"Dick Tracy" to Become Readable, Viewable Again.

I'm pretty excited to hear about the new creative team of artist Joe Staton and writer Mike Curtis coming onto the DICK TRACY newspaper strip. I've been a Tracy fan since seeing a collection of the Chester Gould strips in The Celebrated Cases of Dick Tracy as a child, and borrowing the same book over and over again for the next ten years. (I now own a copy) Unfortunately, the venerable strip has fallen on hard times in recent years:

Dick Locher has finally relinquished his hold on the legendary cop and allowed a new creative team to take over...and not a moment too soon. I hate to speak ill of the elderly, but he's retiring a wealthy man, and Dick Tracy has been terrible since forever. Staton and Curtis have been auditioning for the strip for some time now, and I've seen a few samples of their style:

These are from an online Tracy tribute strip that the two did for a website that has since disappeared. The new team may just straight up reuse this story for Dick Tracy proper, so don't be surprised if the debut storyline involves Flyface and "The Fifth". I've always enjoyed Staton's work and I'm loving the work I see here. Here's hoping the new look leads to some new interest in a favorite comic strip.

End of an Error (Updated)

I emerge from seclusion to emit a Nelson Muntz-esque "HAW HAW!" in the general direction of the Comics Code Authorty, which finally died a long overdue death earlier this week as DC and Archie comics decided to stop paying for the "privilege" of the Code's seal of good clean family values on dead teenagers and all-American squeaky-clean teens, respectively.

The most secretive of agencies, even a die-hard comic nut like myself had no idea what really went on in the CCA offices.  I've always pictured a dusty, sepia-toned warehouse office filled with mean old ladies wielding red pencils and "CENSORED" stamps. And feeding comics into the furnace on their cofee breaks, of course. In recent years, I can only imagine that it was a one man operation, rubber-stamping whatever came through the door to keep the membership dues rolling in. Since the Code started as a way to put EC Comics out of business and was generally seen as setting comics art back for decades, I'll shed no tears for the Comics Code Authority.

Updated 1/24/11: Looks like the Comics Code Authority has been defunct since at least 2009 and was just cashing the checks without reviewing the comics for several years before that.

In Which I Continue to Obsess Over Whether or Not Silver Age Jimmy Olsen Stories "Actually Happened"

In a world of suffering and pain it's good to know that as of Action Comics #896, "The Gorilla Reporter" is now back in Superman continuity, where it belongs. So my mind is at rest about that, at least. As I predicted, the Jimmy Olsen feature has been great, and this latest issue was the best one yet, especially since, as seen in the two panels reproduced above, more of the old Jimmy Olsen stories have now been acknowledged, including the aforementioned classic wherein Jimmy spent a day as a gorilla! In fact, I'm going to pull the "internet expert" card here and declare all silver-age Jimmy Olsen stories -every bizarre transformation, every wacky hoax- to be officially in continuity until otherwise depicted or specifically stated in a DC publication.