Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for October 31, 2010

Oh, goody. Now we get to spend a week listening to D’oodoo Locher whine and rant about how misunderstood and maltreated he is.

And just yesterday D’oggybreath was lining up for the Darwin Award by mouthing off to his armed and crazy wife. Wonder what happened to the “Halloween witch” crack?

I think I’ll cry!

To think Tracy once was covered with glory Now he stars in this silly-assed story We decry the lack of continuity And that of any ingenuity But there is one continuous thread Though it is one that we do dread The story is always lame And the artwork is the same We ask how low the strip can sink As it raises an awful stink But its decent is without end On that unfortunately we can depend Down into the depths of disgrace and despair Where its integrity may be beyond repair.

From the other day, thank you morgueritem and billdi

“Penny, you can’t shoot your own husband”. That’s why Spacy makes the big bucks.

With Spacy and 4 federal agents packing guns, it takes 3-D to disarm his wife. Could Spacy be any more useless?

Accessory to what crime?

Panel-Panner’s Crimestoppers

Costumed kids have no peripheral eyesight with their masks.

Wear a mask while driving. Having the same restricted view will prevent an accident.

Oh, yeah, Old Tracy, just wait until D’oodoo persuades Thick to believe his every paranoid word,

It’s Halloween. I want to soap up Locher’s windows, put his horse-drawn buggy atop his roof, and knock over his outhouse–while he’s sitting in it.

Panel 6, Penny’s head has swollen with rage. It is now bigger than her right arm, gun included.

WW, you tell of our sadness in such a masterful manner.

Amazing how that gun expanded when D’oodoo grabbed it. It went from a dainty .177 to a manly 9 mm in an instant.

Pity that the old battleaxe didn’t know how to use it. And why has Thick’s beard thinned out? Did the full moon set?

Panel 6 (after Crimestoppers):

Yesterday I commented that Mrs. D’B only had a hand growing out of her shoulder. Today the hand has grown a short arm.

Either that or Locher and Brozman know jack about perspective. Notice the position of Mr. D’B’s head, the gun, and Penny. The gun is inside Mr. D’B’s long hair but somehow his face and Penny’s are on the same plane. So that’s one tiny hand and gun.

Good one, WW, as usual.

You get my vote every time, Wonder Warthog!

Locher provides the (bad) tricks, commenters provide the (good) treats.

Visiting here is like being Charlie Brown on Halloween: each day’s strip is another rock in your bag.

Look at D’buckworth’s eyes in Panel Five. It is said that when people lie, they often glance up and to the left. Something to do with which hemisphere of their brain is being accessed.

Could this have been intentional? Could Locher have actually gotten something right?

Yep it is Halloween and past the full moon but between the Brenda Starr & Dick Tracy strips at 80 I’ll never be able to rhyme it very soon so I’ll just enjoy that Wndrwthg gets all the tips.

I’ll throw one of my caps out so these nice people can fill it with coins for you WW. maybe a greenback . Thanks always for your great poems. One of the reasons I keep reading those strips for I get more fun out of Gasoline Alley

@ wndrwrthg - It’s amazing how you get such more entertaining stuff up so instantaneously.

And on today’s strip: I’ve never seen a Crimestopper’s Textbook where it said “if someone has a gun pointed at your head and is surrounded by armed authorities, simple grab the gun out of the person’s hand.” Looking forward to that.

Flight Suit, I doubt Locher caught that dishonest look on purpose. That amount of competence is unlike him.

I can’t wait to hear D’oodoo’s explanations. He never planned to fake his death; the wife cooked up that idea on her own, to inherit his estate (and he never stepped forward to challenge that because, uh, uh, uh …) He went into hiding on the streets so he could commit random acts of charity and place anonymous cell-phone calls. He’s hiding because his rivals in the 3-D movie business are so vicious …

And we still have to see how Sue Doko fits into this. Probably she has his getaway all set up.

Sue Doko has run off with the stiff on the stage at the Science Museum, never to be heard from again … … .

Panel-Panner, Your line “Each day’s strip is another rock in your bag,” is classic. I plan to use it on a daily basis from now on. Credit will be given, of course.

Flight Suit, Wow, you’re right about 3D in panel five. He’s got that Jon Lovitz “Yeah, that’s the ticket” look.

I wish Simon would post earlier in the day. I can’t wait for his take on today’s “exciting” episode.

WW, good as unusual. How you can do two strips is incredible. Now that 3D has the gun, he can run away and they won’t follow him. Thick is all words, no action.

ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

New villian in Crimestoppers: Punkinhead!

How many guns is Mrs 3D packing for this adventure?

Panel 2 shows a stainless steel snub nose with a grip so long, it’d hold another finger or two.

Then, 2 panels later, it has lengthened, shortened the handle and grown what I would call a shroud if it was a revolver - for the cylinder release, between the trigger and the bottom of the barrel.

In panel 6, the “shroud” has shrunk to barely a bump, the handle is still shrinking, smaller than her hand now and has changed to a black oxide finish. “I’m gonna shoot your nose off!”

So which one did D’bum grab?

Up to recently, we’ve had no crime. The story about getting a corpse from the funeral home doesn’t fly because they don’t stock them. The ME does. The first crime of this story (besides the story itself being one) is Penny packing heat and threatening her loving husband with it. But, she probably has a Concealed Handgun License, so Thick can’t ticket her on that.

I’m sorry, but any kid who’s idea of a costume is to wear a hollowed out pumpkin on his head deserves to be run down.

Tracy and the Naperville police haven’t done one useful thing in this whole story. The newspapers knew more than they did. Four different agencies were there before Tracy. Triple D eludes the Napperville patrol car but gets nabbed by McDerrmott of the Fraud Unit. Now Triple D disarms Penny. Tracy and the Naperville police are superfluous in this story.

Don’t worry folks, the gun is only a replica cigarette lighter.

so now we’ll have a week of 3D waving the gun around…

shoot! shoot! shoot! someone please shoot already!

Before you can get a permit to carry a concealed handgun, don’t you need to demonstrate some competence with a pistol? If she has a permit, Penny ought to have known enough to have a round chambered and the safety off pistol. That weapon ought to have discharged when D’oodoo yanked it away from her.

I don’t know that any of the so-called undercover agents would carry weapons. SEC and IRS agents don’t. A CIA agent in the US probably wouldn’t. “Fursten of the FBI” might not, if it spoiled his undercover disguise. But if Locher decides that he needs a hail of bullets for an escape scene, assault weapons will magically appear.

Given Locher’s undisguised hatred for the government, it’s no wonder that he’s showing them as incompetents.

Slimeglobbers did pay a nice tribute to “The Great Piggy-Bank Caper.”

It always amazes me that Dick Tracy never has a gun when he is in trouble or uses his wrist radio to call for backup. And how about those Federal dudes. They are about as useless as Tracy. An old lady is controlling this scene. Give me a break!!!

-knock knock knock-, Penny -knock knock knock-, Penny -knock knock knock-, Penny

Opus, Annie,Cathy, and now Cleats. All of them deceased and this strip is still breathing air! And we ask the all important question: WHY?!

BillThompson, I personally know an IRS man who carries a weapon. There is an entire division of them that is called the Criminal Investigation Division, or something like that. They are a pretty serious group.

In tomorrow’s strip, I guess the gun will be back in Penny’s hand?

(LOL, Andrew R!)

This strip is a disgrace…incoherent plotting, inept writing and some of the worst art in the business. Locher has reached a new low with panel six. How can anyone who draws and writes such tripe actually accept a paycheck?

As a long-time Dick Tracy fan (pre-Locher, of course) I hate to say it, but unless they have a very talented cartoonist in line to take over SOON, it really is time to kill this strip once and for all.

morrow, thanks for correcting me. You prompted me to do some digging.

There’s the LEOSA, the Law Enforcement Officer Safety Act, signed into law in 2004 by President Bush. It authorizes any Federal officer with the statutory power to make arrests to carry a concealed weapon. There are certain legal and common-sense limitations, one of which is that the officer be properly qualified to handle a weapon.

So all of the Federal agents here could be armed. I don’t know if IRS and SEC agents would be trained to handle a situation where a gun is pointed at a third party, but I’d expect the FBI agent to know what to do. At the very least I’d expect them to return from their coffee break with their guns drawn. But Locher isn’t telling a police story; he’s indulging some weird fantasy.

Thick is right about one thing. Penny can’t shoot her husband. She has to go to the rear of the line and wait her turn.

There has never been a better time to read the comics page and there’s never been a better cartoon strip then the All-New Color Sunday Dick Tracy adventure Halloween comic strip!

Hey CRIMESTOPPERS: Check Out Today’s MUTTS comic strip. Our costumed trick-or-treater stops by the Mutts strip to visit with Earl and Mooch ! What a wonderful strip that MUTTS is, just a treat everyday!

These Fantastic comic strips make a visit to the comics page a delight! They are Just Great Fun!

Simon Penn went trick-or-treating early, and now he can’t figure out why both his bag and his head are full of rocks.

Another FUN Sunday on the Great Dick Tracy strip..America’s Favorite Detective is GREAT again!!!

SimonPenn is correct about Mutts being a great comic. Tracy, however, is another story entirely…

Pumpkin Head is not new, he was in a cartoon satire of Dick Tracy in which Daffy Duck was playing “Duck Twacy”.