Dick Tracy
Dick Tracy | |
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Action-adventure, crime |
Dick Tracy is an American comic strip featuring
Dick Tracy has also been the hero in a number of films, including Dick Tracy in which Warren Beatty played the lead in 1990.
Tom De Haven praised Gould's Dick Tracy as an "outrageously funny American Gothic", while Brian Walker described it as a "ghoulishly entertaining creation" which had "gripping stories filled with violence and pathos".[2][3]
Comic strip
Creation and early years
Basing the character on U.S. federal agent
Evolution of the strip
On January 13, 1946,[5] the two-Way Wrist Radio was introduced; it would become one of the strip's most immediately recognizable icons. This radio wristwatch, worn by Tracy and members of the police force, inspired Martin Cooper's invention of the mobile phone and may have inspired later smartwatches.[6] The two-Way Wrist Radio was upgraded to a two-Way Wrist TV in 1964.[7] This development also led to the introduction of an important supporting character, Diet Smith, an eccentric industrialist who financed the development of this equipment.
In late 1948, a botched security detail led to the death of the semi-regular character Brilliant, the
The 1950s
Gould introduced topical story lines about television, juvenile delinquency, graft, organized crime, and other developments in American life during the 1950s; and elements of soap opera depicted Dick, Tess, and Junior (along with the Tracys' baby daughter Bonnie Braids) at home as a family. Depictions of family life alternated with the story's crime drama, as in the kidnapping of Bonnie Braids by fugitive Crewy Lou, or Junior's girlfriend Model being accidentally killed by her brother.
Gould incurred some controversy when he had Tracy live in an unaccountably ostentatious manner on a police officer's salary, and he responded with a story wherein Tracy was accused of corruption and had to explain the origin of his possessions in detail. In his book-length examination of the strip, Dick Tracy – The Official Biography, Jay Maeder suggested that Gould's critics were unsatisfied by his explanation. Nevertheless, the controversy eventually faded, and the cartoonist reduced exposure to Tracy's home life.
Tracy's cases generally incriminated independent operators rather than organized crime—with a few exceptions, such as
From 1956 to 1964, the Dick Tracy Sunday page was accompanied by a topper humor strip called The Gravies and drawn by Gould and his assistants.
Space period
As technology progressed, the methods that Tracy and the police used to track and capture criminals took the form of increasingly fanciful atomic-powered gadgets developed by Diet Smith Industries. This eventually led to the 1960s advent of the Space Coupe, a spacecraft with a magnetic propulsion system. This marked the beginning of the strip's "Space Period," which saw Tracy and friends having adventures on the Moon and meeting Moon Maid, the daughter of the leader of a race of humanoid people living in "Moon Valley" in 1964. After an eventual sharing of technological information, Moon technology became standard issue on Tracy's police force, including air cars, flying cylindrical vehicles. The villains became even more exaggerated in power, resulting in an escalating series of stories that no longer resembled the urban crime drama roots of the strip. During this period, Tracy met famed cartoonist Chet Jade, creator of the comic strip Sawdust, in which the only characters are talking dots.
One of the new characters, Mr. Intro, was only manifested as a disembodied voice. His goal was world domination in the vein of a James Bond villain. Tracy eventually used an atomic laser beam to annihilate Intro and his island base.
Junior married Moon Maid in October 1964. Their daughter Honey Moon Tracy had antennae and magnetic hands. In the spring of 1969, Tracy was offered the post of Chief of Police in Moon Valley. However, he ended up back on Earth when the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 showed that the moon was barren of all life. Many of the accoutrements of the space period stories remained for many years afterward, such as the Space Coupe and much of the high-tech gadgetry. Moon Maid receded from the storyline.
The stories of this period took an increasingly condemnatory tone pertaining to contemporary court decisions concerning the
The strip was criticized for advocating violence in 1968. On June 7 — the day after Senator Robert F. Kennedy was killed by an assassin — the strip's final panel announced, "Violence is golden, when it's used to put down evil." The strip was obviously prepared weeks before the assassination, but the timing of the strip's publication attracted negative attention. Some newspapers dropped the strip as a result.[8]
1970s
In the 1970s, Gould modernized Tracy by giving him a longer hairstyle and a
Shortly before his retirement, Gould drew a strip in which Sam, Lizz, and Groovy held Tracy down to shave off his mustache.
At this time, the standard publication size and space of newspaper comics was sharply reduced; for example, the Dick Tracy
Plenty family
The Plenty family was a group of goofy
The Plenty family appeared with Tracy in a story that occurred in a bank, where "B.O." found a way to prevent thieves from snatching an envelope of money from a counter.
In the 24 April 2011 strip, B.O. and Gertie had a second child, Attitude,[10] a boy who is as ugly as Sparkle is beautiful. His face has yet to be shown.
Crimestoppers' Textbook
Beginning September 11, 1949, the Sunday strip included a frame devoted to a page from the "Crimestoppers' Textbook", a series of handy illustrated hints for the amateur crime-fighter.[11] This was named after a short-lived youth group seen in the strip during the late 1940s, led by Junior Tracy, called "Dick Tracy's Crimestoppers." This feature ended when Gould retired from the strip in 1977, but Max Allan Collins reinstated it, and it is still part of the comic strip. After Gould's retirement, Collins initially replaced the Textbook with "Dick Tracy's Rogues Gallery," a salute to memorable Tracy villains of the past.
After Gould
Chester Gould retired from comics in 1977; his last Dick Tracy strip appeared in print on Sunday, December 25 (Christmas Day) of that same year. The following Monday, Dick Tracy was taken over by Max Allan Collins and longtime Gould assistant Rick Fletcher. Gould's name remained in the byline for a few years after his retirement as a story consultant.
In one of Collins' first stories as the strip's writer, the gangster known as "Big Boy" learned that he was dying and had less than a year to live. Big Boy was still seeking revenge on the plainclothesman who sent him up the river and he wanted to live just long enough to see Tracy's death. He put out an open contract on Tracy's head worth $1 million, knowing that every small-time hood in the city would take a crack at the famous cop for that amount of money. One of the would-be collectors rigged Tracy's car to explode, but inadvertently killed Moon Maid instead of Tracy in the explosion. A funeral strip for Moon Maid explicitly stated that this officially severed all ties between Earth and the Moon in the strip,[12] thus eliminating the last remnants of the Space Period. Honeymoon received a new hairstyle that covered her antennae and she was ultimately phased out of the strip. Junior later married Sparkle Plenty (the daughter of B.O. and 'Gravel' Gertie Plenty), and they had a daughter named Sparkle Plenty Jr. Sparkle had been divorced by her cartoonist husband Vera Aldid, who was thus also removed from the cast. Collins felt that their original marriages were a mistake on Gould's part. In the 1990s, Tracy's son Joseph Flintheart Tracy took on a role similar to Junior's in the earlier strips.
In addition, Collins removed other Gould creations of the 1960s and 1970s (including Groovy Grove, who was gravely wounded in the line of duty and later died in the hospital; Lizz married him before his death). On a more philosophical level, Collins took a generally less cynical view of the
New semi-regular characters introduced by Collins and Fletcher included: Dr. Will Carver, a plastic surgeon with underworld ties who often worked on known felons; Wendy Wichel, a smarmy newspaper reporter/editorialist with a strong anti-Tracy bias in her articles; and Lee Ebony, an African-American female detective. Vitamin Flintheart reappeared occasionally as a comic-relief figure, the aged ham actor created by Gould in 1944 who had not been seen in the strip for almost three decades. The Plenty family (B.O., Gravel Gertie, and Sparkle) were also brought back as semi-regulars.
Original villains seen during this period included Angeltop (the revenge-seeking,
Rick Fletcher died in 1983 and was succeeded by editorial cartoonist Dick Locher, who had assisted Gould on the strip in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Locher was assisted by his son John, who died in 1986.
Max Allan Collins was fired from the strip in 1992, following a financial reorganization of their comic strip holdings, and Tribune staff writer and columnist
2000s
Dick Locher was both author and artist for over three years, beginning on January 9, 2006. On March 16, 2009, Jim Brozman began collaborating with Locher, taking over the drawing duties while Locher continued to write the strip.[13]
In 2005, Tracy was a guest at Blondie and Dagwood's 75th anniversary party in the comic strip Blondie. Later, Dick Tracy appeared in the comic strip Gasoline Alley.
On January 19, 2011,
Staton and Curtis reintroduced many of the characters of the 40s through the 60s, including a second Mr. Crime and a reformed Mole, while introducing more deformed and grotesque villains such as Abner Kadaver, Panda and the Jumbler. They also brought back all the gadgets and plot elements of the 1960s space era, starting in early 2013, although the reintroduced Moon Maid is not the same as the original; rather, she is a human genetically modified to resemble the original Moon Maid and, thus, is christened Mysta Chimera and placed under Diet Smith's care. They have also done crossovers, with cameos from
Awards and honors
Chester Gould won the
The
In 1995, the strip was one of 20 included in the Comic Strip Classics series of commemorative postage stamps and postcards.[22]
On May 2, 2011, the Tennessee Senate passed Resolution 30, congratulating Mike Curtis and Joe Staton on their professional accomplishments, including Dick Tracy.
On September 7, 2013, at the
On November 6, 2016, at their panel at Akron Comicon, Mike Curtis and Joe Staton were each presented with an Akron Comicon Excellence Award. The inscription on the plaques reads: "2016 AKRON COMICON EXCELLENCE AWARD PRESENTED TO MIKE CURTIS AND JOE STATON FOR THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO ONE OF THE LONGEST RUNNING NEWSPAPER STRIPS IN THE HISTORY OF NEWSPAPER COMICS!"[24]
In other media
Radio
Dick Tracy had a long run on radio, from 1934 weekdays on NBC's New England stations to the ABC network in 1948. Bob Burlen was the first radio Tracy in 1934, and others heard in the role during the 1930s and 1940s were Barry Thomson, Ned Wever and Matt Crowley. The early shows all had 15-minute episodes.
On CBS, with Sterling Products as sponsor, the serial aired four times a week from February 4, 1935, to July 11, 1935, moving to Mutual from September 30, 1935, to March 24, 1937, with Bill McClintock doing the sound effects. NBC's weekday afternoon run from January 3, 1938, to April 28, 1939, had sound effects by Keene Crockett and was sponsored by Quaker Oats, which brought Dick Tracy into primetime (Saturdays at 7 pm and, briefly, Mondays at 8 pm) with 30-minute episodes from April 29, 1939, to September 30, 1939. The series returned to 15-minute episodes on the ABC Blue Network from March 15, 1943, to July 16, 1948, sponsored by Tootsie Roll, which used the music theme of "Toot Toot, Tootsie" for its 30-minute Saturday ABC series from October 6, 1945, to June 1, 1946. Sound effects on ABC were supplied by Walt McDonough and Al Finelli.
On February 15, 1945, Command Performance broadcast the musical comedy Dick Tracy in B-Flat with Bing Crosby as Tracy, Bob Hope as Flattop, Dinah Shore as Tess Trueheart, among the cast. Dick Tracy's wedding is repeatedly interrupted as Tracy chases after one villain after another. In the strip, his marriage wasn't until 1950 and his honeymoon was disrupted by his going after Wormy.
Recordings
Comic books
Tracy made his first comic book appearance in 1936 as one of the features included in the first issue of Dell's Popular Comics. These were reprints from the newspaper strip, reconfigured to fit the pages of a comic book, as was the case with most Tracy comic book appearances. Tracy remained a regular feature in Popular Comics through the publication's 21st issue.
The first comic book to feature Tracy exclusively was the Dick Tracy Feature Book, published in May 1937 by David McKay Publications. McKay's Feature Books were magazines that rotated several popular characters from comics strips through 1938. Three more of McKay's Feature Books starred Tracy in the following months.
In 1939, Dell started a comic magazine series called "Black and White Comics," essentially identical to McKay's "Feature Books." Six of the 15 issues featured Tracy. In 1941, Dell's "Black and White" series was replaced by the "Large Feature Books," the third issue of which featured Tracy. As with the McKay series, the Dell "Black and White" and "Large Feature" series were abridged reprints of the strip.
In 1938, Tracy became one of several regular newspaper strips featured in Dell's regular monthly Super Comics, remaining a regular part of that publication until 1948. In 1939, Tracy was the sole feature in the very first issue of Dell's Four-Color Comics, which put out more than 1,300 issues starring hundreds of characters between 1939 and 1962. Tracy was featured in seven more Four-Color issues throughout the 1940s.
Tracy was frequently featured in comic books used as promotional items by various companies. In 1947, for example, Sig Feuchtwanger produced a comic book that was a giveaway prize in boxes of Quaker Puffed Wheat cereal, sponsor of the popular Dick Tracy radio series.
In January 1948, Dell began the first regular Dick Tracy comic book series, Dick Tracy Monthly. This series ultimately ran for 145 issues, the first 24 of which were published by Dell, after which it was picked up by Harvey Comics. Continuing the same numbering, Harvey published the series until 1961. As with most previous Tracy comic book incarnations, these were, with the exception of the last few Dell issues which featured original material, slightly abridged and reconfigured reprints of the newspaper strips.
Dick Tracy was revived in 1986 by Blackthorne Publishing which began as a monthly series (also called Dick Tracy Monthly) but became a weekly one (Dick Tracy Weekly) with issue 25 and lasted 99 issues. Disney produced a series of three issues as a tie-in for their 1990 film. This miniseries, True Hearts and Tommy Guns, was drawn by Kyle Baker and edited by Len Wein. The third issue was a direct adaptation of the film.
In 2018, IDW Publishing announced a new Dick Tracy comic book by Mike Allred (co-writer/cover artist/inker), Lee Allred (co-writer), Rich Tommaso (penciller) and Laura Allred (colorist).[26]
Books
Over the years, many reprints of Dick Tracy newspaper strips have been published. Beginning in 2006, IDW Publishing started the series The Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy, reprinting the complete strip in hardcover volumes, eventually being done under their The Library of American Comics imprint. The series concluded with the 29th and final volume being released in December 2020.
Other collections include:[27]
- The Exploits of Dick Tracy, Detective: The Case of the Brow. Rosdon, hardcover, 1946.
- The Celebrated Cases of Dick Tracy: 1931–1951. Chelsea House, hardcover, 1970. - Does not include the Sunday strips
- Dick Tracy: His Greatest Cases No. 1 — Pruneface. Gold Medal, paperback, 1975.
- Dick Tracy: His Greatest Cases No. 2 — Snowflake and Shaky plus The Black Pearl. Gold Medal, paperback, 1975.
- Dick Tracy: His Greatest Cases No. 3 — Mrs. Pruneface plus Crime, Inc.. Gold Medal, paperback, 1975.
- Dick Tracy: The Thirties - Tommy Guns and Hard Times. Chelsea House, hardcover, 1978.
- U.S. Classics Series - Dick Tracy: Tracy's Wartime Memories. Ken Pierce Books, paperback, 1986.
- The Complete Max Collins/Rick Fletcher Dick Tracy. Dragon Lady Press, paperback.
- #1: 50th Anniversary Dick Tracy. June 1986.
- #2: Who Shot Pat Patton?. February 1987.
- #3: The Ghost of Itchy. August 1987.
- Dick Tracy: Meets Angeltop. Berkeley, paperback, 1990.
- Dick Tracy #2: Meets the Punks. Berkeley, paperback, 1990.
- The Dick Tracy Casebook: Favorite Adventures 1931-1990. St. Martin's Press, paperback, 1990.
- Dick Tracy's Fiendish Foes! A 60th Anniversary Celebration. St. Martin's Press, paperback, 1991.
- Dick Tracy: Colorful Cases of the 1930s, Sunday Press Books, hardcover, 2016. ISBN 978-0-98355-043-3
- Dick Tracy: The Collins Casefiles, v1,2,3, Checker Books, 2003–2004.
Other editions:[27]
- The first Big Little Book was a Dick Tracy title and many subsequent ones in the series followed. Some were reprintings of newspaper strips and some alternate between text and original black-and white drawings.[28]
- Dick Tracy and the Spider Gang, a novelization of the Republic serial, Big Little Book #1446, the pages alternate between text and black-and-white photos from the movies.
- Dick Tracy, Ace Detective. Whitman, hardcover, 1943.
- Dick Tracy Meets the Night Crawler. Whitman, hardcover, 1945.
- Dick Tracy and the Woo Woo Sisters, Dell, unnumbered paperback with a pictorial back cover but not a mapback, 1947.
Film
Film serials
Dick Tracy made his film debut in
The sequels were produced under an interpretation of the contract for the first Dick Tracy serial, which gave license for "a series or serial". As a result, Chester Gould received no further money for the sequel serials.[citation needed]
Dick Tracy is portrayed as an
However, comic relief sidekick "Mike McGurk" bears some resemblance to Tracy's partner from the strip, Pat Patton; Tracy's secretary, Gwen Andrews (played by several actresses in the course of the series, including
The first serial, Dick Tracy, is now in the public domain.
Early feature films
Four years after the release of the final Republic serial, Dick Tracy would headline the first of four feature films, produced by
1990 feature film
Filmography
- Dick Tracy (1937, serial, 15 episodes, starring Ralph Byrd)
- Dick Tracy (1937, feature version of the above serial, starring Ralph Byrd)
- Dick Tracy Returns (1938 serial, 15 episodes starring Ralph Byrd)
- Dick Tracy's G-Men (1939, serial, 15 episodes, starring Ralph Byrd)
- Dick Tracy vs. Crime, Inc.(1941, serial, 15 episodes, starring Ralph Byrd)
- Dick Tracy (1945, film starring Morgan Conway) - #1 of 4 in RKO Radio Pictures series
- Dick Tracy vs. Cueball (1946, film starring Morgan Conway) - #2 of 4 in RKO Radio Pictures series
- Dick Tracy's Dilemma (1947, film starring Ralph Byrd) - #3 of 4 in RKO Radio Pictures series
- Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome (1947, film starring Ralph Byrd) - #4 of 4 in RKO Radio Pictures series
- Dick Tracy (1990, film starring Warren Beatty)
Television
- Dick Tracy (1950–1951) - live action television series starring Ralph Byrd
- The Dick Tracy Show (1961) - animated television series with various voices including Everett Sloane and Mel Blanc
- The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo, "Dick Tracy and the Mob" (1965 animated half-hour TV episode with the voices of Everett Sloane and Jim Backus
- Dick Tracy (1967) - television pilot starring Ray MacDonnell
- Archie's TV Funnies (1971) - features original Dick Tracy mini-episodes using the classic villains and cast from the strip, more faithful in tone than the earlier animated series
- Dick Tracy Special (2010) - thirty-minute special featuring Dick Tracy (Warren Beatty) being interviewed by Leonard Maltin
- Dick Tracy Special - Tracy Zooms In (2023) - twenty-five-minute special featuring a Zoom conversation between Tracy (Beatty), Maltin and Ben Mankiewicz
The strip has had limited exposure on television with one early live-action series, two animated series, one unsold pilot that was never picked up, and a proposed TV series currently held up in litigation.
First live action series
Animated cartoons
The first cartoon series was produced from 1960 to 1961 by UPA. Tracy employed a series of cartoon-like subordinate flatfoots to fight crime each week, contacting them on his two-way wrist radio. Everett Sloane voiced Tracy and supporting characters and villains were voiced by Jerry Hausner, Mel Blanc, Benny Rubin, Johnny Coons, Paul Frees and others. These subordinates included "Go-Go" Gomez, Joe Jitsu, Hemlock Holmes and the Retouchables, and Officer Heap O'Calorie. 130 five-minute cartoons were designed and packaged for syndication, usually intended for local children's shows.
UPA was also the production company behind the Mr. Magoo cartoons, so it was possible for them to arrange a meeting between Tracy and Magoo in a 1965 episode of the season-long TV series The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo. In the episode "Dick Tracy and the Mob", Tracy persuades Magoo (a well-known actor in the context of the Famous Adventures series) to impersonate an international hit man named Squinty Eyes, who he resembles, and infiltrate a gang of criminals made up of Flattop, Pruneface, Itchy, Mumbles and others. Unlike the earlier animated Tracy shorts, this longer episode was played relatively straight, with Tracy getting much more screen time. Pitting Tracy against a coalition of several of his foes was adopted more than two decades later in the 1990 film.
A second cartoon series was produced in 1971 and was a feature in Archie's TV Funnies, produced by Filmation. It adhered more closely to the comic strip, although it was hampered by cruder animation than the UPA shorts, typical of the studio's production standards.
Live action television pilot
William Dozier produced a pilot for a live action Dick Tracy series in 1967 starring Ray MacDonnell in the title role. (Dozier was the producer responsible for the 1966 Batman TV series.) The pilot was "The Plot to Kill NATO", featuring "Special Guest Villain" Victor Buono as 'Mr. Memory'. The series was not purchased by either ABC or NBC. Eve Plumb, who would later find fame as Jan Brady on The Brady Bunch, is credited as Bonnie Braids, who does not appear in the pilot, nor does Davey Davison as Tess.
Licensed products
In the 1960s, Aurora produced a plastic model kit of Dick Tracy sliding down a fire escape ladder into an alley, in hot pursuit with gun drawn. A Dick Tracy Space Coupe model came next. Both have been reissued by Polar Lights. Also in the market were Mattel's Dick Tracy range of toy guns.[30]
In 1990, Playmates Toys released a line of action figures called Dick Tracy: Coppers and Gangsters to coincide with the Dick Tracy movie. The figures were 5" tall, stylized with exaggerated comic looks and was accompanied by many accessories.[31] Two figures in the line had limited availability; Steve the Tramp (called "The Tramp" on the package front) was pulled from the assortment after complaints of portrayal of a homeless person as a criminal. The figure of "The Blank" was added to the assortment well after the film's release to keep the secret of the identity of the character. As a result, only limited quantities of these two figures made it to store shelves.
Various distinct video games tied in with the film were developed.
In 2009,
Rights to adapt in other media
Media outlets reported a legal battle being waged over rights to the Dick Tracy character. Warren Beatty announced plans to make a sequel to his 1990 movie. At the same time, television producers announced plans for a new Dick Tracy TV series. Both sides claimed that they were the legal owners of the rights to Dick Tracy. In May 2005, Beatty sued the Tribune Company, claiming he has owned the rights to the Dick Tracy character since 1985.
The lawsuit was resolved in Beatty's favor, with a U.S. District judge ruling that Beatty did everything contractually required of him to keep the rights to the character.[37]
In popular culture
- Fearless Fosdick is a long-running parody of Dick Tracy that appeared intermittently as a strip-within-a-strip in Al Capp's satirical hillbilly comic strip, Li'l Abner (1934–1977).
- Fabulous Furry Freak Brotherscomic strips.
- The artist Jess Collins used an X-Acto knife and rubber cement to reassemble Gould's strip into Tricky Cad (an anagram of "Dick Tracy"). Gould threatened to sue if the Tricky Cad collages were published.[38]
- The UPA version of Dick Tracy (though already having appeared in the novel) was scheduled to appear as a cameo in the deleted scene "Acme's Funeral" from the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.[39]
- Calvin and Hobbes had three segments parodying the strip, where Calvin imagines himself as an alter-ego named Tracer Bullet. Bill Watterson acknowledged this was inspired by Dick Tracy.
- In Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man, a 'trial' is held on thin evidence. The protagonist asks, "Is everyone reading Dick Tracy these days?"[40]
- Daffy Duck parodied Dick Tracy as "Duck Twacy" in the 1946 Looney Tunes cartoon The Great Piggy Bank Robbery.
- Dick Tracy was parodied by the adult animated stop motion sketch comedy TV show Robot Chicken in the season 3 episode "Rabbits on a Roller Coaster".
- Dick Tracy was parodied in 1990 in the Season 8 episode of Alvin and the Chipmunks, as "Chip Tracy".
- A sample of Dick Tracy speaking is used at the beginning of the song "Amphibious" by Drone, released on White Peach Records in 2019.
See also
- Chief Yellow Horse, the real-life basis for the Dick Tracy character Yellow Pony
- List of Dick Tracy villains
- List of film serials
- List of Dick Tracy characters
- Go Comics
- Mary Worth
- National Allied Publications
References
Notes
- ^ a b webpage: [1]: notes villains and includes short bio of Chester Gould.
- ^ De Haven, "Your guide to classic comic-strips". Entertainment Weekly. October 5, 1990. Retrieved December 15, 2018.
- ^ ISBN 9780810995956
- ^ "Eliot Ness". Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Retrieved September 27, 2019.
- ^ Garyn G. Roberts, Dick Tracy and American Culture: Morality and Mythology, Text and Context (McFarland, 2003), p. 38
- ^ "How Dick Tracy Invented the Smartwatch". Smithsonian Magazine. The Smithsonian Institution. March 9, 2015.
- ^ "The Evolution of Dick Tracy's Wristwatch". January 24, 2011.
- ISBN 978-1605490557.
- ^ ""Big Deals: Comics' Highest-Profile Moments," Hogan's Alley #17, 1999". Archived from the original on June 30, 2013. Retrieved January 15, 2013.
- ^ Dick Tracy comic strip (via GoComics), April 24, 2011. Retrieved October 8, 2012.
- ISBN 9780472117567.
- ^ Dick Tracy, 13 August 1978. Strip reprinted in Dick Tracy – The Official Biography by Jay Maeder, 1990 (color plate #12).
- ^ Jim Brozman working with Locher on Dick Tracy The Daily Cartoonist
- ^ Chicago Tribune: Dick Locher passes 'Dick Tracy' to new artist, writer Archived October 25, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
- Rosenthal, Phil (January 19, 2011). "Dick Locher passes TMS' 'Dick Tracy' to new artist, writer". Tower Ticker. Chicago Tribune. Archived from the originalon October 25, 2011. Retrieved January 16, 2012.
- ^ The Comics Journal: Dick Locher Hangs Up His Fedora
- ^ Degg, D. D. (October 24, 2021). "Shelley Pleger now Dick Tracy art squad". Daily Cartoonist. Retrieved July 31, 2022.
- ^ 'Funky Winkerbean' And 'Dick Tracy' Are Crossing Over
- ^ TRACY Meets His Hillbilly Match In Unique Comic Strip Crossover[permanent dead link]
- ^ 'Dick Tracy' Is Hanging Out With The Spirit (And More),
- ^ 2018 Dick Tracy / Green Hornet Crossover!,
- ^ Detective Fiction on Stamps, United States 1995, Comic Strip Classics: Dick Tracy, Trussel.com
- ^ Greenbrier artist penning award-winning Dick Tracy comic, Thecabin.net Archived August 6, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Rutherford, Tony. "Former Huntington Cop, Sheriff, Mayor Honored by Creators of Dick Tracy Comic," Archived December 4, 2021, at the Wayback Machine HuntingtonNews.net (April 10, 2017).
- ^ Billboard, July 26, 1947.
- ^ "Mike Allred and IDW Bring Dick Tracy Back to Comic Books". June 18, 2018.
- ^ a b Crime Fiction IV: A Comprehensive Bibliography 1749–2000, by Allen J. Hubin, addenda to the revised edition with annotations by Steve Lewis, accessed September 10, 2009
- ^ "An alphabetical listing of Big Little Books and Better Little Books, 1932–1949, accessed September 10, 2009". Archived from the original on March 31, 2009. Retrieved September 10, 2009.
- ^ "Dick Tracy Museum - February 18, 2015". Chester Gould Dick Tracy Museum. February 18, 2015. Archived from the original on February 18, 2015. Retrieved February 18, 2015.
- ^ TV Advertisement
- ^ "Dick Tracy: Coppers and Gangsters". Archived from the original on March 9, 2011. Retrieved February 8, 2011.
- ^ Mobygames: Dick Tracy
- ^ Mobygames
- ^ "Shocker Toys". Archived from the original on February 7, 2011. Retrieved February 8, 2011.
- ^ Comics Reporter Archived September 30, 2007, at the Wayback Machine Spurgeon, Tom (2005). "Dick Tracy and the Attached Sub-Rider". The Comics Reporter. Retrieved 2006-11-17.
- ^ /Word Balloon[permanent dead link] John Siuntres (2010). "The Bendis Tapes Part 4: Secret Origin of Manuel Sanchez". "Word Balloon". Accessed 2010-09-22.
- ^ "Dick Tracy: Warren Beatty finally gets his man". Los Angeles Times. March 25, 2011. Retrieved October 19, 2013.
- ^ Poems and Poetics: Tricky Cad
- ^ "Storyboards reveal what Marvin Acme's funeral in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" would have looked like". May 8, 2014.
- ISBN 0-679-73276-4.
Bibliography
- Roberts, Garyn G. (1993). Dick Tracy and American Culture. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. ISBN 0-89950-880-4.
External links
- Dick Tracy at gocomics.com
- Dick Tracy at Tribune Content Agency
- The Chester Gould Dick Tracy Museum
- Dick Tracy at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on September 9, 2015.
- Dick Tracy Depot
- Grand Comics Database: Dick Tracy comic books
- Dick Tracy at the Comic Book Database Archived October 17, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
- Zoot Radio, free old time radio show downloads of Dick Tracy
- Dick Tracy, Detective (1945)
- Boxcars711: Dick Tracy: two 1938 episodes[permanent dead link]
- Internet Archive: Dick Tracy films and radio episodes
- The Comics Journal - The Gould Rush: The Mad Allure of Dick Tracy by Frank M. Young