Chester Gould's Dick Tracy: An Appreciation

Dick Tracy with some of his most memorable villains from the 1940's. (This must date from 1947 or 1948, as it shows Mumbles, who appeared in 1947, but it's before Chief Brandon stepped down in late 1948.)

When I was a little boy, I went through a phase where I was obsessed with the comic strip Dick Tracy. It was right around the time Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy movie was released in 1990. I was very excited when the movie came out, so my fandom must have begun shortly before then. Neither of the metro area papers in the Twin Cities, the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press carried Dick Tracy, so my fandom was all about the old Dick Tracy comic strips. 

I was never into superheroes. Batman, Superman, and Spiderman did nothing for me. What I liked about Dick Tracy was that he was real. Okay, sure, there was no way Dick Tracy was ever going to get killed. But he didn’t have superpowers. Dick Tracy used his intelligence to get out of the impossible situations he found himself in, and that appealed to me.

Dick Tracy, written and illustrated by Chester Gould, began in 1931. The strip quickly became a hit with Depression-era America, at a time when gangsters and bank robbers were seemingly around every corner. But Gould was able to keep the strip going long after the real-life gangsters of the 1930’s had been killed or arrested. Part of Gould’s genius was his ability to keep coming up with more and more outrageous villains for the square-jawed Tracy to battle. The first of Gould’s grotesques might have been 1937’s “The Blank,” a man without a face. (Okay, so it was just cheesecloth covering his face, but he still looked creepy.) In the 1940’s Gould really got on a roll, with eerie villains like “Little Face” Finney, the Mole, B.B. Eyes, Pruneface, Mrs. Pruneface, Flattop, the Brow, and Influence. A notable non-grotesque from the 1940’s was Breathless Mahoney, a shapely blonde with a Veronica Lake-like hairstyle. 

Many of the Dick Tracy books I had focused on the first twenty years of the strip, and the 1930’s and 1940’s were certainly the most popular era for Dick Tracy. And it’s probably true of any comic strip that runs for more than twenty years that the first twenty years of the strip are the “classic” period and everything else is just, well, keeping things going. 

Dick Tracy lives here and likes it! This drawing was promoting Woodstock, Illinois, where Chester Gould lived. It's a great drawing of the square-jawed detective.

But Gould found ways to keep the reader’s interest. Dick Tracy had always been focused on the scientific part of police work and crime fighting, and Gould kept Tracy up to date on all the latest technology. And sometimes he put Tracy ahead of the latest technology, like when he introduced the two-way wrist radio to the strip in 1946. The radio allowed Tracy to communicate with the station even when he was out in the field. Chester Gould would have been thrilled to see Apple Watches, which are basically really fancy two-way wrist radios. The two-way wrist radio was eventually supplanted by the two-way wrist TV in 1964. 

Gould’s interest in technology blossomed during the 1960’s, as he inaugurated what has become known as Dick Tracy’s “moon period.” Diet Smith Industries, the company behind the two-way wrist radio and other inventions, had pioneered space travel with the invention of the “Space Coupe.” Human-looking aliens who lived on the moon became recurring characters in the strip, and Dick Tracy’s adopted son Junior ended up marrying Moon Maid, the daughter of the moon governor. The moon period was a very bold choice for Gould to make, as he took what was basically a gritty, urban crime procedural, albeit with a highly eccentric cast of characters, and turned it into a sci-fi strip. I haven’t read very many stories from the “moon period,” in part because that era was not well represented in the Dick Tracy anthologies I bought. In one of those anthologies, 1990’s The Dick Tracy Casebook, the last Chester Gould story is from 1960, thus totally ignoring the moon period. 

I’m not going to say that the moon period was a success, but I admire how Chester Gould went all in on it. It was a bold gamble to make, and one that ended up costing him a lot of readers, as newspapers started dropping the strip. From 1960 to 1974, the number of newspapers carrying Dick Tracy went from 550 to 375. (Dick Tracy: The Official Biography, by Jay Maeder, p.199)

The moon stories receded after Apollo 11 landed in 1969, and Tracy returned to being a mostly Earth-bound detective. During the 1970’s, the strip got more political, as Gould got more heavy-handed in his criticism of the rights of the accused. Some sample questions the characters posed during the 1970’s: Lizz the policewoman asking, “Have the courts become an ally of the underworld?” Sam Catchem: “What chance has law enforcement got in today’s judicial climate?” and Dick Tracy himself mused on December 31, 1975: “With the milksop backing a cop gets, should he quit his profession?” 

It’s not really that surprising that Chester Gould held such views. After all, he was literally working in a black-and-white world. In Chester Gould’s world, Dick Tracy was always right, and the criminals were always wrong and guilty. Of course, in the real world it’s more complicated than that. 

As comic panels got noticeably smaller in the 1970’s, it became harder for serial strips like Dick Tracy to keep going as dialogue and exposition was severely limited. As Jay Maeder writes of Gould, “He never successfully adjusted to the reduction, and his pacing fell off badly.” (Dick Tracy: The Official Biography, p.203) Chester Gould retired at the end of 1977, handing the strip over to Max Allan Collins, who would write the stories, and longtime Dick Tracy art assistant Rick Fletcher. Gould had been working with assistants since the 1930’s, but supposedly Gould never let anyone else touch Dick Tracy. 

Gould might not have received the rave reviews as an artist that contemporary Milton Caniff did, but in my opinion Gould’s artwork was superb. Gould’s style was always more cartoony than Caniff’s detail-packed realism, but it was extremely effective. Gould was particularly effective at using shadows. 

A great example of Chester Gould's dramatic artwork. The book this image is from notes that this could be a Roy Lichtenstein painting.

Another single-panel from Dick Tracy that highlights Chester Gould's dramatic use of shadows.

Gould was also a master of pacing and narrative drive. Part of this was because he was never very far away from his deadlines. The furthest Gould ever got ahead of deadline was 14 weeks. And most of the time Gould would only plot out the strip a week at a time and then draw it! (Dick Tracy: America’s Most Famous Detective, p.42) Maybe that accounts for the breathless pace and excitement that were hallmarks of Dick Tracy. 

While re-reading many Dick Tracy strips for this essay, I’m more and more intrigued by what kind of a person Chester Gould was. What I do know about him is that he was unflashy, and lived on a farm in Woodstock, Illinois for most of the years he drew the comic strip. So how did this seemingly simple fellow come up with all the elaborate storylines and crazy villains that inhabited the universe of Dick Tracy? I have no easy answer for that question. Suffice it to say, Chester Gould had one heck of an imagination.

Book Review: Airborne: A Sentimental Journey, by William F. Buckley, Jr. (1976)

Paperback cover of Airborne: A Sentimental Journey, by William F. Buckley, Jr., 1976. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

William F. Buckley sailing.

Christo and Pup, Christopher Buckley and William F. Buckley.

William F. Buckley Jr. was a man of many talents and interests. Buckley founded the influential conservative political magazine National Review, hosted the weekly public affairs talk show Firing Line, wrote a syndicated newspaper column three days a week, played the harpsichord, started writing novels at the age of 50, and was passionate about sailing. Oh, and one time he ran for Mayor of New York City. And what have you done today, old sport?

Buckley’s first book about sailing, Airborne: A Sentimental Journey, was published in 1976. Airborne chronicles Buckley’s 1975 voyage across the Atlantic Ocean in his schooner Cyrano. Various friends are along for the ride, chief amongst them Buckley’s only child, Christopher, or “Christo” as WFB refers to him. When Airborne takes place, Christo is a recent college graduate, figuring out what he wants to do with his life. Airborne features excerpts from Christopher’s journal of the voyage, and it’s very clear that he has a way with words—no surprise since we know that he goes on to become the author of 18 books, famous for political satires like Thank You for Smoking and Little Green Men. Christopher Buckley also wrote a fantastic memoir about his parents, Losing Mum and Pup, and reading that book piqued my interest in reading his father’s more personal books, like Cruising Speed and Overdrive, which both chronicle a week in the life of WFB. 

Buckley uses the ocean journey at the center of Airborne as a jumping-off point to describe the important role that sailing has played in his life. Throughout the book, Buckley weaves in many stories about the boats he has owned, and the adventures they have taken him on. Buckley writes eloquently about sailing: “The ocean and the sky and the night are suddenly alive, your friends and your enemies, but not any longer just workaday abstractions. It is most surely another world and a world worth knowing.” (p.26) 

The sailing bug bit Buckley early. At age 13 he was sailing regularly on a lake near the family home in Connecticut, where he raced neighbors twice his age: “Seventy-five races per summer for three summers may strike some as a few races too many. It struck me as too few races by far.” (p.58) 

Buckley also describes the dangers of sailing and the power of the sea. He also gives the reader an account of the tragic events of a cruise on Cyrano in June of 1971. While sailing on the Hudson River in Manhattan, a young African American advertising executive named Marvin Hayes was sitting on the lifeline of the boat when it broke. He fell into the water, did not know how to swim, and drowned before the boat could get back to him. Lawsuits were filed, and it was ultimately determined that shoddy workmanship was to blame: the lifeline should have held up to 3,000 pounds but “the rigger had applied the wrong kind of crimp to bind the cable to the fitting that secures it to the stanchion.” (p.82) (Buckley was not on board when this accident took place.) 

The voyage that Buckley describes in Airborne begins in Miami, with a stopover in Bermuda, and then on to the Azores. The trip is rife with technological problems from the very start. By the end of the voyage, even Buckley’s trusty sextant has failed him. “Now the list is pretty nearly complete: the radar, the autopilot, the batteries, the motor, the generator, the RDF, the loran, the chronometer, and the sextant. The factual errors in the instruction book for the HP-65 seem almost a diversion.” (p.211)

There’s an interesting section on celestial navigation, which Buckley was a big fan of. It sounds very complicated to a non-sailor like me, but it’s fascinating to learn about how you can find out where you are, even when you’re in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. (As long as you can see either the sun or the stars.) 

As a prose writer, Buckley’s style is surprisingly similar to that of his nemesis, Gore Vidal. Both men were devotees of the aside, the digression, as though their brilliant brains had so many competing thoughts occurring to them at the same moment that they simply had to set it all down, and well, dear reader, you’ll just have to try your best to catch up with them! Sarcasm aside, that may have been close to the truth, as they were both exceptionally brilliant men who probably did have a million different thoughts rushing through their heads at any given moment. And while that is entertaining to read, it can be tough to follow sometimes. 

What I like so much about William F. Buckley’s personal style is his confidence. You can see it on Firing Line. He’s leaning back in his chair, slouching, with his clipboard and pencil, eyes lidded as though he might suddenly drift off to sleep, and yet, he is never at a loss for words, for threading the complicated tapestry of the argument he is weaving. He can write a newspaper column in 30 minutes. He can sail across the Atlantic. I’m in awe of that kind of confidence, probably because I simply don’t posses it. As Christopher Buckley writes in his journal: “There are times when I’m right and times when I’m wrong. Usually, I admit when I’m wrong. WFB, it seems, does not subscribe to this.” (p.94)

Buckley was renowned for possessing a huge vocabulary, and it’s on full display throughout the book. I was thrilled to read Buckley use the word “arteriosclerotic” which was one of Tom Wolfe’s favorite words that he used throughout his first book, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby. Buckley finds the world of sailors even a little too conservative for him: “Sometimes, though, the tribal spirit spills over, and you get arteriosclerotic stuffiness.” (p.127) 

Buckley is aware that owning a yacht is what we would now call a “first world problem,” as he writes about reprogramming his constantly malfunctioning HP-65 navigation device: “You may put that down, if you insist, in the category of the Problems of the Idle Rich.” (p.189)

Buckley also came up with the perfect metaphor for Donald Trump when he wrote: "The key to a serene relationship with sharks is simply this: Bear it in mind that they are so dumb, you can neither anticipate nor outwit them." (p.133)

Throughout Airborne, we see Buckley’s pride in his son, and so it seems fitting at the very end of the book he lets Christopher have the last word. “…even though I’m restless for the touch of land, if you were to set sail tomorrow to cross another ocean, I’d sell my soul to ship out with you. Any day.” (p.252)

Book Review: Salvador, by Joan Didion (1983)

The stark cover of Joan Didion's 1983 book Salvador.

Joan Didion, early 1980's.

In 1982, Joan Didion and her husband, novelist and screenwriter John Gregory Dunne, went to El Salvador to observe the chaos and disorder during the Salvadoran Civil War. Didion and Dunne traveled around El Salvador for two weeks. The end product of their visit was a series of articles that Didion published in The New York Review of Books, and then expanded for her book Salvador, published in 1983. 

Didion’s fine writing is on display throughout the book. The end of the first paragraph of Salvador gives the reader a preview of what is to follow, as Didion writes that to visit El Salvador is “…to plunge directly into a state in which no ground is solid, no depth of field reliable, no perception so definite that it might not dissolve into its reverse.” (p.13) 

 The Salvadoran Civil War was a brutal and bloody conflict, and Didion relates the grim details: “The dead and pieces of the dead turn up in El Salvador everywhere, every day, as taken for granted as in a nightmare, or a horror movie.” (p.19) 

Didion interviews several government officials, and at one point she and Dunne and some other journalists attempt to speak to a colonel but return without meeting him. “…nothing came of the day but overheard rumors, indefinite observations, fragments of information that might or might not fit into a pattern we did not perceive.” (p.45) I like that sentence very much, and it seems to be a good summary of the book itself. 

Didion comes to no grand conclusions at the end of Salvador, and it seems the only thing we have learned is that it’s a complicated place and there’s no easy answer for stopping the killing. Indeed, the civil war would continue until 1992. 

Salvador is a short book, just over 100 pages. Does it really need to exist as a stand-alone book rather than a long piece within a larger collection? Probably not. It’s a little unfair to expect anyone to turn out an entire book based on just two weeks of reporting, even if they are an author as talented as Joan Didion. Because of it’s length and the short amount of time Didion spent in the country, Salvador is inevitably going to feel like it’s just skimming the surface. Salvador is still an interesting book, but it’s not an essential one.