Some years ago I bought a whole box full of 1957/1962 Sunday sections from a major Chicago newspaper that had Dick Tracy on the front and many strips I collect on the inside. I scanned and shared some of them with you, mainly some of the Flintstones and Yogi Bear pages, but I am still not done scanning everything. Since it takes so long and I have to do several strips from every 16 page section, I decided to try doing it another way, one strip at the time. But still, it takes longer than I expected. So here is a little teaser of what I am doing now.
In 1957 Chester Gould, the artist and writer of Dick Tracy, created a new gag strip especially for this paper, to accompany the Sundays of his famous detective. The way the Chicago paper was layed-out, they did not use the Tracy page to fill the whole from page, but rather shrunk it o=down a bit to created room for a contents list on the left of it - which in turn made room for an add-on at the bottom. Gould came up with The Gravies, a strip about a 'normal' family from the suburbs. As time flew by, they got a few weird side characters, mainly a talking crow, but you won't see him yet in the early episodes. He made the strip in his studio with his assistants, whom he let sign the strip with him.
The Gravies is a great rarity, the ultimate collectible for the Dick Tracy fan who has everything. The strip ran form late 1957 until 1962 at least. I have done a couple from 1957 and after that my collection starts with 1961. So I guess I have some holes to fill in between before I can show you the rest. Wait for it.
1 comment:
These are funny!
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