Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for March 03, 2009

And we’re off! Oh, and why was the professor always speaking of two formulas and one of the oil companies tested it as perfume?

A new adventure! With BO and Gertie. Tess’ neck got stretched since we last saw her, at least I think it’s Tess…

Hmmm… Tess face in panel 1 looks nice. Her neck is uh…. The Tracy phone just goes “RING”. I was hoping for “clonk”. 2/7 The Tracy phone has a straight cord. 2/8 The cord is now curly. Now the phone is cordless! Or DT is talking into an unplugged receiver? “Gertie! Where are you?” “In the land of no back round art, Tracy”. Sigh. At least her candlestick phone has a cord. For now. Noll written out in the third panel, along with all the unanswered questions from the last epic. Who was the CIA contacting Diet Smith about? Noll? Who was the bomber? Or cyberbomber? Why was Tess calling Diet Smith? I miss Jeff & Matt.

Once again Tess looks different and that’s not even taking into account her Giraffe neck. Ye Gods!

Remember the days when Gravel Gertie was supposed to look uglier than the regular characters?

Grokenstein says: “Gertie was pretty scary with her huge eyes and their beady pupils. Now she’s more like Generic Gertie.”

Look how sleepy her eyes are. She’s been reading the last storyline in preparation for her own new story.

Crud. We didn’t get the traditional “MEANWHILE…” announcing a new storyline.

Let’s hope the B.O. story is action packed!!! It might be fun to see if B.O. goes to Washington to meet the other B.O.

Remember this? 12-26-08 Doctor/Professor Noll suggests to Tess and friends they market perfume. 12-27-08 “Dr. Noll says he can help us start a perfume business”. 12-29-08 “The professor has a formula he thinks we could sell”, “by merchandising ourselves”. 12-31-08 “We don’t buy the perfume, just the packaging”. “The professor will mix up the product”. “ The neighborhood women and I will go door to door”. 01-02-09 “When we first met, the prof. showed us what he can do. 01-03-09 “We asked Diet and his experts to test our formula, Dick”. 01-04-09 “I asked Diet Smith to run a test on the first batch”. “He politely refused, so we’re going it alone”. “Except for me Tess”. Angel (gl)orious makes her entrance.

Isn’t Gertie like over 100 years old by now???

Ah, the beginning a new story arc. What a fun day to be a Dick Tracy fan. Looks like the art is much better than what we were seeing toward the end of Dr. Ethan Noll’s story. I can’t wait to see what DL has up his sleeve for us.

margueritem says: A new adventure! With BO and Gertie. Tess’ neck got stretched since we last saw her, at least I think it’s Tess…. Marg, maybe Tess was actually driving the car that crashed, and she’s wearing a neck brace. works as good as anything in this strip, don’t ya think? :o/

Tracy’s home…

Tess stared at the last remaining bottle of her failed perfume business. She hoped to be able to leave Dick when she met Angelorious. “Looks like those plans when up in flames”! she sighed sadly to herself while vowing to always remember their dance. “Actually, it wasn’t a bad fragrance”. Dick was feeling pretty cocky right then. Angelorious was a crispy critter, Noll was out of the picture and Tess saw her business flopped. Dick felt the urge to say so really bad jokes. “If you liked 150 octane”. Tess was glad the phone rang just then or else she might have had to slap him. “RING” Tracy was happy to hear who was calling. He was quickly transported back to some of those crazy days he had with these hillbilly hicks. “Well Gravel Gertie, I haven’t talked to you in ages”. “How’s B.O.Plenty doing”? Gravel always felt so stupid having to use this relic of a phone while keeping her cell phone hidden from B.O. “That’s why I’m calling, Tracy”.

( Thank you, nurse Tracy :-) )

Gravel Gertie was an old woman living in a gravel pit in 1935. I thinkk Sparkle was born in the late fifties.

N7326F: Sparkle was born in 1947.

SNAP!! Tracy put down Tess good with that snappy comeback. Just in case Tess didn’t realize how stupid she’d become.

What’s holding Tracy’s phone up? Glue on his finger tips? Life is hard when you don’t have an opposable thumb.

Panel 1 makes me laugh. It’s like Locher realized that his drawings of Tess have been horrible lately, and he decided that THIS time her face would look great… he spent an hour just getting the the shape, everything as perfect as he could with his old, shaking hand… and then realized that it was way too high in the panel. Oops. Well, can’t let all that work go to waste! draws two rectangles That’s kinda like a neck.

Where’s Tracy’s thumb in the second panel. Try holding your phone that way and see if it’s natural.

Tess says, “Actually it wasnt’ a bad fragrance.” Mmm, if you like musky Dick. This all happened in one evening since Tracy arrived home after the Braces caper. Don’t the Tracy’s sleep? And Gravel Gertie looks uncharacteristically not ugly.

Howabominable says:

Panel 1 makes me laugh. It’s like Locher realized that his drawings of Tess have been horrible lately, and he decided that THIS time her face would look great… he spent an hour just getting the the shape, everything as perfect as he could with his old, shaking hand… and then realized that it was way too high in the panel. Oops. Well, can’t let all that work go to waste! draws two rectangles That’s kinda like a neck.

~ LMAO! My thoughts, exactly.

JonD17: Hi, we keep missing each other. Hope things are going well. :-)

Whatever is happening it must be so bad that is does not appear for me until the next day. Thankfully The Comics Curmudgeon has been riffing on this awfulness and allowing me to see it the same day.

I’m reminded of a certain tornado in 1974 that took out the safety deposit box heisters. It was and has since been widely criticized.

This was several magnitudes worse, in every way. Art, story, loose ends, narrative arc; every day was a kick in the head to what the strip was intended to be, and because of TMS, will never be again.

I was hoping the whole strip would end yesterday with that “DL” all pompous next to Dr. Noel, the Non-Cyber(?)-Bomber. I’m guessing there is a strip today that will start a new series of pointlessness.

At this point there is nothing to even snark on - I have to say goodbye to you bright funny folks because this has much less payoff than Wizard of Id (though it would be interesting to see how Tess and Gertie do not look alike).

Oops, My brain just ran off to another strip.