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Dick Tracy is an American comic strip featuring Dick Tracy, a tough and intelligent police detective created by Chester Gould. It made its debut on Sunday, October 4, 1931, in the Detroit Mirror, [1] and was distributed by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate.
Chester Gould (/ ɡ uː l d /; November 20, 1900 – May 11, 1985) was an American cartoonist, best known as the creator of the Dick Tracy comic strip, which he wrote and drew from 1931 to 1977, incorporating numerous colorful and monstrous villains.
Feb 21, 2021 · Gould invented his hero as “Plainclothes Tracy” in a series of spec strips he sent to legendary publisher Joseph Patterson, who was in the process of building the New York Daily News into a pioneer of tabloid newspapers.
- IT WAS ORIGINALLY CALLED PLAINCLOTHES TRACY. After taking art correspondence courses as a teenager, Pawnee, Oklahoma native Chester Gould decided that one way to get rich would be to create a comic strip that would be syndicated all over the country.
- IT DEPICTED THE FIRST COMIC STRIP MURDER. Strips of the early 20th century were almost exclusively humorous in nature; even police were depicted as slightly buffoonish.
- THE STRIP WAS CRITICIZED FOR BEING TOO VIOLENT. Even people unfamiliar with Dick Tracy have at least some passing knowledge of its colorful library of villains: Pruneface, Flyface, the Mole, Flattop, the Brow.
- GOULD IMMERSED HIMSELF IN POLICE TECHNIQUES. While much of Tracy was sensational in nature—few actual cops relied on video watches or almost exclusively hunted disfigured crooks—Gould still wanted to portray police work as accurately as he could.
Dick Tracy, the hard-boiled hero of Dick Tracy, a newspaper comic strip created by Chester Gould in 1931. Gould originally wanted to name both the detective and the strip Plainclothes Tracy, but he was overruled by Joseph Medill Patterson, owner of The Chicago Tribune–New York News Syndicate.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Chester Gould is the creator of 'Dick Tracy' (1931- ), the world's most famous detective since 'Sherlock Holmes'. For 46 years, Gould captivated newspaper readers with his clever mix of suspense, grotesque villains, explicit violence, melodrama and well-documented use of scientific research methods.
“Dick Tracy” was born. On October 4, 1931, “Dick Tracy” first appeared in the Detroit Mirror, one of the Tribune owned papers, then in the New York Daily News, then the Chicago Tribune, and on and on, taking the country by storm.
