InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Your face."

dr_hermes (dr_hermes) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-07-27 22:40:00

Entry tags:

char: dick tracy, creator: chester gould, era: golden age

Working for the Brow
As a kid, DICK TRACY seemed more nightmarish to me than most outright horror comics. The art was so strange, flat and claustrophic. The villains WERE villains, not anti-heroes with a noble streak but just heartless human monsters who were usually physically deformed in some way. And the strip was violent. Tracy had no code against killing, he was not a masked avenger or secret operative or millionaire playboy investigating crimes. He was a cop. Period. When the shooting started, he usually sent a bullet tunneling through the crook's head (which left a neat little hole.. Chester Gould's art was weird). At the same time, even the likeable secondary characters wandering in and out were eccentric. It was an odd strip, but immensely popular in its day and influential. The grotesque bad guys with a visual gimmick were used by the pulps and later by Batman and other comics heroes.

In 1944, Dick Tracy took on the Brow. This charmer was a Nazi spy working the USA despite his conspicuous appearance. Both ears had been cut off in a knife fight and he had a high, deeply furrowed forehead. The Brow got hold of the Summer Sisters, May and June... these were a pair of unreliable would-be actresses who were not above picking pockets or pulling a con, making their way in the big city by their wits but they got in over their heads this time.

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jlroberson
2009-07-28 04:19 am UTC (link)

And Tracy's appearance reflects his...uprightness, I guess. He's mostly made of right angles. They ALL reflect their inner selves. But of course, there's the fact their appearance is often a plot point to consider...

The grotesqueness, and the frank violence--all in a cartoony way!--are what made me love Tracy as a kid. I also like his weird constantly-shifting letter size. It adds serious dynamism to the strip. It's comics expressionism, like Fritz Lang crime films on paper.

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psychop_rex
2009-07-28 07:58 am UTC (link)

One of the disappointments I had with the Dick Tracy movie was that, while all the other characters had elaborate makeup on to make them look JUST like their comic strip counterparts, Warren Beatty did not. Apparently he wanted to - he was going to have a squared-off chin and everything - but the big brass said no, they didn't want one of their major stars making himself unrecognizable. Still, good movie.

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