Although I have stepped down as Editor and Publisher of "The Harveyville Fun Times!", I am still going to write for future issues including this article about "Dick Tracy" for "THFT!" #76, the first issue edited and published by Ben Samuels.
Longtime fans of "THFT!" should know who Mike Curtis and Joe Staton are. Both have been interviewed in previous issues. Curtis was a writer for Harvey Comics during the 1980s during the Alan Harvey regime through the beginning of the Jeff Montgomery era. His most durable contribution was his "Map of the Various Harvey Lands" among many "Richie Rich" stories.
Staton is not a Harvey veteran, but was interviewed in "THFT!" for his tenure as artist on the DC version of the "Scooby-Doo" comic book. "Scooby-Doo" was published by Harvey at one time, but it consisted entirely of reprints from Charlton save for brand new covers drawn by Scott Shaw!
"Dick Tracy", the comic strip by Chester Gould, made its debut in the newspapers in October 1931. Gould continued with the strip until 1977 and a few different hands have worked on the strip over the years until March 14, 2011, when Curtis and Staton took over. Staton and Curtis are assisted by Shelley Pleger and Shane Fisher, who respectively ink and color the Sunday strips.
"Dick Tracy" has also been a comic book published by many publishers over the years, including a lengthy run at Harvey from 1950-1961; a run lasting over 100 issues. Most recently, Gladstone reprinted "Dick Tracy" in 1991, but comic book reprinting has given way to IDW's masterful treatment of reprinting every strip in chronological order from 1931 in hardbound volumes since 2007. Currently, they are up through the mid-1940s and show no sign of stopping.
Curtis and Staton recently spoke with me about "Dick Tracy", how they got the assignment and their plans and it will appear soon in "THFT!"
2 comments:
Mark,
I've seen several examples of the immediately-pre-Staton-and-Curtis TRACY, and let me say this: They CERTAINLY can't do any worse. Given their track records, in fact, I would EXPECT them to do far better.
Shelley Pleger's involvement won't hurt the artistic side of TRACY, either. Not that the "classic" TRACY artwork was ever a thing of beauty, but by the time Dick Locher completed his run, the thing looked dreadful.
Would you be able to post a link to a site where the newly revamped TRACY daily strip can be accessed? I know such sites exist; I just don't currently have the time to look for one...
Chris
You can read "Dick Tracy" (or any comic strip) here on a daily basis:
http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/
-Mark.
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