EIGHTY FOR TRACY

Dick Tracy passed the 80^th anniversary of its launch date on October 12. The bloodiest strip of its day, creator Chester Gould had the titular character kill his first miscreant on November 26, just a little over a month after the curtain went up. The victim was a thug named Crutch who had killed the father of Tess Trueheart, Tracy’s betrothed, during a robbery on the very evening Tracy had popped the question, saying he hadn’t had any breaks “as far as money is concerned,” but with Tess at his side, he vowed to “find a way.” The date of the strip’s second killing — Tracy’s gunning down Crutch — was a holiday that Tracy, standing over the body of the man who’d murdered his fiancee’s father, observed by saying it wasn’t a bad Thanksgiving.

The strip’s current proprietors, artist Joe Stanton and writer Mike Curtis, celebrated the anniversary month by re-enacting the strip’s first sequence — but with a few significant differences. Their frame story is Tracy’s cohort Sam Catchem telling policewoman Lizz how Tracy joined the detective squad.

Most of the tale unfolds in its historic pattern except that the hoodlum population of Chicago consists of an inordinately high number of personages familiar to long-time readers (and recent fans) of Gould’s pace-setting strip, a veritable roll call of Gould’s grotesques from future Tracy escapades: Flattop, Blowtop (who, Flattop suggests, is a member of the “Top” family?), Pruneface, the Brow, Mole, Gravel Gertie, 88 Keyes, Itchy, and Shaky, plus Steve the Tramp and the kid who will henceforth be known as “Junior.”

In all, a thoroughly enjoyable trip down memory lane and a notable way to celebrate a milestone in comic strip history. You can witness the entire extravaganza hereabouts at GoComics.