Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for December 10, 2010

I just now realized that the bad guys must have a plan, too! But why do they think it will work? Remember, their plan involves Thick, too!!! Think you’re clever because you didn’t inform him, bad guys? Hah, I say! The authorities have tried that and it hasn’t worked!

Tracy’s back in his 1960s Peugeot today! He’s suspicious of the four flat tires in the same intersection in a blizzard… but does he call for assistance? Of course not… he’ll take another route. Maybe he can ask Dr. Mordred for suggestions. Dr. Mordred has changed his mask, it appears… now he looks like some kind of boiler.

Spacy never thought that someone could have dropped a box of nails. I know of several occassions. He’s likely right. That’s why he makes the big bucks.

Are they in a snow storm or rain storm.

Mordred looks different everyday.

I got new glasses yesterday, so the world looks a bit funky. So someone help me out. In panel #1, it looks like Thick has his left hand, and the attached steering wheel, outside the car window. And in panel #3 it looks like the chains attach to the back of Mordred’s head. Most disturbing of all, in panel #2 the word balloon makes it appear that Thick is saying something intelligent. None of that can be for real.

Why would a mass serial killer have any friends to help him escape?

Why put 4 disabled cars at the intersection if Spacy can just back up and drive away?

Panel 2, is that a proper English sentence? ’I think this is not just a freak event’ just sounds wrong. Shouldnt it be something like ’I dont think this a just a freak event or even ’I doubt this is just a coincidence’?

Llewellenbruce, freaky as it sounds some serial killers hook up with people on the outside. Richard Ramirez married a woman who fell in love with him while he was on trial. And I think it was Ken Bianchi who, while in custody, got a woman to help with a scheme to get him out (he persuaded her to attempt a murder that would look like his work; he even managed to ge a sample of his own semen to her, to plant in the victim. He could then say the real killer was on the loose. That Locheresque plan failed.)

So Mordred might have a helper. But in the real world, the helper would be less than competent and would work alone. I haven’t seen anything about serial killers being aided by a group of competent people.

My guess is that Locher has a government agency working to free Mordred, so he can work as an undercover hit man. (A serial killer would make a lousy assassin, but Locher doesn’t let the facts get in the way of a bad story.)

What route can Thick take? Does he have a map? GPS?Is he really that familiar with roads fifty-two miles from home? Shouldn’t he get on his two-way wrist gizmo and sound the alarm? If things are to make sense here, it should turn out there’s only one alternate route. He’ll be an idiot to take it.

If he had any sense he’d do the unexpected. Take Mordred home, Thick! “Tess, he followed me home, can I keep him? We can use him to scare off the next lunatic who throws a stone through our bedroom window!”

BillThompson, in my business learning roads fifty miles from home becomes second nature. Thick’s job might not be that different in that regard.

But, this is a Locher comic and it’s a safe guess that Thick gets lost if he has to use the wrong end of the street from his house because the regular way is blocked.

Side note, off-thread alert. It’s better to have good maps. GPS is pretty useless, really. I’ve had mine get as much as five miles out when it gave me directions to a place. Even when it does get close to right, it’s not exactly pinpoint accuracy. If Thick is depending on GPS to find the police station, it just might direct him to an open field on the outskirts of town. I’m not making this up, these devices really can be that bad.

Say, this Mordred fellow looks kinda cute from the side. I never noticed those lush fish lips before. I think this is not just a freak event.

Gee, the road is blocked. It’s probably completely safe to drive down another road. I bet no bad guys wait for me there.

Michael McMillan, Dick Tracy would probably know the region, as you said. Thick, though, doesn’t seem to travel much. And Locher is as Locher does.

I’d go with an up-to-date map, too. (Delete geek discussion of GPS system.) Plus a good flashlight, for reading street signs on dark streets. I wonder if Mordred will nag Thick to stop and ask for directions.

looks like Spacy should be nominated for that new Nobel prize category-moronity

At this point Tracy should have called in and reported he’s going off route and to get a squad car out there to investigate. Not what I would call a team player.

Thick ought to pull off the road and since Mordred is a doctor, well……… play doctor!

For what it’s worth Tracy’s Wrist Geenee is equiped with GPS. Mike Kilian put every ‘gizmo’ he could think of there.

It’s just that Locher never uses it. It’s easier to write his stories if the whole .darn thing doesn’t work - except like a cellphone on the wrist.

Time after time when in danger Tracy fails to use the “Taser” or the “Atomic Light” features

I think this is just a freak event.

it is a freak event spacy – it’s all a freak show and you’re the star.

Ha! And some of you guys thought that was an old car. I bet your face is red now you see it’s so hypermodern that the rim of the steering wheel goes right through a hole in the door and it doesn’t have any spokes – it is connected to the steering column by magnetism. Diet Smith is back at work in his magnetic laboratory!

I wonder what will happen if that car gets a flat tire. Does it have magnetic levitation?

-Cougar :{)

Real police cars used for prisoner transport have cages to protect the driver. Maybe Liz felt it wasn’t worth the cost to protect Spacy.

Is it just me, or is the good doctor winking in the last panel?

Actually, he’s laughing at Thick. He’s probably planning to have a little fun with him, too!

The intersection is blocked by four cars with flats? That’s ridiculous. A multi-car collision would do it, but not that. The bad guys showed bad planning if they tried to block an intersection instead of a narrower stretch of road. Wile E. Coyote shows better planning skills than that!

Who are you talking to Dick ?

Rene_Simard, Thick is talking because he doesn’t have what it takes to inflate a thought balloon.

Where are the decoy cars? Don’t they communicate? Not only will Tracy not know where he is, no one else will know.

The decoy cars? Well, four of them have flat tires …