Detective Tracy: Selections from the 1970s-80s

Author: (USA) Gould
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-07-01
Features: The most outstanding artistic achievement of Tracy the Detective lies in its portrayal of a variety of novel and eccentric villains. Just as the gangster antagonist in Tracy the Detective was inspired by Al Capone, most of the villains Tracy encounters are drawn from contemporary society, nearly all of whom had appeared in the front-page news at the time. For example, Gould's portrayal of Boris Alson mimics the escape methods of the real-life outlaw Dillinger, while the villains in works like Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, and Lonsome Luke Diamond are mostly based on real-life figures from society. During the early years of the Great Depression in the United States, gangsters flourished, and after the rise and fall of the Chicago mob led by Al Capone, there was widespread relief. Inspired by this, comic book artist Chester Gould created Tracy the Detective, the pioneering crime-comic strip in American police-procedural genre, which achieved enormous success and has been for 72 years, becoming a household name in the U.S. This collection is compiled based on Tracy the Detective Cases, published in the U.S. in 1990 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the strip's debut. Each of the two representative works from the 1970s and 1980s is included.