Putting 2 and 2 together, we end up with a possible crossing of paths between Tracy and Kadaver, when they get to Europe (whether planned or unplanned) and Sam and Lizz to deal with whatever Rikki is up to. Oh, and we were about to get a glimpse of Rikki’s new “toy,” the Vampire Fantastique, when we cut back to the Notta Fallar story.

Search engine progress

The search engine beta (http://dt.canadatoyou.com/searchgc) has made a little bit of progress today. As requested, it will now treat all the words you give separately, as well as treating them as a phrase. This breaks the highlighting and selection of snippet for places where they appear apart from each other, but such comments will be found and listed.

Sadly, Philip J. Riley (the real film historian, Facebook page) passed away just over two weeks ago on June 18, Father’s Day weekend, I’ve just learned. R.I.P. Philip.

Here’s a picture:

That’s eerie.

This is the best online tribute to Phil that I found. Of course, he is now remembered in the annals of Dick Tracy as well as the numerous books that he edited and authored.

Now that I’ve read that more carefully, it’s maybe halfway to a tribute, but I didn’t find an actual obituary anywhere.

Happy 4th of July, my American friends! (It’s still the 4th right now on the West Coast.)Tonight, I went on a little pilgrimage to sit along 0 Avenue, to watch some fireworks across the border. I am always awe-struck by the incredible dedication you have to burning through huge amounts of incendiaries on the 4th. We here in Canada cannot hold a [roman] candle to your evening of festivities when we celebrate Canada Day, mostly due to our parental governments who don’t believe we are mature enough to play with matches. Private firework displays are banned in most populated areas. I live in a town of about 130,000 and all we get is a modest 20 minute display, put on by the municipality.The thing that really amazes me is the sheer volume you guys set off. From my vantage point, the closest town is only about 12,000 strong; the rest is farms and tiny hamlets. Despite this, I can see at least 30-40 major firework displays going on…and they last for up to an hour!So, let’s see…one tiny section of one tiny, sparsely populated corner of one border state (let’s pretend I can see as much as 1% of it), times 100, times 50 states- and I can’t even see a major city from here- man, the fireworks of one night must drive your whole economy for a year!Enviously,Blune

Doing a rough calculation, I probably see only about .0001% of the area of the nation……

And thanks to all the kudos from everyone yesterday. Space probe Juno will be sending us the most incredible pictures ever of Jupiter, once it gets into orbit and all the sensors are switched on. Stay tuned!http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/main/index.html

It is sad that Philip will not be here to see his debut in DICK TRACY. I had arranged his visit many months ago, and told him he would be most welcome in a story with Abner and Rikki. His books adorn our library and he was second to none as a researcher .Goodbye, friend.

There was about 20 minutes of test film shot by O’Brien for Edison that included concepts for a Frankenstein film. As far as I know, no one knows how much of those 20 minutes included Frankenstein shots. Has some discovery been made that I’m not aware of (and can find no reference to)? Obviously, I’m not referring to the much later Kong/Frankenstein conceptual work that ended up overseas.

Funny how Abner is heading to Europe and i found out on line a few days ago that Dracula’s castle was up for sale.. could this be a “potential buyer”!?! lol :) (btw, the rumoured sale of dracula’s castle was incorrect.. just so y’all know)

Is this strip based on fact? Did WILLIS “KING KONG” O’BRIEN actually have a script for “Frankenstein”? Wow! I wonder what “Frankenstein” have been like under his direction? Fascinating. Best, Nick

.Dick Tracy strip nominated for 2016 Harvey Awards. Congratulations Mike, Joe, Shelley, and Shane!.http://myemail.constantcontact.com/2016-Harvey-Award-Nominees-Announced.html?soid=1101956786023&aid=MGN9nydWAZY

For The Fall of the BlackheartsThe crowd did roarHarvey nomination number four!Congratulations, Team Tracy!

Ah, the artists have switched again. Good. The good one’s back on the dailies.

Night-Gaunt49 indicated,I believe it was in Forrest J. Arkerman’s “Famous Monsters of Filmland”.-——————————————————————-.Thanks!

We’re underway!

Which castle? He had several. Probably Bran castle.

The sale rumours are always about Bran castle. It’s been going on for about 10 years now that these rumours keep popping up. Bran castle is in Romania and the famous Vlad never even travelled to Romania, much less lived there. Nevertheless, Bram Stoker, who also never even saw the castle, based Dracula’s castle on Bran castle of which written descriptions were available. It has thus become a big tourist attraction because it matches the descriptions in the original story.

Phil apparently started his scholarship of classic horror films very long ago. A childhood friend wrote on his Facebook page, “Never liked going to ur room as kids with all those horror movie posters and books. Scared the hell out of me. Used to think you were a little weird but look where it took you!!”

A few weeks ago, he was told he had six months left to live, so he was trying to finish up as many books as he could in the time he had left.

Noel Neill, who was the first on-screen Lois Lane, has passed away at the age of 95.____________________

So sorry to hear about Noel Neill, had the pleasure of meeting her a few times over the years. Such a lovely soul.

Almost the entirety of the cast has passed now.

[ I think Phyllis Coates might still be with us. ]

As a small tribute …

Here’s an episode of “The Cisco Kid” guest-starring a young Noel Neill.

Gweedo suggested,You mean that someone wouldn’t want to go and do the driving, Bill ?-———————————————————————-.My daughter would drive me if I asked her.

It is tantalizing to learn that today’s strip introduces two real-life characters, one of whom, Philip J. Riley, has passed away recently, after this had been written by Mike Curtis (see his post, above). Rikki’s intent to buy a historical memento for Abner’s birthday [sorry, she doesn’t mean you, Vista Bill, when she refers in panel 3 to her boyfriend] is charming.

Although key references have already been linked, notably by Neil Wick, I include here links I found interesting: a 2012 interview with Philip J Riley including a photo with him and images of several of his works; and a blog about and with images of Willis O’Brien’s Frankenstein….

Gweedo asked and suggested,Would she also accompany you into the venue ?Please reconsider going. Mighty sure Staton and Curtis would consider meeting you an honor. You missed meeting me, please don’t miss this one, Bill !-——————————————————————-.Of course she would accompany me! My middle granddaughter might enjoy going also. I have a couple months to consider this..I still hope to get a chance to meet you Gweedo. The timing just wasn’t right.

Night-Gaunt49 confessed,I was fortunate that Gweedo was able to swing by Houston to see me.-—————————————————————————.Gweedo was a short distance from my house a few months ago and wanted to arrange to meet me. I was not up to being around anyone at that time so I declined the opportunity.

Gweedo assured me,As long as the couple I go to see are in the area another time will come, Bill….-—————————————————————————-.I’ll be here.