Max Allan Collins on Chester Gould and Dick Tracy's legacy

COLLINS: I just got back from a Mystery Writers of America meeting, where I've been working behind the scenes with people I know within the MWA for the last two years to get Chester Gould an Edgar. I wanted to get him the Grand Master Edgar. I won't say they laughed at me, but they very much pooh-poohed it even as at the same time they admit that Dick Tracy is the second-most famous fictional detective of all time, next to Sherlock Holmes. But there again, there's the prejudice against cartoonists and comic strips, and the fact that Chester Gould is living in Illinois -- out of sight, out of mind again. There are certain cliques within the Mystery Writers of America-the New York clique, the California clique. It's somewhat understandable and I will excuse it to a degree because after all, these are the people that are in the organization who are very, very active. I've been trying to get Mickey Spillane a Grand Master Edgar and that is almost impossible.
GOLD: It's bad for their image.
COLLINS: They think it's bad for their image, which is ridiculous. The other thing is, they say he's not a member of the MWA. It seems to me that if an organization like the NCS or the MWA represents the field, you honor excellence in the field, you honor contributions to the field. You do not say, "Is the guy a card-carrying member?" That's just bullshit.
GOLD: Right. Absolutely. That's just being childish. But even though you were treated in this fashion to a certain extent, through your efforts Chester Gould did get an Edgar.
COLLINS: He did, oh yes, and it was very sincere. The comments that I got about Chet from the mystery writers there were very sincere. They awarded him a special Edgar. Donald E. Westlake, a very well-known mystery writer, was presented the award for Chet because he was ill and couldn't come get it. Westlake's speech was just incredible. He pointed out to the mystery writers assembled that no private eye wore a trenchcoat before Dick Tracy, which in itself is contribution worthy of an Edgar. In fact, Westlake said he didn't think Gould should get one Edgar, he said he should get an Edgar in every conceivable category, he said he should get 15 Edgars. And pointed out in my speech-I said, "I know there is somewhat of a condescending attitude toward cartoonists," because they think, Chester Gould, well, "He's just a cartoonist." I said that when a mystery writer, "like you or me," since I'm a mystery writer myself, when we say, "The detective got into the Buick," we're done-but the cartoonist has to draw the Buick!

[NO private eye wore a trenchcoat before Dick Tracy? I'm skeptical of that]

...

GOLD: ...I think there's something else we have to understand, certainly about Dick Tracy and also about Alfred Hitchcock and Jack Webb. Without these folks, a lot of people would not be motivated to pick up a mystery book. If they didn't grow up with Dick Tracy, they wouldn't be interested in it. If they didn't go to a Hitchcock movie for whatever reasons, they wouldn't say, "Hey, that's great-I want more of it."
COLLINS: Hey, do the people who laugh at Jack Webb know that every cop show in history is derived from Dragnet? Every cop show. I'm not talking Adam-12, I'm talking Baretta, Kojak, you name it. Anything that's on the air now. Dragnet, that's where it was born. Nobody talks about it. You know, I'm someone who's into a very reflective attitude towards the past. I like to look at the people who are important, particularly the ones who are ignored like Spillane, Jack Webb, and even someone like Gould. Even with all the accolades he's gotten, his impact on popular culture has not begun to have been recognized. This is a man that in 1931 gave America its image of the tough detective. Period. It's like inventing the cowboy.
GOLD: The private eye was not as well developed in the pulps-
COLLINS: No, and the private eye took Dick Tracy's props. The private eye took the snapbrim hat and the trenchcoat and the tough manner.
GOLD: And the procedure.
COLLINS: Well, also remember that Dick Tracy was a guy in 1931 who fed it back to the bad guys, which is basically what the tough private eyes did. Dick Tracy, even though he represents law and order, in a sense was taking the law into his own hands. He had that famous line, "I'm gonna shoot first and investigate afterwards.'
GOLD: In the beginning, he wasn't a cop.
COLLINS: True. A lot of people don't know that.
GOLD: In the very beginning, that whole Batman vengeance angle came up in Dick Tracy eight years earlier.