By Mark Rhoads
Chester Gould, the creator of the Dick Tracy comic strip, was born on Nov. 20, 1900 and was raised in Pawnee, Oklahoma but moved to Illinois in 1921 to complete his undergraduate years at Northwestern University in Evanston. He graduated from NU in 1923 and was hired by The Chicago Evening American, a Hearst newspaper, to draw several different comic strips including "Radio Catts." He met and married Edna Gauger in 1926. In 1931 he was hired by The Chicago Daily Tribune where he created and introduced the Dick Tracy cartoon series. For the next 46 years, Gould quietly lived and worked from his home in Woodstock, Illinois. He twice won journalism's Reuben Award in 1959 and 1977 and also received a special Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1980.
In late 1945, Gould met Irving A. Gross, aka Albert J. Gross, who was the father of the modern walkie-talkie. Gross showed Gould a very small version of the two way radio which inspired Gould to show Dick Tracy with a two-way radio attached to his wrist watch starting in 1946. That later became a wrist watch and TV set. Gould created an engineer character for the strip called "Brilliant" who was based on Mr. Gross. Late in his drawing career, Gould was sometimes criticized for being too "pro police officer" but his strip remained very popular and widely distributed to thousands of newspapers. Gould died on May 11, 1985 but his work is shown off at the Chester Gould-Dick Tracy Museum in Woodstock.
