RARA-AVIS: Dick Tracy

joseph (joseph@sos.net)
Tue, 16 Jun 1998 23:44:27 +0100 Ol' Dick is one of the best of the hard boiled cops in prose or comics. In
Chet Goulds hey day (the 30's through the fifties) Tracy would do anything
to get the crooks. And he could take it too. Someone once estimated the
Tracy had taken a pound of lead in the strips life.

Goulds original motif was to show the crooks getting theirs. He said he
would show the bullets going through the body. Not only was he physically
tough, but had tough morals. His favorite hate was easy money. Even Juniors
inheirtance from his real father was to easily gotten for Tracys taste.

As for the name Dick as a euphemism for detective policeman. This was used
by pulps and movies to mean cop. That is why PI's were called private
dicks. As an example when Chet Gould submitted the his detective strips to
Capt Patterson of the Tribune it was called Plainclothes Tracy. Patterson
had Gould change the name to Dick Tracy or Detective Tracy. Glad he did
would like to be known as "Plain."

Tracy once used napalm on criminals in a story in the early sixties. That's
tough.

Joseph M

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