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CHESTER GOULD Dick Tracy daily (1951) Crewy Lou, Sphinx, & The King

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CHESTER GOULD Dick Tracy daily (1951) Crewy Lou, Sphinx, & The King
    Price: $550.00
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    CHESTER GOULD • Dick Tracy daily (1951) featuring 3 villains: Crewy Lou, Sphinx, and The King

    No comic art collection is complete without a “Dick Tracy” and this 1951 daily is an excellent example from a high-profile sequence. Dick himself appears in the last panel, but this strip stars an unusual trio of villains, beginning with the hated Louise "Crewy Lou" Brown, a young woman with blonde hair that she wore long in the back, but with a short crew-cut style on top (hence her nickname). Crewy Lou inadvertently kidnapped Bonnie Braids (baby daughter of Tess & Dick Tracy) while being pursued by Tracy, a continuity that had devoted “Dick Tracy” readers on the edge of their seats for weeks. Later Crewy Lou died falling from the window of an observation tower after Tracy threw tear gas into it. In her last breath she told Tracy where the baby was.

    Background: Shortly after the birth of Bonnie “Braids Tracy, Crewy Lou approached Dick Tracy and Tess, offering to photograph the baby. Tess (herself a skilled photographer) was impressed by Lou's samples and agreed to let her photograph Bonnie despite Dick's objections. Crewy Lou then used the photographs of Bonnie (along with pictures of the babies of other prominent citizens) to convince the wealthy new father Fortson B. Knox to allow her to photograph his child. This was part of a scheme by Crewy Lou and her safecracker associate Sphinx (the man in the loud shirt and beret next to Crewy in this original) to gain access to Knox's home.

    Crewy Lou and Sphinx were able to steal jewels out of Knox's safe, not realizing that Knox himself was part of a criminal syndicate run by "The King." When Knox was killed by his wife, The King comes to collect the jewels from Brown and Sphinx, starting with his foreboding hand on the doorknob opening this strip. Shortly after this July 18 sequence Sphinx was killed, and Crewy Lou ultimately killed The King (prior to the Tracy baby kidnapping and her own dramatic demise). The bodies piled up fast in Chester Gould’s detective strip!

    Medium/Size/Condition: Brush, pen, and ink on Bristol board measuring 23¼  x 7¼ inches.

    Provenance: From the collection of James Kitchen.

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