Dick Tracy is an American comic strip featuring Dick Tracy, a tough and intelligent police detective created by Chester Gould. It made its debut on Sunday, October 4, 1931, in the Detroit Mirror, and was distributed by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate. Gould wrote and drew the strip until 1977, and various artists and writers have continued it.
Michael Hammer is a fictional character created by the American author Mickey Spillane. Hammer debuted in the 1947 book I, the Jury. Hammer is a no-holds-barred private investigator who carries a Colt .45 M1911A1 in a shoulder holster under his left arm. His love for his secretary Velda is outweighed only by his willingness to kill a killer. Hammer's best friend is Pat Chambers, Captain of NYPD Homicide. Hammer was a World War II army veteran who spent two years fighting jungle warfare in the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II against Japan.
Frank Morrison Spillane, better known as Mickey Spillane, was an American crime novelist, whose stories often feature his signature detective character, Mike Hammer. More than 225 million copies of his books have sold internationally. Spillane was also an occasional actor, once even playing Hammer himself in the 1965 film The Girl Hunters.
Road to Perdition is a 2002 American crime drama film directed by Sam Mendes and written by David Self, based on the graphic novel of the same name by Max Allan Collins and Richard Piers Rayner. It stars Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jude Law, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Stanley Tucci, Daniel Craig and Tyler Hoechlin in his film debut. Set in 1931 during the Great Depression, the film follows a mob enforcer and his son as they seek vengeance against the mobster who murdered the rest of their family.
Dick Tracy is a 1990 American action crime comedy film based on the 1930s comic strip character of the same name created by Chester Gould. Warren Beatty produced, directed and starred in the film, whose supporting cast includes Al Pacino, Madonna, Glenne Headly and Charlie Korsmo, with appearances by Dustin Hoffman, James Keane, Charles Durning, William Forsythe, Seymour Cassel, Mandy Patinkin, Catherine O’Hara, Ed O'Ross, James Caan, James Tolkan and Dick Van Dyke. Dick Tracy depicts the detective's romantic relationships with Breathless Mahoney and Tess Trueheart, as well as his conflicts with crime boss Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice and his henchmen. Tracy also begins fostering a young street urchin named Kid.
Hardboiled fiction is a literary genre that shares some of its characters and settings with crime fiction. The genre's typical protagonist is a detective who battles the violence of organized crime that flourished during Prohibition (1920–1933) and its aftermath, while dealing with a legal system that has become as corrupt as the organized crime itself. Rendered cynical by this cycle of violence, the detectives of hardboiled fiction are often antiheroes. Notable hardboiled detectives include Dick Tracy, Philip Marlowe, Nick Charles, Mike Hammer, Sam Spade, Lew Archer, Slam Bradley, and The Continental Op.
Ms. Tree is a comic book series named for its lead character, co-created by writer Max Allan Collins and artist Terry Beatty. Her name is a paronomasia, or play on words, of the term "Mystery".
I, the Jury is a 1982 American neo-noir crime thriller film based on the 1947 best-selling detective novel of the same name by Mickey Spillane. The story was previously filmed in 3D in 1953. Larry Cohen wrote the screenplay and was hired to direct, but was replaced when the film's budget was already out of control after one week of shooting. He was replaced at short notice by veteran TV director Richard T. Heffron.
Joe Staton is an American comics artist and writer. He co-created the Bronze Age Huntress, as well as the third Huntress, Kilowog and the Omega Men for DC Comics. He was the artist of the Dick Tracy comic strip from 2011 to October 2021.
Terry Beatty is an artist who has worked as a penciler and inker in the American comic book industry, where he is perhaps best known for his co-creation of the female detective Ms. Tree.
José Luis García López is a Spanish-Argentine comics artist who works in the United States, particularly in a long-running relationship with DC Comics. In addition to his storytelling art, he has been responsible for producing the official reference art for characters in the DC Comics Style Guide, as used in licensed merchandise.
Crime comics is a genre of American comic books and format of crime fiction. The genre was originally popular in the late 1940s and early 1950s and is marked by a moralistic editorial tone and graphic depictions of violence and criminal activity. Crime comics began in 1942 with the publication of Crime Does Not Pay published by Lev Gleason Publications and edited by Charles Biro. As sales for superhero comic books declined in the years after World War II, other publishers began to emulate the popular format, content and subject matter of Crime Does Not Pay, leading to a deluge of crime-themed comics. Crime and horror comics, especially those published by EC Comics, came under official scrutiny in the late 1940s and early 1950s, leading to legislation in Canada and the United Kingdom, the creation in the United States of the Comics Magazine Association of America and the imposition of the Comics Code Authority in 1954. This code placed limits on the degree and kind of criminal activity that could be depicted in American comic books, effectively sounding the death knell for crime comics and their adult themes.
Edgar Allan Poe has appeared in popular culture as a character in books, comics, film, and other media. Besides his works, the legend of Poe himself has fascinated people for generations. His appearances in popular culture often envision him as a sort of "mad genius" or "tormented artist", exploiting his personal struggles. Many depictions of Poe interweave elements of his life with his works, in part due to Poe's frequent use of first-person narrators, suggesting an erroneous assumption that Poe and his characters are identical.
Road to Perdition is a series of fictional works written by Max Allan Collins.
The Goliath Bone is the 14th entry in the Mike Hammer series by Mickey Spillane. It was completed by Max Allan Collins, and was first published on October 13, 2008. The Goliath Bone is one of three almost finished Mike Hammer novels that Spillane entrusted Collins to finish before his death in 2006.
Dutton Guilt Edged Mysteries was an imprint which published detective fiction. Between 1947 and 1956, the imprint published eighty-two novels. Its best known author was Mickey Spillane; Dutton published his first seven Mike Hammer novels.
Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, with Stacy Keach in the title role, is an American crime drama television series that originally aired on CBS from January 28, 1984, to May 13, 1987. The series consisted of 51 installments: 46 one-hour episodes, a two-part pilot episode, and three TV Movies.
More Than Murder is a 1984 American made-for-television mystery film starring Stacy Keach as Mickey Spillane's iconic hardboiled private detective Mike Hammer. It aired on January 26, 1984, at 9:00 p.m. and was the second of two pilots featuring Keach in the part - the other being Murder Me, Murder You (1983) - that blazed a path for the 1980s version of the CBS series Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, which debuted on January 28, 1984.
Charles Harding Wells was an American crime novelist and protégé of Mickey Spillane. He wrote two novels, 1953's Let the Night Cry and 1955's The Last Kill.
Earle Morris Basinsky, Jr. (1921–1963) was an American crime novelist and protégé of Mickey Spillane. He wrote two novels, 1955's The Big Steal and 1956's Death is a Cold, Keen Edge, and five short stories.
