Dick Tracy In WWII

Throughout the strip’s first decade, Dick Tracy scaled the heights of popularity among all segments of the country’s newspaper readers. In the seeming quiet preceding the Second World War, however, the momentum of Tracy’s meteoric growth in popularity slowed.

Chester Gould, with his penchant for deep research in any subject that gained his attention, joined other Americans in their concern over the steady march the country was making into global affairs. His concerns were quite contemporary as a deep nationalism swept over the country following the First World War.

Quite unlike the vast majority of his cartooning contemporaries, with war clouds forming on the horizon he set his nationally-famous detective to tracking down the culprits of the coming conflict and addressing their crimes, case by case.

The Dick Tracy comic strip published daily throughout World War Two and the beginning of the Cold War is an incredible time capsule that offers valuable insight into the insidious side of the war and the unseen forces manipulating the levers of power on the homefront.

Going forward, we will introduce material here featuring aspects of Chester Gould’s work during the war and we begin by showcasing the Hollywood star-studded, Armed Forces Radio Service Command Performance comic operetta, Dick Tracy in B-Flat, along with a rare view of Breathless Mahoney’s relation to stateside events near the end of the war.