Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for December 27, 2010

That’s what Tracy says every time he goes on a “car date.”

Funny, how he has that hint of’ Kennedy in that profile.

S-T-U-P-I-D…

We’re in for a week of Locher yanking our chains while Thick splashes around in desperation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYXckKwBRb0

At this rate, they’ll be removing chains all week! Let’s hope the guys back at HDQTRS find their all weather gear before Tracy and Mordred drown!

I told you yesterday Tracy to let the scum drown.

That last pannel made me laugh. Probably because I read it out of context…

I’ve seen Max Ernst paintings that were less surreal than this.

Findings of Court of Inquiry Medical Examiners office Du Page/ Will Counties State of Illinois

Pursuant to the events of December 26, 2010 a board of inquiry was formed by the County Medical Examiners Office into the events immediately preceding and following the death of one Dr. John C. Mordred, a prisoner being transported for sentencing to Naperville Court House. Findings of this board are as follows:

1) Dr. John C. Mordred’s death was caused by suffocation resulting from aspiration of fluid during transport. 2) Detective Dick Tracy, while transporting Dr. Mordred, did willfully and negligently contribute directly to said Dr. Mordred’s death. 3) Detective Tracy was derelict in his official duties, which contributed directly to the prisoners death. 4) Due to the willful actions of Detective Tracy, government property was lost and presumed destroyed, I.e.: One (1) 19somethingorother Mighty Morphin Power Rambler with enhanced Priapus package.

It is the opinion of this board that Detective Tracy be bound over for trial for his actions in relation to the death of Dr. Mordred on charges of: Negligent Homicide Gross Dereliction of Duty Willful Destruction of Public Property.

I.R. Magpie Chief Medical Examiner

Wonder Warthgog, just the thought of Thick going on trial turns this into poetry, of the poetic justice sort. Of course Locher is without rhyme or reason, so he’ll give Thick a free verse.

Hey!

That stupid car is more MIB than MMPR, thank you very much.

The stupid DRIVER, however, I don’t think anybody wants to claim.

Is that psycho propositioning Tracy?

If it was so easy for Spacy to undo the chains, how dumb could Mordred be to not figure it out?

Okay, who is speaking in panel #3? If it’s the car, which with Locher is a possibility, what could it be pulling off? If it’s Thick or Mordred, what are they talking about? Why would one chain be bigger than any other? Or is this a “pull my finger” joke? Are they going to force the water from the car with gas?

The car settles, and the interior slowly fills. Tracy doesn’t have a lot of time to be messing around with chains, and that restraint suit Mordred wears is a real handicap for swimming too… though probably warm enough.

Now they have to let the car fill a bit more before they can get out. The power windows will have shut down and it’s not possible to open the doors against the water pressure outside until the interior fills up a bit and equalises the pressures. At this point, Tracy is as trapped as Mordred is.

Side point- by the time Sam, Liz and the others can get on the scene, even assuming they have a clue where that is, the car will have disappeared into the water. They couldn’t hope to find it while the storm rages.

I don’t know how Thick can handle the chains at all. It’s dark and the chains are underwater. Even if he has keys to all the locks on Mordred, he has to work by touch. Try doing that by touch. Even without ice-cold water to numb your hands it isn’t easy to figure out which key goes in which lock.

Getting the door open shouldn’t be a problem, if the locks aren’t jammed. Pressure increases by one atmosphere for every thirty feet of water depth, so even if the car is that deep the pressure should be more than equalized by now–the passenger compartment is at least half full.

That last crossing guard has an approximate idea of where Thick scuttled the car. However we know that it’s fifty-two miles from Nappingville to Rivertown, which in this storm is a long haul.

If Locher has decided that Thick and Mordred will survive, will we see Mordred’s associates? Will one of them be the Lady of the Lake?

”I’ll pull of this big one” …

As BillT noted yesterday when and where did Thick get a key. What’s the purpose of the chains if there isn’t a lock ? Decorations ?

The ’talk’ at HQ yesterday was just to fill up panel space. Ornamentation ! Nobody is going anywhere. It’s just like the 5 decoy cars we will never ever see them, or hear of them again.

Were anyone to leave HQ that would break a Cardinal Locher rule … all action must be performed by Thick — and Thick alone !

I think I may be repeating myself but, this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever read.

I can’t stop laughing! The dialogue itself is priceless! Not only is Thick guilty of gross negligence and derelection of duty, it appears that he’s been working for the TSA to hone his “special” skills. I hope in tomorrow’s installment the “big one” doesn’t involve a zipper.

Total agreement there, Sydney Phillips. Locher wasted panels that he could have used to address those questions and increase tension.

Keys? Locher could have shown Thick getting the keys, while Mordred thinks “Exactly as I expected!”

Decoy cars? Sheriff Chief could have told Thick “The decoy cars left. One of them reports he’s being followed.” Thick: “Did you arrest the followers?” Sheriff: “Not yet. We have several cars pursuing them.” Mordred: “So *my* deception is working!” And Thick drives away with Mordred. Three days worth of panels there.

Instead one cop gets a case of the vapors and Testicle Chin gets all actiony. But they won’t find Thick until the “action” is over. (And it won’t surprise me if they find the sunken car within walking distance of Police Hooters.)

Bad idea, Tracy….

stuck on stupid

that is a big pot hole

Now we see what all those thought balloons were about earlier. This is what Mordred had planned. This is what he has been in store for Tracy (Dec. 11). He planned to be transferred in a flood, arranged for 4 flat tires to force Tracy onto to the route he had chosen (let’s try not to notice that Tracy didn’t just go to an alternate route, he started the whole transfer over picking up the prisoner all over again), knew that Tracy would make a “power approach” to the flooded intersection (must have arranged for Tracy to be his driver, surely no one else could be that stoopid) – and gambled that Tracy would be able to get the 40 pounds of chains off him before he could drown.

Each episode has been worse than the one before since I started reading the strip again. How can Locher keep breaking records with every try? Yet somehow he always does it. This one is already a contender in the plausibility category, and in pacing, too.

-Cougar :{)

Repetition is Variety Contradiction is Continuity Stoopidity is Unpredictability Phantasmagoria is Plausibility Delay is Suspense Talk is Action Boredom is Excitement

Maybe the car will drift downstream to Naperville or could Naperville be upstream? Anything is possible with this strip/

Please let Mordred be one of those wacky Batman villains. Please let him be a water-breathing creature, and his “gimp mask” actually be a helmet that circulates water over his gills. I won’t even whine once about the scientific impossibility of that, if he just grabs Thicks and drags him to the bottom of the lake.

Later, Horn Hair can snap her fingers and say, bleeep it, I knew I forgot to tell Thick something!

They bleeeped bleeep it. They bleeeped dog able roger nan. Who’da thought?

“wow fella, is that a big chain or are you just happy to see me?”

New Street Corner Lake… caused by heavy rain in town! Where are the buildings?

(a haiku)

Michael McMillan said, about 7 hours ago

…The power windows will have shut down…

If the best detective the PD can afford is the Dickster, they aren’t going to be able to afford a car with power windows.

What I would like to see is the ultimate Alberta Express roaring in right now and encasing the car and its inhabitants in a giant ice cube.

Modered’s mask is so expressive!

Now the strip has a “Gay” twist to the story.

Dick is asking about “Mordred’s Big One”.

So do the math:

Dick + the big one = a couple

Tess is going to be upset.

Dick, (never ask which one) how could you do something like this??? Anybody with two functioning brain cells would have known not to try to jump a car over a flooded road. This knowledge appears to have escaped Dick (again, never ask which one) however.

Special info— for what it’s worth. Way back in the “Dukes of Hazard” series, we all saw General Lee make a series of nearly impossible jumps. The only way the cars— yes there were several because a jump has a tendency to trash the car– were able to do these jumps is because the technicians took care to place weight in the trunk so the car wouldn’t nosedive and hit the ground head on. Balance in a jump is everything if you want to live through it. Try the same stunt in your two-door coupe and I guarantee that it will hit the ground grill first and probably flip over into the bargain. Don’t do this at home. It’s one thing to have trained technicians set up the car for the jump, it’s quite another to think you can get away with it in a Prius.

WW, That was a work of art, unlike this strip.

I tried to go technical. It doesn’t matter, no force on Earth can save this strip in its present configuration. Only Locher stepping down and handing it over to a competent artist can do that.

Weren’t the cars on Dukes of Hazzard reinforced to take the loads put on them by the jumps? Extra steel bars through the frames, the doors welded shut, heavy-duty shock absorbers?

Maybe this is Locher’s revenge on all of us for our comments on the strip. He is going to kill off Tracy so that no one can continue it. That’ll teach us not to play nice.

Thanks, rightwingmoron. I only watched part of a Dukes episode once. I turned it off because it was generally idiotic, I couldn’t believe any car would keep running so well after a leap, and (most importantly at all) it needed far more shots of hot chicks in skimpy costumes.