SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
I probably hadn’t seen Frank Capra’s “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” before launching my crusade 50 years ago, but the idea “lost causes are the only causes that are worth fighting for” would’ve certainly resonated with me.
On November 10, 1974, I opened the Sunday comics section of the Nashville “Tennessean” and discovered that “Dick Tracy” had been unceremoniously canceled mid-story. I was blindsided. The jut-jawed detective had “always” (well, since 1937, anyway) been part of the “Tennessean” Sunday funnies.
Call me an obsessed nerd with too much time (and too many ink stains) on his hands, but I immediately launched a campaign that dragged out over the next five or six years. Inspired by the song “The Impossible Dream,” I strove to achieve justice for “Tracy” and other classic strips that the “Tennessean” had dumped in the early Seventies.
My impassioned letters to the comics editor were followed by appeals to various “Tennessean” executives, a petition drive at the Nashville Fairgrounds Flea Market, a well-received high school term paper and an ill-fated plan for a Nashville “happy news” reporter to cover my efforts.
And let’s not forget 1977 when I won an essay contest and went on a youth tour of Washington, D.C. I was able to hand-deliver an appeal for help to Sen. Howard Baker, Sen. Jim Sasser and President Jimmy Carter. (Pres. Carter’s apologetic “The Secret Service will have to take that” was the last I heard of the matter. Perhaps the envelope resides in a vast warehouse alongside the Ark of the Covenant.)
I quickly learned that Lou Grant was not the only newsman who hated spunk. Although some of his out-of-the-loop colleagues communicated with me, the specfic editor who single-handedly pulled the trigger on “Tracy” (and “Gasoline Alley” and…) never once displayed the courtesy to answer me directly.
(In college I worked on a radio documentary about my crusade. One of my teammates phoned the editor to ask why “Tracy” was discontinued, and was caught flat-footed when the editor demanded, “Is that idiot from Lewisburg involved in this???”) The obligations of young adulthood eventually caused me to stop pursuing the “white whale” of “Tracy” reinstatement, but I don’t really have any regrets.
I got to hone my debate skills. I received an original sketch from “Dick Tracy” creator Chester Gould shortly before he passed the torch to a new artist and writer. I had plenty of material for a report in “Dick Tracy Magazine.” My perseverance was good practice for taking two years to get a second date with my wife. I learned to tell my true friends from my friends who were doubtless henchmen of Flattop and Pruneface… And I enjoyed a certain degree of vindication. The strip that replaced “Tracy” lasted about a month. The strip that replaced the replacement didn’t last much longer. When the comics editor retired, the paper switched to having comics decisions made by a committee instead of one tyrant. The editor (God rest his soul) is long deceased, but Dick Tracy (although suffering from the stigma afflicting serialized strips in general) is still solving crimes.
What about you? Do you have any doomed quests, unrequited loves or quixotic exploits you’d like to share? You can send them to my email address ([email protected]), or if you’re a diehard Tracy fan as well, there’s always the two-way wrist TV route…
