COMIC DETAILS
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Comic Description:
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Four Color Comics (Series 1) nn (#1) Universal
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Grade:
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9.2
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Page Quality:
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CREAM TO OFF-WHITE
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Certification #:
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0709906002
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Owner:
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4GEMWORKS
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SET DETAILS
Owner's Description
Dick Tracy. 2nd highest graded copy . Super tough in high grade. Only 9 unrestored copies to date.)
Tracy made his first comic book appearance in 1936 as one of the features included in the first issue of Dell's Popular Comics. As would be the case with most Tracy comic book appearances, these would be reprints from the newspaper strip, reconfigured to fit the pages of a comic book. Tracy would remain a regular feature in Popular Comics through the publication's 21st issue.
The first comic book to feature Tracy exclusively was the Dick Tracy Feature Book, published in May 1937 by David McKay Publications. McKay's Feature Books were magazines that rotated several popular characters from comics strips through 1938. Three more of McKay's Feature Books starred Tracy in the following months.
In 1939, Dell started a comic magazine series called "Black and White Comics," essentially identical to McKay's "Feature Books." Six of the 15 issues featured Tracy. In 1941, Dell's "Black and White" series was replaced by the "Large Feature Books," the third issue of which featured Tracy. As with the McKay series, the Dell "Black and White" and "Large Feature" series were abridged reprints of the strip.
In 1938, Tracy became one of several regular newspaper strips featured in Dell's regular monthly Super Comics, remaining a regular part of that publication until 1948. In 1939, Tracy was the sole feature in the very first issue of Dell's Four-Color Comics, which put out over 1300 issues starring hundreds of characters between 1939 and 1962. Tracy was featured in seven more Four-Color issues throughout the 1940s.
Tracy was frequently featured in comic books used as promotional items by various companies. In 1947, Sig Feuchtwanger produced a comic book that was a giveaway prize in boxes of Quaker Puffed Wheat cereal, sponsor of the popular Dick Tracy radio series.
In January 1948, Dell began the first regular Dick Tracy comic book series, Dick Tracy Monthly. This series ultimately ran for 145 issues, the first 24 of which were published by Dell, after which it was picked up by Harvey Comics. Continuing the same numbering, Harvey published the series until 1961. As with most previous Tracy comic book incarnations, these were, with the exception of the last few Dell issues which featured original material, slightly abridged and reconfigured reprints of the newspaper strips.
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