Tag Archives: Dick Tracy

BUD, WHICH WAY TO THE NOBLE HOTEL?

Posted on by

NemoCoverThis is the first essay–an article, really–that I wrote about my great hero and inspiration, Chester Gould, creator of “Dick Tracy.” It appeared in issue number 17 (cover-dated February 1986) of Nemo: the Classic Comic Library, which was founded and edited by Rick Marschall, published by Fantagraphics, and ran for 31 lively, fascinating, essential issues. To my mind, Nemo is one of the great American magazines, a milestone in the development of comics criticism, and I miss it, although Rick subsequently founded a similar magazine called Hogan’s Alley, which is still issued on a wildly irregular basis.

When I was gathering material earlier this year to start up Cafe Pinfold, “Bud, Which Way to the Noble Hotel?” was one of the things I most wanted to include, but I couldn’t find my copy of the magazine. Recently, though, while ambling through the stacks at Special Collections at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Cabell Library in Richmond, I discovered a complete run of Nemos, and Celina Williams and Cindy Jackson, the superbly professional and generous proprietors of Cabell’s comic-art holdings, made and sent me a PDF of my article. I’m delighted to post it here now, alongside of (or actually above) the much-later-written “Heart of Gould.”   Continue reading →

DICK TRACY / DERBY DUGAN

Posted on by

From” Dick Tracy” by Joe Staton and Mike Curtis, November 16, 2011

Before I loved novels and movies and plays, even before I loved comic books, I loved newspaper comic strips; before I could read, they were read to me, by my mother and grandmother, and certainly long before I turned seven I was reading dozens of them every day of the week myself in the papers we got at home–the Bayonne Times, the Newark Evening News, and the New York Journal-American–as well as the papers I borrowed from obliging neighbors–the Jersey Journal, the Hudson Dispatch, the New York Daily Mirror, and the New York Daily News. The News was, hands down, my favorite paper because it carried my favorite strips–“On Stage,” “Gasoline Alley,” “Moon Mullins,” “Smilin’ Jack,” “Brenda Starr,” “Winnie Winkle,” “Smitty,” as well as my very favorites, Harold Gray’s “Little Orphan Annie” and Chester Gould’s “Dick Tracy.” (I always wanted to like George Wunder’s version of “Terry and the Pirates,” but I just didn’t get it.) To me “Dick Tracy” was the pinnacle of strip comics; I remember lying in bed at night wondering what mayhem tomorrow’s installment would contain, and also wondering how old I’d have to be (17? 18?) before I could show up at Chester Gould’s front door (but where did he live?) and beg him to let me be his assistant.  Continue reading →

HEART OF GOULD

Posted on by

This essay, which was published in Comic Art No. 9 (Fall 2007), is the second I wrote about the great cartoonist Chester Gould (the first one, entitled “Bud, Which Way to the Noble Hotel?” appeared in Nemo: the Classic Comics Library back in the mid-1980s). I’ve always maintained–because it’s the truth–that had it not been for my early discovery of, and infatuation with, Gould’s “Dick Tracy” comic strip, I never would have become a writer of fiction; that weird and compelling stuff of his just fired my imagination, made me want to make up stuff like it myself. His work is still inspiring to me and I still regularly reread the classic strips, now happily available in gorgeous hardcover editions published by the Library of American Comics. When I was preparing that article for Nemo 30 or so years ago, Chester Gould was still alive, and I spoke with him briefly, twice, on the telephone. It still makes me happy, remembering that I did. I’ve had quite a few heroes in my life, but none to compare with Chester Gould–and I actually got to talk to him!

Continue reading →