Back when he was still working on the strip I was a little boy, and I thought Moon Maid looked strange. But what I really dislike now was what somebody who didn't have anything to do with the original comic strip did to the character later on.
I was told that Chester Gould no longer read the comic strip after he was taken off of it. This was just as well, as one of the things Max Allan Collins did was to kill Moon Maid off.
I am not a fan of Max Allan Collins. Even apart from the Moon Maid business, I didn't like anything he did. And I can't say I'm a fan of the current writer on the strip, either.
Moon Maid is Moon Maid, pure and simple. "Mysta" was the name of another character that they used to have in Planet Comics.
Mysta of the Moon
Moon Maid:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Maid_(comics)
Moon Maid Contest:
http://www.libraryofamericancomics.com/blog/2013-05/
Moon Maid discussed in book DICK TRACY AND AMERICAN CULTURE by Garyn Roberts ( Google Books ):
http://books.google.com/books?id=K-OCBcT1O4UC&pg=PA135&lpg=PA135&dq=moon+maid+dick+tracy&source=bl&ots=Ud7fVC5cfB&sig=GaoBgMU13ZokdvjWhWRB4i7sY7g&hl=en&sa=X&ei=W1nDUYm_Hu3iyAH37oCACg&ved=0CGIQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=moon%20maid%20dick%20tracy&f=false
Mysta Of The Moon:
http://www.toonopedia.com/mysta.htm
http://thatsmyskull.blogspot.com/2011/04/essential-mysta.html
A
Chester Gould was not "taken off" the TRACY strip. He retired of his own volition, and for many years he consulted on the strip, his name remaining on it with mine and his longtime assistant Rick Fletcher. I talked with Chet weekly for many years and visited him regularly. He was not only reading the strip, he was advising and suggesting. During the 50th anniversary promotion of the strip (which I paid for, the Tribune having no interest), Chet complained about certain aspects of the current strip to interviewers, clearly wanting to make sure the celebration focused on his work and not the current strip. We had a minor falling out over this, which was soon resolved, but the Trib took his name off the strip, due to Chet's poor judgment in criticizing a strip he was still part of. I don't give a damn if you don't like my work on TRACY or anywhere else, but I do care about accuracy. Throw your opinions around any way you like, but I won't put up with mean-spirited false information and assumptions.
ReplyDeleteI'm willing to allow you to put in a reply here, since I mentioned you in connection with Moon Maid. To go back to when Chester Gould left the strip, the story that I remember is that the syndicate didn't want him on the strip any more, so they made an arrangement with him to retire. As for Chester Gould not reading the comics, I was repeating what was in message ##48907 of the "PulpMags" group on yahoo: "Gould says that he made a point of not reading the strip after his retirement." If you have some information about him actually having read the strip, that would be something that I did not know about at the time I published this blog. Whether or not he read your comics does not change the dislike that I have for them.
ReplyDeleteThe book CHESTER GOULD: A DAUGHTER'S BIOGRAPHY OF THE CREATOR OF DICK TRACY by Jean Gould O'Connell says on page 184, "It wasn't until after Dad's death that I came across his lifetime retirement agreement with the CHICAGO TRIBUNE signed September 6, 1977. That dear, proud Dad of mine never told me that the CHICAGO TRIBUNE had asked him to retire." So there you have it.
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