Today, as we catch up on the calendar, we see how it’s the 75th anniversary of Chester Gould’s legendary comic book couple, Dick Tracy and Tess Trueheart, finally getting married.
It’s our annual Comics Should Be Good Advent Calendar! Every day until Christmas Eve, you can click on the current day’s Advent calendar post, and it will display the Advent calendar with that given day’s door open, and you can see which will be the “gift” for this day! You can click here to see previous Advent calendar entries. This year, the theme is Christmas Stories in Comics! Each day will highlight a Christmas story from a notable comic strip (some strips will be featured here more than once. Some will appear as many as four or five times).
This year’s Advent calendar design, depicting Santa Claus handing out presents to the children in the cartoon (although instead of a present for Charlie Brown, his dog, Snoopy, receives a present instead ), is Nick Benefits.He made it for the 2022 Advent Calendar, but since it also works for this year, I’m keeping it.
And now Day 17 will be opened (once opened, the door will present an image of the comic presented)…
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What’s wrong with Dick Tracy?
As I noted some time ago, the widespread media coverage surrounding Prohibition agent Elliot Ness and his long attempt to defeat powerful gangster Al Capone, which ended in 1931 with Capone’s conviction to eleven years in federal prison for tax evasion. , led cartoonist Chester Gould to float the idea of making a comic strip based on an undercover detective Gould knew from the news. Originally titled TracyTHE Detroit Mirror purchased the comic strip and began publishing it in October 1931, but said it should be renamed Dick Tracy. The Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate then began carrying the strip nationally.
Dick Tracy it caused a sensation. It was soon one of the most popular comic strips in the country, and Dick Tracy was one of the most famous comic book characters for DECADES to follow. In fact, back in the 1960s, when ABC was curious about making a TV series based on a comic book hero, Batman wasn’t its first target. No, according to their internal surveys, the most famous comic book hero at the time was Superman, but second only to him was Dick Tracy. NBC, however, had already optioned the character, so ABC was “stuck” with Batman instead.
One of the things that Dick Tracy What stands out a bit is that 1931 was sort of the perfect time for comics to debut, as the format had eliminated much of the early learning curve by the 1920s there was so a much more established format for comics by 1931, and this helped Gould a lot. Additionally, Gould was 31 when the strip began, and he remained on it for over 40 years. Many other comics lost their famous creators fairly early, whether to tragedy or better opportunities, so Gould’s retention with the strip into the 1970s was a big boon for the strip.
Dick Tracy was famous for its central romance between Dick Tracy and Tess Trueheart, but especially for the fantastical villains Tracy faced over the years. He had one of the greatest rogues galleries in comic book history, tied with Flash and Batman. Over time, however, the comic strip, which had been criticized for many years for being too violent, ceased to be as grounded as in its Ness-like beginnings, and the strip began to do a lot of science fiction stories in the 1960s.
When Gould retired in 1977, he was replaced by the brilliant crime writer Max Allan Collins, who wrote the strip until his dismissal in 1992. First, Rick Fletcher drew the strip until ‘ upon his death in 1983. Dick Locher, who had assisted Gould in the 1950s and 1960s and took over as artist on the strip. After Collins was fired as a cost-cutting measure, Mike Killian took over writing duties until his death in 2005. Locher then wrote and drew the strip until 2009, when Jim Brozman took over artistic duties until 2011, when Locher retired and the band. was covered by writer Mike Curtis and artist Joe Staton. Staton left the strip in 2021, replaced by his inker/letter, Shelley Pleger, the feature film’s first female lead artist. Pleger, in turn, was replaced by Charles Ettinger, who is the strip’s current artist.
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Christmas gave Terry some hope as the Japanese hunted him down during World War II
In a classic Terry and the Pirates storyline from 1940, Terry was fleeing the Japanese in occupied China and had some hope at Christmas.
What is the 75th anniversary in Dick Tracy history?
In December 1949, Dick Tracy and the police were tracking down the evil Mouser, but she escaped and hid in the forest near the Christmas trees that were then being sold in the town. However, she was destroyed by her own love for white rats, because she had released a group of white rats, so they ran into the trees and went straight towards her…
Chester Gould would fascinatingly integrate the Sunday strip into the main story, but in such a way that if you ONLY read the daily strips, you would still understand the plot of the series.
After closing the case, Dick began to mysteriously hint at a special Christmas dinner he was hosting for all his loved ones…
As you might have guessed, Dick has decided to marry his longtime girlfriend, Tess Trueheart, on Christmas Day!
Although they shocked everyone, on the 26th they were all cool about missing the wedding…
Very soft.
Happy 75th Wedding Anniversary, Dick and Tess! It doesn’t look like day 54!
If you have a suggestion for a good Christmas story from a daily newspaper strip, please let me know at brianc@cbr.com, and maybe I’ll use that strip as an example future for one of the others. 7 strips incoming!