Contemporary Collectibles by Linda Rosenkrantz

At the ripe old age of 78, Dick Tracy remains the most fearless, dauntless, baddest crime fighter of all time. Trench-coated, hawk-nosed and lantern-jawed, Tracy was the quintessential '30s gangbuster. In addition, he holds the dubious distinction of having introduced violence to the Sunday funny papers.

The creation of Chester Gould, Dick Tracy made his debut Oct. 4, 1931 in the Sunday Chicago Tribune. Gould, the Oklahoma-born son of a newspaperman, had, pre-Tracy, been a Chicago sports cartoonist and then struggled in vain for years to get a comic strip into the Chicago Tribune and national syndication.

Inspired by the gangsters who were then running rampant in Chicago, he finally came up with a strong, stoic character called "Plainclothes Tracy" and sent several sample daily strips to Capt. Joseph Patterson, founder of the New York Daily News, who also ran the syndicate that distributed its comic features. After Patterson changed the name of the hard-boiled hero to Dick — the crime world nickname for a detective — he took Gould on, directing him to "show the bullets going into the body." Gould followed those directions and then some.

From the start, Gould broke two previously held taboos in the comic-strip world, showing both guns and blood. The very first story also introduced three Tracy allies: Chief Brandon, Pat Patton and his perpetual fiancee, Tess Trueheart. In the years that followed, there would be a parade of indelibly grotesque villains, among them Stooge Viller, Big Boy, The Mole, Pruneface, Littleface, B-B Eyes, The Brow, Shakey, Mumbles, Breathless Mahoney and — perhaps most memorable — Scarface and Flattop, as well as some great comic relief characters: Gravel Gertie, B.O., Plenty, Vitamin Flintheart, etc. The strip has been commended for its accuracy in terms of the details of police procedure.

Gould's drawings, which started out as fairly clumsy and inept (he never did quite master perspective or, for that matter, certain aspects of human anatomy) became more personal, starker, more bold — almost expressionistic — over the years.

The frenetic pacing of his plots was augmented by sharp angle shots, shifting points of view and an aggressive use of solid black forms.

Dick Tracy has always been a favorite of collectors, not only for the graphics seen in the original art, comic strips and book, but for all the crime-fighting merchandise (Gould was famous for such gadgets as the two-way wrist radio used in solving many of his cases) that inevitably followed upon his success, especially when he joined the pantheon of radio adventure heroes. That happened in the mid-1930s, when "The Adventures of Dick Tracy" began airing for 15 minutes a day, five days a week. Sponsored by Quaker Oats puffed wheat and rice, it ran until the late '40s.

Next in Tracy's multimedia career were several 15-chapter movie serials starting in 1937, plus four feature films in the '40s, and then a TV series in 1950, devolving into a cartoon show in 1961. In 1990, there was a much-publicized movie starring Warren Beatty, Madonna as Breathless Mahoney and Al Pacino as Big Boy Caprice, directed by Beatty.

In addition to replicas of that indispensable two-way wrist radio, there were countless other objects of Dick Tracy memorabilia, all collectible today, including the very first of the Big Little Books series. There were other books and comic books, as well as Junior Detective kits, secret code books, metal badges, pocket knives, celluloid buttons, wallets, banks, posters, games, a secret compartment brass ring, a Dick Tracy Siren Pistol by Marx Toys and a Rapid-Fire Tommy Gun, an "Electric Casting Outfit," a rocket gyro and balsa wood planes, a model police station with a car, decoder cards, a pen light, a Signal Code Siren Cap pencil, girls' bracelets, a 1930s die-cut paper mask, products associated with Dick Tracy caramel candy — and much more.

Linda Rosenkrantz has edited Auction magazine and authored 18 books, most recently "Beyond Ava & Aidan: The Enlightened Guide to Naming your Baby" (St. Martin's Press). Visit her baby names website at http://nameberry.com. She cannot answer letters personally. To find out more about Linda Rosenkrantz and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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