The Comics Curmudgeon

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He didn’t even have to use his AK

Marvin, 4/28/08

There have been a lot of subtle changes in Marvin — little tweaks to the artwork, for instance, and the move from thought balloons to word balloons. These might just be presaging a much more momentous shift, in which the strip will cease to be about a droll baby and his droll dogs and cranky grandparents, and instead will focus on toddler Marvin’s Child’s Play-style killing spree. Is the comics page ready for a baby bathed in blood spouting droll witticisms about murder and carnage? Since such material will be replacing urination jokes and dog urination jokes and, God help us, Belly Laffs, I’d say the answer is a hearty “yes”!

Dick Tracy, 4/28/08

So, it looks like the criminal and bizarre Dab Stract, whose face was shrouded in shadow when we last met him, is hideously deformed? For some reason? Just like Cole Lector was also hideously deformed? For some reason? I’m beginning to suspect that the creators of Dick Tracy have a thing for hideous deformities. For some reason.

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/28/08

Actually, the medical inquiry was just a cover. No, thrifty Loweezy has recently discovered the Internet and has started supplementing Snuffy’s paltry moonshinin’ and chicken-stealin’ income with a for-pay Website, www.HotSleepingHillbillies.com, which caters to a very specific kind of fetishist. By the excited look on the doctor’s face in the second panel, you can tell that he’s a charter member of the VIP club.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 28, 2008 at 01:09 pm and is filed under Barney Google & Snuffy Smith, Dick Tracy, Marvin.

143 responses to “He didn’t even have to use his AK”

Ten Day (Zombie) Dinosaur
April 28th, 2008 at 1:12 pm [Reply]

I don’t like the new Marvin style. I didn’t like the old Marvin style. There’s a distinct possiblity I just don’t like Marvin.
Hank
April 28th, 2008 at 1:14 pm [Reply]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Dick Locher is a successful political cartoonist. There’s no way that Dick Tracy can be read as anything but a “Sledge Hammer” style satire on police brutality at this point. The fact that Dick more often than not has his eyes bugged out like Benny Hill is just one symptom of its new, comedic, direction.
Joshua
April 28th, 2008 at 1:19 pm [Reply]

Ok, “Dab Stract” is sort of marginally clever and all, but “Cole Lector”? Seriously? Seriously?
alley (not allie) cat
April 28th, 2008 at 1:22 pm [Reply]

Is Marvin being drawn by someone else?
Pozzo
April 28th, 2008 at 1:23 pm [Reply]

…and Pruneface was hideously deformed, and Flattop was hideously deformed, and the Brow was hideously deformed. And don’t even get me started on the Pouch. I’m surprised Dick doesn’t just shoot hideously deformed people on sight, since they’re always unregenerate baddies, without whom the world would be a much better place.

Except for the presence of B.O. Plenty, of course.
UnknownEric
April 28th, 2008 at 1:25 pm [Reply]

And Marvin didn’t even have to use his AK…

…and don’t get him started on the lights of the Goodyear blimp…
Reynard Noir
April 28th, 2008 at 1:26 pm [Reply]

Interesting how in Dick Tracy no one panel really has any feature that even suggests how it might be related, chronologically or narratively, to any other. Each floats suspended in a pathlessly infinite ocean of possibilities, none of which are realized, staring contextlessly into your soul with its bleak, unfathomable gaze.

By “interesting” I of course mean “makes me suspect the municipal water company of conducting clandestine LSD tests.”
gnome de blog
April 28th, 2008 at 1:27 pm [Reply]

I’ve been reading Dick Tracy on and off for over 50 years, and I’ve never known Liz as anything but Liz the Policewoman. Does she actually have a last name, or is she just Chief Liz now?

Isn’t that kind of, um…sexist?
BigTed
April 28th, 2008 at 1:27 pm [Reply]

The new “Marvin” visual style seems like a cross between “Calvin and Hobbes” and Maurice Sendak’s “In the Night Kitchen,” with a haircut intended from Clay Aiken. I guess if you’re going to “borrow,” you should borrow from the, er, best.
BigTed
April 28th, 2008 at 1:28 pm [Reply]

…intended for…
Corkey
April 28th, 2008 at 1:29 pm [Reply]

Being a high class city type, I’m baffled by the punchline in today’s snuffy smith. How on earth could either a baseball player or a jug containing water effect this gentlemen’s sleep? Whats that you say? He was was referring to photographs or “pictures, in his common hillbily tounge? Oh, these bumpkins. They positively make me drop my monocle in frustration.
Hasty Penguin
April 28th, 2008 at 1:31 pm [Reply]

“How did you get in?”

“Cole Lector is dead.”

“Ah, it is so obvious now!”

Dick Tracy could be put in any order today and it would make the same amount of sense to me.
Craig
April 28th, 2008 at 1:31 pm [Reply]

No, really, the character in Marvin DID get away with murder! He killed Marvin, which is why he looks slightly different and now talks instead of communicating telepathically! I can’t wait for his killing spree to continue, if for no other reason than to watch the gruesome death of the author of “Belly Laffs”!
TheCasey
April 28th, 2008 at 1:31 pm [Reply]

PBS – Pig as the Happiness Fairy rocks!

Sally Forth – What the hell is Ted Forth wearing!? I’d be afraid to do even a phone interview in that shirt because it might drown me out.
D. E. I.
April 28th, 2008 at 1:33 pm [Reply]

Marvin: Why bother with a strip. Just print the dialogue: “Today was a good day . . . I got away with murder.”
Little Guy
April 28th, 2008 at 1:33 pm [Reply]

“He didn’t even have to use his Alaska”? Huh?

8: Lizz was once married to Groovy Grove, who was the strip’s attempt at putting a “Mod Squad hippie” type on the force. He went to the Holy Fearless Fosdick Estates in the Sky in 1984.
gh
April 28th, 2008 at 1:33 pm [Reply]

#154 [yesterthread] Spotted HØrse, Jungle Steed –

Thanks for the tip but I laid off the Foob pages after one hit. I swear they were blinking in there.

I would have said something earlier, but you never know with Anonymous. Has he (or she) washed before posting? MRSA strikes the unsuspecting, and not all of us keep a bottle of bleach next to the keyboard.
Mars
April 28th, 2008 at 1:34 pm [Reply]

Now we’re in for it; Bucky has a copy of the National Review, which means the next week (or next six weeks, but I hope not) of Get Fuzzy strips are going to be about how conservativism makes sense only to Bucky, because only evil creatures would embrace any of the ideas within, as opposed to left-wing vegetarian cartoonists, who are lily-white perfect-in-every-way angels.

Hey, can anybody help me here? I wake up to find the fonts on a lot of webpages I visit, including this one, are suddenly bigger in size. This happened once before and I had to ask for help then too, and I can’t remember what I heard on how to fix it.

I really need somebody here to know what I’m talking about, because I don’t know where to go for help on this!
prospero
April 28th, 2008 at 1:36 pm [Reply]

Am I missing some more innocent implication, or reading too much into this? How the hell does this Liberty Meadows get into the newspaper? All it needs is a digital update of a famous crudely-rendered Kurt Vonnegut illustration from Breakfast of Campions with Ishmael on the poopdeck.

By the way, the picture and catch phrase immortalized by the ink-stained Indianapolis iconoclast apparently translates to wide-open mink-hole in Russian. Which of course makes more literal sense perversity-wise.
dimestore lipstick
April 28th, 2008 at 1:39 pm [Reply]

Dang, that Dick tracy strip looks like one of those horribly pretentious Swedish art films of the sixties. All it needs is a midget strongman from a traveling circus in the background.
Anonymous
April 28th, 2008 at 1:39 pm [Reply]

Mollificent’s yesterthread comment (and D.E.I.’s here) got me to thinking… who on the comics page would I most like to see perform Marvin’s little soliloquy?

Aside from Mollificent’s choice (DtM), I think my three favorite candidates are Margo, April, and Mary Worth. Possibly swap out MW for Slylock Fox if you want to go for maximum irony value.

Also, Ziggy has some potential. (You will never hear me speak those words in that order again.)
John Trussell
April 28th, 2008 at 1:40 pm [Reply]

(Whoops, #21 was me.)
Sandy
April 28th, 2008 at 1:40 pm [Reply]

#18 – Mars: Click on “View” and “Text size” in your browser window. That may be your problem, I think?

DT – I never followed Dick Tracy that much. Does he always appear to be constipated? I have a feeling so.
efab
April 28th, 2008 at 1:41 pm [Reply]

18. On your toolbar, if you’re using Firefox or IE, there should be an option View. Hit that, then choose Text size.
Jeffsterr
April 28th, 2008 at 1:41 pm [Reply]

I guess Marvin’s artist decided that opting for something like Hanna Barbara’s Bam Bam is less creepy than Jim Davis’ cat.
Huntch
April 28th, 2008 at 1:43 pm [Reply]

After the fizzle which was the New York trip, Sally sets out the total of her life with Ted on sunday:
“ten minutes of hope, 30 days of dashed expectations”
Nekrotzar
April 28th, 2008 at 1:52 pm [Reply]

So now Marvin is reenacting the Ray Bradbury short story The Small Assassin. What’s next, a version of Fahrenheit 451, where instead of burning books, Marvin pees on them? Or if we are lucky, a version of the Martian Chronicles where they take him to another planet and leave him there.
prospero
April 28th, 2008 at 1:52 pm [Reply]

Public Service Announcement: Non-readers of Annie owe it to themselves to retreat a couple of weeks to catch up on what I think is possibly the Great American Novel of self-referencing comics post-modernism.

Man! I had no idea how tough it is to explain funny papers to people who’ve never seen them before…Good thing this ain’t Pogo! Who knows what they’d make of a talking marsupial! There’d be a whole new religion around here–
–Very weird US-educated Central American jungle tribal king
Andrew
April 28th, 2008 at 1:53 pm [Reply]

If you notice Marvin’s eyes take on an alien like quality i that last panel. One has to wonder, mayhap hes been replaced by an Alien and is becoming more sinister.

On the positive note, no one has picked up on Josh’s suggestion for a new website…yet. Should be noted yes it is kinda of sad I looked all ready in Google to see, but I’m a librarian so I like to store information somewhere…
gnome de blog
April 28th, 2008 at 1:53 pm [Reply]

16:
I always figured Liz was not only the token woman on the Force, but the token dominatrix lesbian as well. But I guess marrying Groovy Grove wouldn’t rule that out.
Kevin
April 28th, 2008 at 1:57 pm [Reply]

Josh, I believe you meant hotsleepinhillbillies. Having the “g” in there would shore nuff confuse em.
gnome de blog
April 28th, 2008 at 2:04 pm [Reply]

28, Prospero:

The last time I checked in on Annie, Daddy Warbucks was in chains in the hold of a tramp freighter. What’s up with that?
Dik-Dik Vendetta
April 28th, 2008 at 2:04 pm [Reply]

Little Guy @ 16:

Josh is obliquely pointing out that Marvin seems to be channeling Ice Cube.
Revenge of Chesnut
April 28th, 2008 at 2:05 pm [Reply]

That doctor doesn’t actually need Snuffy to supply him with photos because he is actually BALD SANTA WITH A CYMBAL TIED TO HIS HEAD WITH A SHOELACE. And everybody knows that Santa’s powers of surveillance are even more frighteningly far-reaching than those of the U.S. government.
Inspector Dim
April 28th, 2008 at 2:06 pm [Reply]

Great. Marvin is turning from Garfield into Stewie. If he says “What the deuce!” at all, I’ll stop reading! …Oh, right, I never actually read Marvin.
Emily
April 28th, 2008 at 2:07 pm [Reply]

Anyone else think that Bernice from Luann is getting awfully bitchy lately?
More often than not I find myself wanting to smack her cruel, bespectacled head.
Inspector Dim
April 28th, 2008 at 2:09 pm [Reply]

Today’s grossly disfigured Dab Stract shows the level of contempt the person who draws Dick Tracy has for artists. Envy, I’m guessing.
Calico
April 28th, 2008 at 2:10 pm [Reply]

#21 – Billy Keane, Cookie Bumstead, and the Giant Rabbit in MT today
DrBear
April 28th, 2008 at 2:10 pm [Reply]

When Dick Tracy is chasing Murray “Mer” Durer, sell.
NosferatusCoffin
April 28th, 2008 at 2:11 pm [Reply]

Well, we can see Marvin has gone to The Dark Side in many, many ways. Whether it is subtle change in the way he is drawn, the fact he now talks ala Satan through Linda Blair in “The Exorcist”, but most of all THAT PICTURE OF THE CLOWN behind his crib. This is a dead giveaway he has sold his soul for a case of diapers and has joined Lucifer’s Legions.
psychobiddy
April 28th, 2008 at 2:11 pm [Reply]

Actually, judging from his expression in panel 1 & how it’s exactly the same in panel 2, I’m pretty sure Snuffy’s doctor is just a cardboard cutout. I guess that’s what passes for health care in the Appalachians.

Furthermore, I don’t get Marvin at all today. I know it’s supposed to be some sort of joke, but it reads much more like a warning. I am left genuinely & deeply disturbed. Looks like there’ll be no sleep for me tonight.
Calico
April 28th, 2008 at 2:12 pm [Reply]

#25 – Thanks for reminding me of this little ditty from my childhood:

Well, let the sun shine in
Face it with a grin
Open up your heart
And let the sun shine in!

Thanks, I’ll be here all week.
Toronto
April 28th, 2008 at 2:13 pm [Reply]

Prospero@28: Thanks for the PSA about Annie. I like to batch that one up and read it a month at a time, though I did peek at the “Clams got feet” panel a few days ago.
Inspector Dim
April 28th, 2008 at 2:16 pm [Reply]

Luann wants to make Gunther “less nerdy.” She obviously hasn’t realized she’s wearing a shirt that says “Reader Leader” on it.

This whole sequence reminds me of Buddy the Book Beaver in Unshelved, the librarian comic strip. Except, of course, that Unshelved is funny!

…Of course, I’m a librarian, so I may be biased toward a library-themed comic strip.
Pastramigod
April 28th, 2008 at 2:16 pm [Reply]

Oh, I see what you did there Dick Tracy.
DAB Stract = Abstract! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Inspector Dim
April 28th, 2008 at 2:18 pm [Reply]

#42 Calico,

Now I’m thinking of Juliana Hatfield’s version of that song, which appeared on some weird MTV collection.

When you are unhappy,
The Devil wears a grin…
indichik
April 28th, 2008 at 2:19 pm [Reply]

What happened to Marvin’s sly, Garfield-style heavily-lidded eyes? He used to look all shady and subversive. With the new artwork, I’m even less likely to buy him getting away with murder.
sebastian
April 28th, 2008 at 2:21 pm [Reply]

Marvin. It’s the pause, which I guess is more for padding out the three panel strip than for pacing. That pause makes it even creepier. Marvin’s standing there thinking of all the evil he did that day. I am totally reading Marvin every day. I like evil child stories.
Naked Bunny with a Whip
April 28th, 2008 at 2:24 pm [Reply]

I’m beginning to suspect that the creators of Dick Tracy have a thing for hideous deformities.

Well, yeah. Just look at the star of the strip. Look at him, damn you!
Charles
April 28th, 2008 at 2:29 pm [Reply]

I’ve been trying to think of how I could read today’s Marvin and it would NOT make Marvin look like he is an actual pint-sized killer. I still see no other way. The more cute, innocent artwork only betrays his newfound, cold-blooded nature.
Matt Algren
April 28th, 2008 at 2:37 pm [Reply]

I’m not the only one who tried out http://www.HotSleepingHillbillies.com, right?

Right?
juggernaut
April 28th, 2008 at 2:37 pm [Reply]

You know, I’ve never seen Marvin and Chucky in the same room together.

I’m just sayin’, is all………………
Mac
April 28th, 2008 at 2:38 pm [Reply]

You know, what with his massive, pointed jaw and oddly flattened nose, Dick Tracy could be seen as hideously deformed as well. Policeman, shoot thyself.
Les of the Jungle Patrol
April 28th, 2008 at 2:45 pm [Reply]

I quick visit to the whois database shows that hotsleepinghillbillies.com is currently available. get it now before cybersquatters beat you to it!
Poteet
April 28th, 2008 at 2:54 pm [Reply]

DT — Yep, it’s Dab Stract the artist! As opposed to Dab Stract the pediatrician, Dab Stract the septic system guy, Dab Stract the middle-school gym teacher, and all the other Dab Stracts in Tracy’s hellhole of a town.
AeroSquid
April 28th, 2008 at 2:56 pm [Reply]

Marvin: Panel three chilled me to the bone. Is that a Winkerverse smirk on the wee larcenous lad ?
TheCasey
April 28th, 2008 at 2:58 pm [Reply]

#46 – Inspector Dim: Actually, it’s Frente! that you’re thinking of. And, yes, I have the CD. When I was in college, we called that the Contagiously Happy Song.
Islamorada Girl
April 28th, 2008 at 3:01 pm [Reply]

Not only does Locher hate artists, he really hates modern artists.
In fact, in the whole history of Dick Tracy, anything new or different has automatically been suspect.
Inspector Dim
April 28th, 2008 at 3:04 pm [Reply]

#57 TheCasey: Aaa! You’re right! Juliana Hatfield did another song on that disc.

I admit I bought it for Happy Happy Joy Joy.
gh
April 28th, 2008 at 3:04 pm [Reply]

#55 Poteet –

Nor Dab Strict the dominatrix.
Little Guy
April 28th, 2008 at 3:05 pm [Reply]

37, 39, 45: DT has such an esteemed tradition of fugly badguys with anagramed names, I’m surprise that Lynn Johnston didn’t claim that Chester Gould was one of her bestest friends when she introduced the Klepfroths.

30: Pardon the repeat, but in the mid-to-late 70s, Lizz was the centerpiece of a kidnapping that included tied up in her undies in a chair for most of the story and, after a climatic battle with the bad guys, trying to put out a housefire at the end with the remnants of her skirt.

No — this is not some Abbeylicious fantasy — this *was* in the strip at the time. I hit puberty during that arc. Coincidence?
Calico
April 28th, 2008 at 3:13 pm [Reply]

#61 – Dang, I was thinking for a moment that you were speaking of Liz Patterfoob.
But with Pastethony and his handcrafted basement cage, I guess you never know.
Diamond Joe
April 28th, 2008 at 3:14 pm [Reply]

Snark on today’s comics, condensed from yesterthread:

B.C.: Your Number 1 sign the Hart era is well and truly over: the strip is capable of amusing. For some reason, I really enjoy the casual body language in the last panel, contrasted with the apparent severity of the wound(s).

BB: On the bright side, it doesn’t look like it’ll take long to clean the Existential Void.

Blondie: On the surface, this seems a simple enough joke, but somehow, I just don’t get it. Will Herb not believe it from Dagwood? Does Herb think he needs permission from Blondie? Does it have something to do with Herb having “called” in person (a meaning of the verb that’s been pretty much extinct since women had “gentleman callers”)? Help me out, here.

Cathy: The funniest thing to me about this one is that the floor line in the second panel suggests that they just ran through a Surprise Jaggie in the wall.

DtM: Uh, colorist? Anything you want to throw in here?

H&J: “Astrological forecast in the paper”? That would be what humans call a horoscope, Bentley.

JP: Now Steve can go hang out with Dagwood for the rest of the week.

MT: As we know, the normal M.O. of thieves is to call about returning what they’ve stolen. I think someone’s told her this is a dognapping plotline. Maybe the giant rabbit. Or its lower spine.

MW: In his shock and grief, Ron Amalfi spontaneously generates a nimbus of holiness.

PreTeena: Love that expression in the last panel.

RLA: Why the caption? Why? Why? Why?

RM: Count Morgu must be in the middle of his tap routine, because that’s certainly not part of any stride.

amused me today, but unmentioned above: MG&G, MC, PBS
UnknownEric
April 28th, 2008 at 3:16 pm [Reply]

#36 – Emily – Actually, I’m really starting to like Bernice lately. She’s reminding me of Daria.
commodorejohn
April 28th, 2008 at 3:17 pm [Reply]

#61 Little Guy – GASP! You’re right! I never realized until now that KELPFROTH is an anagram for HOTEP FLRK! Lynn, you tricksy Canadian devil!

…er, perhaps it was FORT K HELP.

Or TORK FEL HP. Will the ex-Monkee single-handedly bring down Hewlett-Packard?
Sen. Lucius Bedfellow
April 28th, 2008 at 3:17 pm [Reply]

Based on today’s strip, it appears that Dick Tracy is being drawn by Hal Lucination and written by Al Literate.
gnome de blog
April 28th, 2008 at 3:22 pm [Reply]

61 Little Guy said:
“…in the mid-to-late 70s, Lizz was the centerpiece of a kidnapping that included tied up in her undies in a chair for most of the story and, after a climatic battle with the bad guys, trying to put out a housefire at the end with the remnants of her skirt.”

I’m sorry I missed that one. It’s almost worthy of Brenda Starr.
WillieO
April 28th, 2008 at 3:23 pm [Reply]

Notice the lack of the droll dogs in this Marvin strip. Their absence leaves little doubt to who his first victims were. I imagine that marvin’s switching to word balloons has given him a sociopathic sense of superiority. Since the dogs continued to speak in thought balloons, Marvin was acutely aware of his feeling that he was the superior organism, and he decided to spring some kind of a sinitster, fatal trap on the poor mutts, as a kind of test for his new found intellect.

…that or he did it because they were annoying…or just for kicks, that would make sense too.
Dr. Weird
April 28th, 2008 at 3:23 pm [Reply]

58, Islamorada Girl, back in the 60s, Dick Tracy mocked that new, hot strip Peanuts for its terrible art. True story! In the strip, there was a comic strip named “Sawdust” that featured talking piles of sawdust as a critique of Schultz’s simple style compared with the adventure strips.
Emily
April 28th, 2008 at 3:31 pm [Reply]

64 – I don’t know, she seems less witty and more assy.

OH MY GOD, BERNICE IS TURNING INTO MARGO.
redlikerubies
April 28th, 2008 at 3:48 pm [Reply]

If you have to like characters in Luann, you have to like Delta first, then Bernice (who may be assy, Emily, but at least she pays attention to world events and is semi aware of her assiness), then Tiffany (who also seems aware of her bitchiness and uses it to her advantage), then Luann. Luann is dull, wholly influenced by Teen Vogue, delusional about her “love life” and has been wearing mom pants and pointy elf shoes ever since1993. On a related Luann note, have we ruled out that Gunther might be gay or asexual, and that’s why he wants to sew Luann pig costumes but not make out with her?
Spotted HØrse, Jungle Steed
April 28th, 2008 at 3:52 pm [Reply]

# 64 UnknownEric:

Emily – Actually, I’m really starting to like Bernice lately. She’s reminding me of Daria.

#70 Emily:

I don’t know, she seems less witty and more assy.

Friends, IMHO, there’s nothing wrong with Bernice can’t be cured by cultivating new friends. Bernice, heal thyself… get thee to the Drama Club! And Luann, if Gunther wants to deck you out in a piggy costume, chances are you two ain’t exactly wafting pheromones.
Alfred E. Neuman, Feeling Good
April 28th, 2008 at 3:53 pm [Reply]

#139 (yesterthread) commodorejohn Re FOOB— I, too, wonder if today’s strip is setting up John’s cheating on Elly (see my yesterpost #92). However, if he does cheat, I think his cruel fate would be to end up with a younger version of Elly in a painful and interminably dull existence. That would be more in character with the atmosphere of dullness that LJ so carefully crafts. The fate you propose is way too creative and interesting! Now if Batiuk was writing the strip, your description of John’s fate would be right on, except that he’d probably get cancer, too.

#36 Emily Re “Luann”— It’s true! The ravenously incestuous bisexual harridan Bernice is getting bitchier by the day, and I love it. Greg Evans has really raised her perversity level of late. It’s certainly working, because he has made her into one of the most fascinating characters in the comics. (We’re all paying attention to “Luann” now, aren’t we?) I’m curious to see how far he will take her in that direction. If he continues, it means there will be some interesting and snarkworthy strips ahead.
Sorako-chan
April 28th, 2008 at 3:56 pm [Reply]

I know we don’t turn to BG&SS for good artwork, or, for that matter, good comics. But it is slightly disturbing to see this doctor’s face today. In both panels, he seems to be sporting an inane, wide-eyed grin that doesn’t change one molecule as Snuffy rambles on, waving his pictures of himself sleeping in his suspenders. This doesn’t really strike me as “fetish” per se. “High on crack” works better. From the look of Dick Tracy there, he’s been able to get some too, though his reaction is a bit more tense and paranoid that the Doc’s facial-tick-inducing yet happy trip.
rhymes with puck
April 28th, 2008 at 4:02 pm [Reply]

DT: Considering how horribly deformed Dick Tracy himself looks with that nose and square chin, maybe he should just shoot himself.

Phantom: I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one who likes to lounge around at picnics with my family and best friends while wearing purple spandex and a mask.

RMMD: I’m really impressed with how Rex is handling this crisis without ever actually setting foot in a hospital. It’s kind of like how he is married but never has sex with his wife.
Gordo's Cat
April 28th, 2008 at 4:09 pm [Reply]

Dr. Weird – I could have sworn that it was Al Capp who mocked Peanuts in his Li’l Abner strip, not Chester Gould. Of course, Capp mocked everybody, including (and most famously) Gould himself. Capp was a Comics Curmudgeon way ahead of his time!
Up4it
April 28th, 2008 at 4:12 pm [Reply]

Dick Tracy – As the hard-edged, perpetual squinting Dick Tracy always appeared to be some love-child of Popeye and Lil Abner mixed in with a few others (trace the dicks) I think “deformity” is all of Gould’s worldview. Maybe it’s supposed to seperate flimsy, stylized caricature and real “character” with motives. Tracy squints because he doesn’t trust and wants to see straight into the heart of the criminal schemes underlying the appearance of civility.

But “Cole lector” – bah – I would’ve gone for “C.O. Lector” – “Mr. Lector? Call me C.O.!
SF_READER
April 28th, 2008 at 4:15 pm [Reply]

#76 – Yes, you are correct. Fearless Fossdick was Al Capp’s Dick Tracy.
Locke
April 28th, 2008 at 4:16 pm [Reply]

I initially misread “a droll baby and his droll dog” as “a droll baby and his droogs.” It would explain the murder, though.
sally
April 28th, 2008 at 4:22 pm [Reply]

You call a change from “heavy-lidded mutant with no resemblance whatsoever to a human child” to what Marvin looks like here “subtle”?????

Also, I hope you noticed the clown picture in the background. Obviously Marvin’s parents read the chapter in “What to Expect: the First Year” that mentioned that babies don’t see color and need high-contrast black, white and red toys. A later chapter describes Common Childhood Fears, including, you guessed it, CLOWNS.

No wonder Marvin is a head case.
Julius Sleazer
April 28th, 2008 at 4:28 pm [Reply]

isn’t anyone else disturbed by today’s marvin? there doesn’t appear to be any joke (unless i’m missing it). it’s simply marvin confessing homicide. isn’t that disturbing? instead everyone is discussing how they like the new style. aren’t you more concerned with whether or not marvin will kill you in your sleep??
Hero120499
April 28th, 2008 at 4:33 pm [Reply]

#51 – No, you’re not, and for both of our sakes I’m DAMN glad that the only thing that came up in Google was JoshReads, I can only imagine the horror that that website might have wrought on my poor innocent eyes.
cheech wizard
April 28th, 2008 at 4:35 pm [Reply]

69 – Dr. Weird – Was Sawdust a dig at Peanuts or at syndicated comics in general? I recall that the strip was written by a team of four or more artists, with the gag being that each of them did nothing more than make a big pile of dots (i.e., sawdust) in each panel. Was Schultz using assistants at that time?
K. Ivan Ruppert
April 28th, 2008 at 4:39 pm [Reply]

Can we tell for sure that Dab Stract is horribly deformed? This is Dick Tracy we’re talking about…
cheech wizard
April 28th, 2008 at 4:40 pm [Reply]

I posted this near the end of the last thread but didn’t see any replies – anyone know anything about this? Sorry for the necropost.
—————
Does anyone know if Cow and Boy is really being canceled? Today’s strip says they’re being canceled by the syndicate as a setup for a sick joke involving a flying dead mouse, but I haven’t been able to find anything online about it. I’d hate to see it go – though some of the jokes are really flat, at other times it can be sublimely depraved.
Bitter Scribe
April 28th, 2008 at 4:42 pm [Reply]

…and Pruneface was hideously deformed, and Flattop was hideously deformed, and the Brow was hideously deformed. And don’t even get me started on the Pouch. I’m surprised Dick doesn’t just shoot hideously deformed people on sight, since they’re always unregenerate baddies, without whom the world would be a much better place.

You think you’re being funny, Pozzo, but I remember a long-ago DT where one of the main characters (Moon Maid? Or maybe it was Dick himself?–don’t recall) solemnly explained that most crimimals are deformed. They said this as though it were an established tenet of forensic science, which made me think that a good-looking criminal could enter the DT universe and steal it blind right under Dick’s sharp-angled nose.
sooky
April 28th, 2008 at 4:48 pm [Reply]

Marvin: If it’s sunset we are looking west and that moon must be well north of the sun (and the ecliptic) but not angled as it would be if the sun is below the horizon. Unless Marvin takes place in the Southern hemisphere, or it is morning and we are looking East? Or the artist just sticks a moon in there without paying any attention? Inappropriate (or missing) humor is one thing, astronomical accuracy quite another.
Buck Ripsnort
April 28th, 2008 at 4:58 pm [Reply]

Marvin’s stomach-stapling has not only reduced his enormous ass, but allowed him to talk and relieved the pressure on his eyes that was turning them into ping-pong balls. Sadly, nothing can be done about his hydrocephaly. He will grow up to become a Dick Tracy character, “Poop Head”.
cheech wizard
April 28th, 2008 at 5:02 pm [Reply]

86 – I remember that one too – I think it was Moon Maid, commenting as hubby Junior sketched out another hideous criminal in his job as police artist.

What happened to Junior anyway? I know Moon Maid got blown up as a way of getting rid of the whole moon/magnetic space car bullshit, but I thought Junior stayed around.
teegee
April 28th, 2008 at 5:04 pm [Reply]

Marvin: “Hey Dennis? Yeah, you, slingshot-boy. Killing someone? That’s menacing. Tracking dirt on the rug? Not so much. More like ‘Dennis the pen-is’, dick.”

Dennis: “Oh, it’s on, bitch. It is ON.”

#46 Inspector Dim: Juliana Hatfield rocks. Juliana, if you’re reading this, please marry me.
Naked Bunny with a Whip
April 28th, 2008 at 5:04 pm [Reply]

#85: “Does anyone know if Cow and Boy is really being canceled?”

Odd. Lio made essentially the same joke.
odinthor
April 28th, 2008 at 5:06 pm [Reply]

#71. redlikerubies. — But . . . but . . . surely you’re not saying that it isn’t normal, completely normal, in a manly male sort of way, for a guy to be sewing pig’s costumes for the GF or wife . . . ? [Blushes, puts away sewing kit, hides artificial pig's snout, and yells into next room, "Um, honey...remember what we were talking about earlier? Well, er, never mind... And don't worry about getting that apple."]
Islamorada Girl
April 28th, 2008 at 5:15 pm [Reply]

69: Dr. Weird: I’m tellin’ ya, Chester Gould was such a reactionary, he hated anything that was even a faint deviation from the old tried and true. Dick Tracy spent most of the 60’s beating up hippies. Really. That’s when I stopped reading the Joe McCarthy style rant that strip became. Seeing it now doesn’t make me like it any better, even though I suspect Dick Locher’s tongue is firmly in his cheek.
ThursdayNext
April 28th, 2008 at 5:28 pm [Reply]

(from yesterthread) I think today’s FOOB is a compost one, because to my horror, I think one of my brain cells remembers that John is long since retired from being a dentist in order to play with trains more full-time.
A lemur
April 28th, 2008 at 5:34 pm [Reply]

DT:
“It’s Dab Stract the Artist!”
“It’s me, Tracy!”
“You’re not Tracy, I’m Tracy!”
“No, No. I meant, it’s me, – Tracy.”
“If you’re Tracy, then who am I?”
“No! No! It’s Dab Stract! Dab Stract!”
“I’m Dab Stract? OHMYGOD! I just killed Cole Lector!”

-which makes easily as much sense as the strip except that the dialog would have been extended over two weeks or more. Seriously, do you think Lochner at some point just decided, “I’m so f*cking bored with this that I’m just going to keep making it more and more insane until somebody finally catches on.”
Either that or he decided “I’m just going to keep sniffing glue until they take my job away.”

Alt Liz dialog: “He’s dead, Jim.”
ar_d
April 28th, 2008 at 5:35 pm [Reply]

Marvin: Oh good, I hope it was that urinating dog.

Seriously though, I’ve never been creeped out by a comic strip until now.
ThursdayNext
April 28th, 2008 at 5:47 pm [Reply]

I don’t know if the board in general knows about these bits of fooby snark goodness: Crown Princess Marie and howtheduck
SKJAM!
April 28th, 2008 at 5:47 pm [Reply]

If I recall correctly, Dab Stract has had plastic surgery, being deformed before but deformed in a different way afterwards, and then getting his new face burned or some such to produce his current look.

And years ago, there was a story starring Dick’s youngest daughter which, believe it or not, was about not judging by appearances. The scary-looking “goth” turned out to be a law-abiding citizen, the meek-looking fellow was a school shooter waiting to happen, and the handsome guy…let’s just say it’s a good thing the dance got interrupted.
gnome de blog
April 28th, 2008 at 5:57 pm [Reply]

95 A. Lemur sez:

“It’s Dab Stract the Artist!”
“It’s me, Tracy!”
“You’re not Tracy, I’m Tracy!”
“No, No. I meant, it’s me, – Tracy.”
“If you’re Tracy, then who am I?”
“No! No! It’s Dab Stract! Dab Stract!”
“I’m Dab Stract? OHMYGOD! I just killed Cole Lector!”
…

…

…

THIRD BASE!!
Vince M
April 28th, 2008 at 5:59 pm [Reply]

93: The bright side to that ’60s Tracy was its inspiring Gilbert Shelton to create ‘Tricky Prickears – the Blind, Deaf Cop’, lampooning the disabled-cop tv show genre at the same time.
Canaduck
April 28th, 2008 at 6:00 pm [Reply]

I fucking hate Marvin. I hope he gets the electric chair.
Poteet
April 28th, 2008 at 6:30 pm [Reply]

# 60 gh — BWAHAHA! For a minute I was going to say it would be fun to see THAT storyline, but then a mental image of Dick naked, kneeling, and wearing a blindfold came into my mind. There went another keyboard.
Loopina, Summer Intern of the Jungle Patrol
April 28th, 2008 at 6:55 pm [Reply]

PBS: Can I get that on a t-shirt?

Mutts: Aw! Looks like we’re in for a week of Shelter Stories.

OBH: I think this would have been funnier and more topical if Joe’s intent was to put the video on YouTube. Is there even a million-dollar home video contest show any more? Or are they going to mail the video to H&J?
Alfred E. Neuman, Feeling Good
April 28th, 2008 at 6:56 pm [Reply]

FOOB— Drat! After reading the informative blog (howtheduck) thoughtfully provided by #97 ThursdayNext (Thanks!), it looks like John is doing nothing more exciting than selling his practice and retiring. Sorry, commodorejohn, it looks like we won’t be getting John-as-Rod having a fling. That would have been too much fun for the beaten-down world of FOOB.

Speaking of beaten down, did anyone notice how unusually old and decrepit Elly looks in today’s strip? I know she’s been aging, but today she looks at least 70. I am old and decrepit myself so I’m an expert on oldness and decrepitness, but dang, even I have never aged 20 years overnight.
commodorejohn
April 28th, 2008 at 8:15 pm [Reply]

#104 Alfred E. Neuman – ‘Salright, at least it means we won’t have to suffer through Elly being insufferably smug about it.

Not that she won’t be insufferably smug, but it’ll be about something else.
Doug Puthoff
April 28th, 2008 at 8:15 pm [Reply]

4-28

FC–Alternate Caption: “I still think I can draw better than that guy who draws “Real Life Adventures.”

Marvin–I’m hoping for “Gangsta Marvin” myself. That would be worth reading.

GT–Maybe Elmer can get Marty Moon to play his dad at the immigration hearings.
Brendan
April 28th, 2008 at 8:31 pm [Reply]

Meanwhile, Dick Tracy is now obligated to draw his own penis.

Or be killed by Marvin.
cheech wizard
April 28th, 2008 at 8:44 pm [Reply]

Marvin – He got away with murder, meaning it won’t come back to haunt him. So the only possible explanation is that today the jury let him walk – meaning that Armstrong has denied us the drawn-out, undoubtably gripping spectacle of a toddler, in the dock, on trial for a capital offense. Bet he shit his pants.
Dr. Mabuse
April 28th, 2008 at 8:57 pm [Reply]

#104 – I thought Elly looked unusually aged in today’s strip, too. And if ThursdayNext at #94 is correct, and this is an old comic (and I think he is, because it’s true, John must have retired from dentistry a while ago) then she was looking really old several years ago. I thought she looked a bit like Fred Bassett’s dowdy lady owner, only she at least wears a skirt with her flat-heeled slippers.
commodorejohn
April 28th, 2008 at 8:57 pm [Reply]

#108 cheech wizard – Of course he shit his pants. He’s Marvin.
Hammertime
April 28th, 2008 at 9:55 pm [Reply]

Perhaps Marvin is preparing for a 10 year ‘fast forward’ as the baby stories have become tiresome for the creative talent (and I use the term loosely)…sadly, a family member will have to die of cancer to generate the shift in the time / space continuum. And yes, I had to look up how to spell continuum.
Scherzo
April 28th, 2008 at 9:56 pm [Reply]

75: RMMD: I’m really impressed with how Rex is handling this crisis without ever actually setting foot in a hospital.

Oh, no! you’ll never get Rex to go into a hospital! That’s where the MRSA is!
Cheeky Wee Monkeys
April 28th, 2008 at 9:57 pm [Reply]

I hope this means that Marvin killed everyone else in the strip and is going to now starve to death himself.
rhymes with puck
April 28th, 2008 at 9:58 pm [Reply]

DT: Unfortunately, do you know what characters haven’t shown up in Dick Tracy? Art Tistik, Cam Prehensible, or Ann Turesting.
The Spectacular Spider-Brick
April 28th, 2008 at 10:04 pm [Reply]

rhymes with puck @ 114: We also haven’t met Khan T. Nuity, Ann Natomy, Narry Tive, or N.E. Respectfortheaudience.
Artist formerly known as Ben
April 28th, 2008 at 10:05 pm [Reply]

#75 & 112

Rex: Do you suppose there’s any MRSA hiding on this golf ball? Well, I suppose there’s only one way to find out.

Andy: You’re a brave man, Rex.
The Ghost of Jarrod
April 28th, 2008 at 10:37 pm [Reply]

A young boy struggles with encephalitis, on a very special “Marvin.”
Jana C.H.
April 28th, 2008 at 10:38 pm [Reply]

According to that wise philosopher W.S. Gilbert, it is the act of committing crimes that causes the criminal to become ugly. I quote from “Ruddigore”:

When in crime one is fully employed
Your expression gets warped and destroyed;
It’s a penalty none can avoid.

Gilbert elaborates on the need for newly-active criminals to become ugly as soon as possible and to change their names to something evil-sounding:

My face is an index to my mind,
All venom and spleen and gall.
Or, properly speaking,
It soon will be reeking
With venom and spleen and gall.

My name from Adam Goodheart, you’ll find,
I’ve changed to Gideon Crawle,
For a Bad Bart’s steward
Whose heart is too hard
Is always Gideon Crawle.

How providential when you find
The face an index to the mind,
And evil men compelled to call
Themselves by names like Gideon Crawle.

As usual, Gilbert and Sullivan said it best.

Jana C.H.
Seattle
Saith JcH: Do whatever you like with Wagner, but mess with Gilbert and Sullivan and you die!
Nekrotzar
April 28th, 2008 at 11:08 pm [Reply]

It just occurred to me that the new-look Marvin reminds me of a young Christopher Robin. I fear for Eyeore.
Hawkeye
April 28th, 2008 at 11:10 pm [Reply]

Marvin likes murder. Marvin likes clowns. So I guess in twenty years, Marvin will like William Shatner masks and Jamie Lee Curtis, too.
Dr. Weird
April 28th, 2008 at 11:32 pm [Reply]

69 – cheech wizard,

It’s been a while since I read that book (a DT 50th anniversary collection), but as I recall, it was about the looser art style of newer comics. Schultz has never used assistants that I know of… and in fact, I don’t think it’s too common in US strips (the pace isn’t as demanding as comic books, much less manga). As far as I’ve seen they are usually a one cartoonist operation.
Lisa
April 29th, 2008 at 12:30 am [Reply]

Inspector Din:

(This whole sequence reminds me of Buddy the Book Beaver in Unshelved, the librarian comic strip. Except, of course, that Unshelved is funny!)

Thanks, I am now hooked on this strip… I work in a library too….
mollificent
April 29th, 2008 at 12:38 am [Reply]

21 John Trussell: How about Irving? I think we’d ALL like to see him get away with murder. ;)
mollificent
April 29th, 2008 at 12:38 am [Reply]

D’oh! Dead thread.
Lisa
April 29th, 2008 at 12:57 am [Reply]

It’s only dead if we say it is….. ;o}
Anonymous
April 29th, 2008 at 2:07 am [Reply]

If my name was Dab Stract I’d pretty much want to burn my face off too, just to spite my hippie pun loving parents.
The Restless Mouse
April 29th, 2008 at 4:35 am [Reply]

Whose gloved hand is pointing between Dick Tracy and Policewoman Liz? I’m a bit confused.

PS thanks for putting “Let the Sun Shine In” in my brain, #42 Calico. Thanks a lot. Uh, droll. very droll.
anonymously
April 29th, 2008 at 8:05 am [Reply]

#104 – If you want to see someone age 20 years overnight, I will try to provide a link to a digital photo of ME – about a year from now – that I will have taken about a month after MY husband retires. I totally can relate to Elly’s instant aging as a reaction to the news John is going to be home with her (except Fridays) ALL. THE. TIME.

Who here thinks John is going to add to the honey-dew list: “lay down real train track around back yard, rig up kiddie-ride type train car; put on engineer costume and ride around in circles all day, going “wooo-woooo! Woooo-wooooo!”
Mr. G
April 29th, 2008 at 8:17 am [Reply]

Say what you will about Marvin, but you have got to admire the balls on Armstrong to make changes to a comic that’s over 25 years old. Even though he may not be succeeding, at least here’s an author who’s trying to keep his comics fresh somehow. What’s particularly impressive is that besides the artwork, there seems to be a slight shift in writing style as well (or am I imagining things).
The changes are for the better, too. When drawing small children in a cartoon-like fashion, the following aspects help set down a loveable character: large head in proportion to the body, face (eyes, mouth, nose) set low on the head to suggest a large cranium, refined features. It’s infinitely better than the trollish nightmare he was only a few weeks ago.
If we can’t get the dinosaurs amongst the comics to disappear out of the papers, the best we can hope for is some changes to them. Anyone willing to do that deserves at least a little praise. We don’t want another lumbering undead nightmare like Garfield.
TheCasey
April 29th, 2008 at 8:27 am [Reply]

129: Mr. G – Actually, Garfield has been going through some changes too. They’re just plot-driven instead of artistic. And I agree, it takes some guts to make changes to an established franchise like that. I wonder what kind of mail has been coming in on the changes to those two strips.
Paul1963
April 29th, 2008 at 10:50 am [Reply]

#89 cheech wizard– The last time I recall seeing Junior in the strip, he had married Sparkle Plenty (second marriage for each–Sparkle was once married to a cartoonist named Vera Alldid, if I recall correctly) and they had spawned a child called–hold onto your lunch–”Sparkle Plenty Junior Tracy.”
No mention was made of the considerable age difference between Junior and Sparkle, Junior having been depicted as a teenager when Sparkle was born.

Of course, Tracy himself has a daughter born in 1951 and a son born in 1979, and Max Collins actually wrote an arc in the 1980s called “Tracy’s Wartime Memories,” so time has been kind of weird in the strip for quite a while.

I remember reading reprints of the Tracy arcs that introduced B.O. Plenty and Gravel Gertie and being amused at what great friends of Tracy’s they later became. It’s never mentioned in the strip anymore, but B.O. and Gertie have two or three murders to their combined credit. Not justifiable homicides, mind you, but actual “I’m-gonna-get-you-out-of-my-way”-type murders.
ScienceGiant
April 29th, 2008 at 10:59 am [Reply]

#126: But think of the possibilities – “Smack Dab in the middle!” “Why, mommy, why?”

(Aside: WTF? Dick Tracy has dragged this plotline out two months? I could understand if the artwork were filling the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. But this is a crappy cartoon based on puns).
indichik
April 29th, 2008 at 11:02 am [Reply]

129, 130 — Namely, that Jon, for the first time in the strip’s lifespan, is actually getting some.
AtomicDog
April 29th, 2008 at 11:30 am [Reply]

Marvin – another Moon complaint. For the past two months, the Crescent moon low in the western sky has looked like a Cheshire Cats’ grin, with the horns pointing straight up. I have never seen a crescent Moon look the way it does in Marvin.
Lord-z
April 29th, 2008 at 12:06 pm [Reply]

Yes, sir, I have been around this great big internet, once or twice, and, based on what I have seen, I am convinced that out there, somewhere, someone is masturbating to pictures of sleeping hillbillies, right now. Heck, if you count the rumours I have heard of all the weird fetishes out there, someone is probably spanking to Snuffy Smith, as I type this. Who knows, there might be some weirdo who considers Snuffy to be a big ol’ hunk o’ man.

Okay, I will be the first to say it, it was meant to be mildly amusing, but I am kind of creeping myself out by talking about Snuffy that way.
Mordock999
April 29th, 2008 at 12:22 pm [Reply]

LUANN – Subject: Gunther. Hey, Greg? Greg Evans! Listen to me VERY carefully. Nerds don’t sew. You got that? Real nerds build their own computers and over-clock the CPUs., then play WOW til daybreak. Real nerds spend time hacking into Facebook and Myspace to get pictures of cute girls whose profiles are set to “private”.Hell, down South REAL nerds gleefully clean their SKS’s and spend warm afternoons nailing groundhogs.

BUT THEY DON’T FRIGGIN’ SEW!!!!!!

Sigh. Glad to get THAT off my chest. Have a better one.

______________________________

DEATH to TJ!!!
Mr. G
April 29th, 2008 at 3:50 pm [Reply]

#135: You know, you don’t have this from me but… there’s this site that collects “evidence” of rule 34. While I haven’t found any Snuffy Smith there (yet – at least until I learn to draw and get a scanner), there’s some imagery of Dennis the Menace and Hi and Lois amongst others that will ruin for all eternity whatever neutral look you may still have on those comics.
I won’t provide a link here, but let’s just say that a quick google search for “rule34″ will lead you down the rabbit hole. But just remember this: click on any link there and life as you knew it can never be regained. Never. You have been warned…
anonymously
April 29th, 2008 at 6:15 pm [Reply]

#136 – you know, I thought that, too, it sounded odd. (Nothing wrong with men sewing, my brother in law ran up a tweed sports jacket on the old Singer and tailored it himself – it looks as fine a jacket as you could buy at any good men’s store.) Maybe Gunther isn’t a nerd, but a dork? (In high school, that is, where the only things worth a fart in a windstorm are cheerleaders and football players.)
Lisa
April 29th, 2008 at 7:09 pm [Reply]

Sounds to me like Evans is trying to prefigure Gunther being gay…. I knew someone married to a very hetero man who liked to sew. So…..?
anonymously
April 29th, 2008 at 9:05 pm [Reply]

MEN WHO SEW ARE NOT GAY! Necessarily.

Now I officially hate Luanne. “Car racing is an exciting hobby”. Sweet jumping Jebus. It is? Watching cars burning up fuel going around and around, waiting for a crash? Hunting is manly/exciting. Serial killers are manly/exciting. I daresay gay porn videos are manly/exciting. Gunther is making her a Pig Costume! She sounds like she expects him to actually take up “car racing”. What a dumb a**hole she is. Gunther is what he is.
Penelope
April 29th, 2008 at 11:48 pm [Reply]

Of course the creators of Dick Tracy have a thing for hideous deformities. Look at Dick Tracy!
Paul1963
April 30th, 2008 at 11:53 am [Reply]

Actually, car racing is an exciting hobby, and there are 16-year-olds involved in it (with parental consent and assistance, of course). Not all of it is driving around in a circle, and not everyone there is “waiting for a crash.”
Huntch
May 1st, 2008 at 1:20 pm [Reply]

I think I like all of Luanns friends better

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