Dick Tracy by Chester Gould

Dick Tracy

Dick Tracy is a detective in a large city. From the the 1930s to tday, Tracy and his colleagues use science, forensics and good old-fashioned smarts to catch outrageous criminals like The Brow and Pruneface. Tracy gets help from a young orphan, Junior, whom he later adopts, Tracy's girlfriend and later wife Tess Trueheart, and an eccentric older actor named Vitamin Flintheart. The strip has evolved through the decades, adding contemporary elements to its basic police procedural, and Tracy's two-way wrist radio is now a wrist-computer, but the strip still runs in newspapers nation-wide. It is available online at gocomics.com.

Appeal: Mystery, detective stories, police procedural, classic, middle grade plus.

Art: Bold, caricature

Text: Police slang, expository

Other: Chester Gould created the strip and drew it until 1977. The strip has spawned radio shows, comic books, movies, television shows both live-action and animated, and books.

Awards: Chester Gould won the Ruben Award in 1959 and 1977, and a Special Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1980. Dick Tracy was included in the Comic Strip Classics series of stamps from the United States Postal Service in 1995.

Locher, Dick,Collins, Max Allan., eds. The Dick Tracy Casebook: Favorite Adventures, 1931-1990. New York : St. Martin's Press, 1990. Print.