Sunday, March 29, 2015

Dick Tracy and Spider-Man



These two were the stars of my two favorite action comic strips growing up, and I would have loved to have seen some kind of crossover event between them.  When I look over those old strips, I am always impressed at how much information that Chester Gould, Stan Lee and Larry Lieber were able to include in 3-4 panels a day.  It takes a real skill to work in that medium and Dick Tracy and The Amazing Spider-Man were among the best examples of the form ever.

9 comments:

  1. Seeing it here it makes total sense, but for years I've seen Marvel interrupt stories to include labeled dioramas of their heroes' environs (the most often redrawn one probably being a cross-section of the Baxter Building) and I never noticed the obvious precedent in the Dick Tracy strip for 'arrowed' captions pointing out his two-way wrist radio (and later TV), a villain's hidden weapon, etc.

    I don't see those dioramas anymore. They seemed to go from the stories in the 60's to the annuals and then the treasuries in the 70's and finally to the 'official handbook' titles in the 80's. Then in the 90's Marvel published a one-shot, spiral-bound guide to the X-Men's mansion and I thought, "didn't this all used to fit into one big panel?"

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  2. It's kind of funny that Peter would go to the trouble of hiding his Spider-Man boots in those trick shoe boxes, and then leave his spare costume hanging obviously in the same closet...

    (Great cover idea, though.)

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    1. That's what I thought when I saw this cover, LOL!

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    2. And maybe he should fix that hole in his wall, heh.

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  3. This is awesome! I grew up on Dick Tracy in The Chicago Tribune.

    Tracy recently wrapped up the Annie cliffhanger ending! That was an awesome story!

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  4. Does this mean a diabolical team-up between Hammerhead and Flattop is in the offing?
    Separated at birth?
    m.p.

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  5. I could seriously see these two teaming up to rescue Moon Maid from the Green Goblin (who might abduct her for her extra-terrestrial knowledge).

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  6. This is gorgeous. You've really captured the spirit that these two share in common. Bravo.

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