Chester Gould introduced a raw violence to comic strips, reflecting the violence of 1930s Chicago. Gould did his best to keep up with the latest in crime fighting techniques; while Tracy often ends a case in a shootout, he uses forensic science, advanced gadgetry, and wits to track the bad guy down. The strip was an early example of the police procedural mystery story. Actual "whodunit" plots were relatively rare in the stories; the focus is the chase, with a criminal committing a crime and Tracy solving the case during a relentless pursuit of the criminal, who becomes increasingly desperate as the detective closes in.
The strip's villains are arguably the strongest appeal of the story. Tracy's world is decidedly black and white. The bad guys are sometimes so evil that their very flesh is deformed to announce their sins to the world. The evil sometimes is raw and coarse, like the criminally insane Selbert Depool ("looped" spelled backwards—typical Gould). At other times, it is suave, like the arrogant Shoulders, who cannot help thinking that all women like him. It can even border on genius, like the Nazi spy Pruneface, a machine design engineer who dabbles with a chemical nerve gas.
Gould's most popular villain was Flattop Jones, a freelance hitman with a large head as flat as an aircraft carrier's flight deck. Flattop was hired by black marketeers to murder Tracy, and he nearly accomplished that before deciding to first blackmail his employers for more money. This proved to be a fatal mistake, since it gave Tracy time to signal for help. He eventually defeated his assassin in a spectacular fight scene even as the police were storming the hideout, but Flattop himself escaped. When Flattop was eventually killed, fans went into public mourning,
On January 13, 1946, Gould changed Dick Tracy forever with the introduction of the 2-Way Wrist Radio, having drawn inspiration from a visit to inventor Al Gross. This seminal communications device, worn as a wristwatch by Tracy and members of the police force, became one of the strip's most immediately recognizable icons, and can be thought of as a precursor to later technological developments, such as cellular phones and later watch phones. The 2-Way Wrist Radio was upgraded to a 2-Way Wrist TV in 1964. This development also led to the introduction of an important supporting character, Diet Smith, an eccentric industrialist who financed the development of this equipment.
Towards the end of the 1940s, Gould took steps to shake up the status quo of his strip. In late 1948, for instance, a botched security detail led to the death of the semi-regular character Brilliant, the blind inventor of the 2-Way Wrist Radio (among other devices) and son of industrialist Diet Smith. Chief Brandon, Dick Tracy's superior on the police force and a presence in the strip since 1931, voluntarily resigned in shame. Pat Patton, heretofore Tracy's rather buffoonish partner, was promoted to police chief in Brandon's place. Gould later explained this seemingly improbable turn of events by stating that, within the strip's reality, Tracy was offered the job first but had declined, personally recommending Patton instead. To take Patton's place as Tracy's sidekick, a new character, Sam Catchem (based on Gould's old friend, Al Lowenthal), was introduced. (IMDB)
Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy (1931-1933)
The Celebrated Cases of Dick Tracy (1931-1951)
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Thank You! --------------- Rick.