Dick Tracy is a comic strip featuring Dick Tracy (originally Plainclothes Tracy), a
square-jawed, hard-hitting, fast-shooting, and intelligent
police detective. Created by Chester Gould, the strip made its debut on
October 4, 1931, in the Detroit Mirror. It was distributed by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate. Gould wrote and drew the strip until 1977.
Although stories often end in gunfights, Tracy uses forensic
science, advanced gadgetry, and wits, in an early example of the
police procedural mystery story. Stories typically follow a criminal committing a crime and Tracy's relentless pursuit of the criminal. The strip's most
popular villain was Flattop Jones, a freelance hitman hired by
black marketeers to murder Tracy. When Flattop was killed, fans went into public mourning, and the Flattop Story was reprinted in
DC's series of Oversize Comic Reprints in the 1970s. Reflecting film noir, the villains' small crimes led to bigger, out of control situations. Similarly, innocent witnesses were frequently killed, and Tracy's paramour Tess Trueheart was often endangered by the villains. As the story progressed, Tracy adopted an orphan under the name, Dick Tracy Jr., or "Junior" for short, who appeared in investigations until becoming a
police forensic artist in his
father's precinct, and cultivated a professional partner, the ex-steel worker Pat Patton, who gradually became a detective of skill and courage enough to satisfy Tracy's requirements.
