Comics-Dick Tracy TB2

I maintain records on my trackables. They have the goal to circulate more than five years and to be moved by at least 25 cachers. That is a target rate of five drops per year for five years, or a drop every 73 days. The average drop rate of my trackables in the US is 124 days, in Europe it is 71 days. As of 15-Apr-24 this trackable had survived for 8.2 years and has been moved by only 4 cachers, for an average drop every 751 days, or one drop every 2.1 years. Please keep it moving, then drop it in a safe place!

No permission is needed to leave the U.S. While in the U.S., please drop it at an event, in a Premium Member only OR a rural cache near a busy trail or road. Do not place it in an urban, non-premium cache. Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean and dry, protects the number and prevents tangling with other items. Otherwise, take the trackable anywhere you wish.

My youth was in the late 1940s and early 1950s.  Drawing from that period, this is one of a series of travel bugs made to commemorate favorite characters from comic books, comic strips, movie cartoons, B-movies and animated feature-length movies.  Some of the characters had only a brief existence, some survived as radio and early TV programs and some have been digitally-modernized into some of the blockbuster movies of today.  There were many other characters, but these are the ones on which I was willing to spend my dimes (comic books) and quarters (movie, candy and popcorn).  However, I didn’t have to pay for the daily comic strips or Sunday funnies that came with the newspaper.

Dick Tracy is an American comic strip featuring Dick Tracy (originally Plainclothes Tracy), a tough and intelligent police detective created by Chester Gould.  The strip made its debut in 1931 in the Detroit Mirror.  It was distributed by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate.  Gould wrote and drew the strip until 1977.   Since that time, various artists and writers have continued the strip, which still runs in newspapers today.  Dick Tracy has also been the hero in a number of films, notably one in which Warren Beatty played the crime fighter in 1990.

Tracy uses forensic science, advanced gadgetry, and wits, in an early example of the police procedural mystery story, although stories often end in gunfights just the same.  Stories typically follow a criminal committing a crime and Tracy's relentless pursuit of the criminal. The strip's most popular villain was Flattop Jones, a freelance hitman hired by black marketeers to murder Tracy.  When Flattop was killed, fans went into public mourning, and the Flattop Story was reprinted in DC's series of Oversize Comic Reprints in the 1970s.  The villains' small crimes led to bigger, out of control situations, reflecting film noir. Similarly, innocent witnesses were frequently killed, and Tracy's paramour , Tess Trueheart, was often endangered by the villains.  As the story progressed, Tracy adopted an orphan under the name Dick Tracy Jr., or Junior for short, who appeared in investigations until becoming a police forensic artist in his father's precinct.  He also cultivated a professional partner, ex-steel worker Pat Patton, who gradually became a detective of skill and courage enough to satisfy Tracy's requirements.

Tracy characters were often caricatures of celebrities.  There was Breathless Mahoney, modeled after Veronica Lake.  Likewise, B.O. Plenty was inspired by George (Gabby) Hayes (who had a daughter, Sparkle Plenty), Vitamin Flintheart by John Barrymore  and Spike Dyke by Spike Jones.  Others include villains like Rughead (Robert Montgomery), Oodles (Jackie Gleason) and Mumbles (Bing Crosby).  Gould even parodied himself as the out-of-shape Pear Shape.

In 1946 the 2-Way Wrist Radio became one of the strip's most immediately recognizable icons, worn as a wristwatch by Tracy and members of the police force, and may have inspired later smartwatches.  The 2-Way Wrist Radio was upgraded to a 2-Way Wrist TV in 1964.  This development also led to the introduction of an important supporting character, Diet Smith, an eccentric industrialist who financed the development of this equipment.  I followed Dick Tracy well into my teen years.