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Main Characters
Dick Tracy
The protagonist of the comic strip. A heroic police detective.
- The Ace: Dick Tracy is a better fighter than fellow detective Pat Patton while using one arm, a brilliant detective, generally more up to date on scientific deduction than his fellow officers, an amazing shot, much wealthier than most of his co-workers, etc.
- Anchored Ship: Tess Trueheart and Dick Tracy don't get married until 1949.
- Badges and Dog Tags: A 2010s storyline reveals that Tracy is Ex-Navy.
- Field Promotion: In the 2010s, the story of how he became a plainclothes officer is changed from being recruited by Chief Brandon as a civilian (plausible in the 30's) after Emil Trueheart's murder, to having already been a beat cop who was on his way to detective when Trueheart's murder prompts Brandon to perform a field promotion.
- Deadpan Snarker: A bit more common under Gould's pen, Tracy does still make a few wisecracks under other writers.
- Famed In-Story: His exploits gradually lead to him being famed within the law enforcement community, and from there around the world.
- Good Is Not Soft: Dick Tracy has a habit of killing his ghoulish gang of rogues as often as bringing them in. It's generally justified by circumstance, though. Unfortunately for most crooks, their dangerous existence provides enough circumstance most of the time.
- In the 88-Keys storyline, Tracy realizes that 88 must be hiding in an old shed. He proceeds to machine-gun an X into it, killing 88. He later repeats this move on one of Blowtop's traitorous henchmen in a later storyline.
- In an early Moon-Era comic, Tracy discovers an island hideout for gangsters. After throwing a drunken crook off of a cliff and taking his place, he manages to escape the island and board a helicopter. He proceeds to have Napalm dropped on the island to force the gang to surrender, and while some try to, thanks to a combination of raging heat and panic there are zero survivors.
- The Hero: Obviously. The strip's named after him, isn't it?
- Hidden Depths: He's apparently a very good cook, as B.O. Plenty asks him to whip up his special BBQ sauce for a big meal, and in the 2010s strips he's known among his friends for his sourdough bread.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Canonically, Tracy is considered an incredible shot, and he proves it regularly by performing acts such as shooting through peoples' hands from a great distance, or shooting people's wielded guns.
- Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Gould made it a point that Tracy was 100 percent black-and-white good, with no gray areas.
- The Paragon: Tracy is incorruptible, smart, and athletic.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: Tracy kills as many of his villains as he takes in.
- Save the Villain: Although he has a reputation for killing his foes, this is limited to those who present an obvious danger. On other occasions, such as when a villain is trapped in a deadly situation, Tracy has been shown to risk his life to try and save theirs.
- Science Hero: Tracy makes ample use of early forensics science as well as his radio watch. He's also used science to flush out crooks on occasion.
- Villain Killer: Not to the extent that some people believe, and it's frequently justified by circumstances, but Tracy has quite the body count of criminals.
Junior Tracy
Dick Tracy's adopted son, who grew up to join the police force and become a forensic artist.
- Abusive Parents: His stepfather, Steve the Tramp, was certainly no picnic to be under until his reformation. His mother Mary Steele had a bad habit of abandoning him as well.
- Cartwright Curse: As a teen, he fell in love with Model Jones, who was killed by her criminal brother. As a young adult, he married Moon Maid and had a daughter with her, only for MM to be killed in a car bombing. So far, Sparkle Plenty's doing well, though.
- Harmful to Minors: His life with Steve the Tramp consisted of wandering around, getting beaten by Steve, being forced to commit crimes and God knows what else. While Dick Tracy was a much better father figure, Junior sometimes still went through nasty experiences at times, and at one point was almost shot through the head while working as an operative for Tracy.
- Hero-Worshipper: Has this attitude toward Dick Tracy.
- Hypocrite: He's extremely upset when his daughter Honeymoon secretly tags along on a case the way he used to.
- Interspecies Romance:
- His marriage with Moon Maid.
- The second Moon Maid (a human altered to be effectively half-Lunarian) has been programmed so she thinks of him as her perfect man, though he doesn't reciprocate.
- Kid Detective: He even started a group of detectives his age called the Crimestoppers.
- Messy Hair: His most notable visual characteristic. Dick Locher eventually had him start combing it, but Joe Staton brought back his iconic mop top.
- Mommy Had A Good Reason For Abandoning You: Mary Steele had taken him with her when she left Hank Steele for the seemingly charming Steve the Tramp, but it turned out the life of adventure he'd promised her was just poverty and abuse. One day she couldn't take it anymore and left Steve and her son. After Junior learns about his true parentage and is adopted by Dick Tracy, Mary learns about him and considers re-entering his life, but out of crushing guilt and the belief that Tracy was giving him a better life than she could, she refused to reveal herself to the boy. Eventually Junior figured out who she was on his own, and they reunited, but she still mostly stayed out of his new life, eventually leaving him entirely to Tracy.
- Non-Action Guy: Played with as an adult. His job as a sketch artist generally precludes him getting mixed up with cases the way he used to, something he laments as he misses the action.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: His birth name is Jackie Steele, and his given name is Dick Tracy Junior, but he is almost always referred to as Junior.
- Tagalong Kid: Goes on some of his adoptive father’s adventures. Unlike most examples of this, he is exceptionally competent and helpful.
- You Killed My Father: Curiously averted. Everyone else in the comic is absolutely outraged when Stooge Viller shoots his biological father, but Junior is simply grieving. It helps that Pat Patton shot Stooge to death moments later (or so it seemed).
Tess Trueheart
Dick Tracy's long time girlfriend and eventual wife.
- Adaptational Dye-Job: In the comic strip, Tess is blonde, but she is a redhead in the movie due to Breathless filling in for the attractive blonde.
- Character Development: At first little more than a fickle Damsel in Distress, over time Tess became more grounded, developed an interest in photography, and picked up enough knowledge from living with her husband to become a private investigator.
- Love Interest: Serves as this to Dick Tracy in the comic strip and most other media adaptations.
- Private Detective: She eventually takes over the Tracy Detective Agency, something Dick was opposed to as it meant putting herself in potential danger.
- Sanity Slippage: In the late 30's, she undergoes this very hard, breaking up with Tracy and becoming romantically involved with two people who try to kill her.
Pat Patton
A police officer who acted as Dick Tracy's partner, until he was promoted to police chief following Chief Brandon's resignation.
- Adaptational Dumbass: Pat's a smart, scrappy guy and a capable assistant in the comics, but the movies make him seriously dense.
- Butt-Monkey: Most of the time, even past the 30's era wherein it was most prominent.
- Beware the Silly Ones: Whenever the universe cuts him a break, he's incredibly competent.
- Fighting Irish: Implied to be Irish.
- The Topic of Cancer: Is now a cancer survivor.
Chief Brandon
The Chief of Police in Dick Tracy's city, until his retirement in 1948.
- It's All My Fault: He retired because he blamed himself for the death of Diet Smith's son Brilliant, quitting the force out of shame.
Sam Catchem
Dick Tracy's new partner, following Pat Patton becoming Chief of Police.
- Jewish Smartass: Openly and proudly Jewish, and one of the snarkiest of the main characters.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Known for his love of sandwiches made with his wife's trademark rye bread.
Lizz Worthington-Grove
A former nightclub photographer turned cop, known for being good at hand-to-hand combat.
- Action Girl: Eventually replaces Tess in this department, and is generally a better fighter than the other main cast.
- Early Installment Character-Design Difference: In her early appearances, she was designed so that her her eyes seemed to have neither iris nor pupil. This was apparently meant to represent very pale blue eyes. Her eyes started being drawn more realistically when she became a regular.
- Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Inverted. She's the go-to hand-to-hand combatant, while Sam, Pat, and Tracy all use guns the majority of the time.
- Unskilled, but Strong: In her early appearances. In a notable example, she gets tricked and almost drowned by a seemingly benevolent Flattop Junior after beating the snot out of Joe Period.
Bob Oscar ("B.O") Plenty
B.O. Plenty is an ugly rural man who comes into vast wealth.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: After ending up as neighbors, he and Gravel Gertie started out hating each other, but gradually fell in love.
- Born Lucky: And unlucky. It's complicated.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Barely averts one when Itchy ties him to a pair of wooden planks and sends him to drown in the sewer. Miraculously, he survives.
- Famed In-Story: Apparently he's famous enough within the world of Dick Tracy that his marriage to Gravel Gertie and the birth of his daughter made national headlines.
- Heel–Face Turn: Notable in just how evil he is in his first appearance. He takes Breathless into his house demanding some of her money (and because she's hot), but is fully willing to strangle her to death after she gives him all her money. It took a lot of Break the Haughty and Gravel Gertie to put him near the right path.
- Hillbilly Horrors: Only in his first appearance.
- I Have No Daughter!: After Vera Alldid divorced Sparkle, B.O. briefly disowned her due to his family's strong views on divorce. However, after her next paramour Johnny Snow aka The Iceman was killed, B.O. took her back into the fold.
- Karma Houdini: Never really suffers any serious punishment for his crimes, though he's had some horrible events happen to him (see above).
- Manly Tears: In spite of his rough appearance and attitude, B.O. is actually a very sentimental man, who is frequently moved to tears.
- Massive Numbered Siblings: One of ten.
- Parental Marriage Veto: He was opposed to Sparkle's marriage to Vera Alldid, as he viewed artists as being unreliable. He was won over when Alldid bought the Plentys a number of expensive gifts, however. Ultimately (under Max Allan Collins's tenure), his initial impressions proved correct, as Vera started cheating on Sparkle and ultimately divorced her.
- Running Gag: He can't get Tracy's last name right, calling him thing like "Bracy" or "Dacy".
- Weirdness Magnet: B.O. has a case of this or a strange combination of Born Lucky and Born Unlucky. He keeps attracting plot events, good and bad. He's won the lottery at least twice, as well as having a high success rate with other games of chance, but he's also found himself embroiled in troublesome or dangerous events, often as a direct result. Sometimes his strokes of luck themselves are mixed, such as when he inherited a dilapidated farm—that happened to have the corpse of a murder victim buried on it.
Gravel Gertie
- Action Survivor: Although she doesn't exactly make a habit of getting into fights, she's a pretty good scrapper when she has to be, and quick to take action, too.
- Amateur Sleuth: After getting wise to Matron Enog's dope-smuggling scheme, Gertie plays along in the hopes of exposing her. Unfortunately, she recognizes Tracy disguised as a prisoner, and speaks a little too loudly to him about her plan.
- Aroused by Their Voice: As she's nursing the Brow, he (with his vision obscured by the poultice and bandages she put on his head), finds himself falling in love with her beautiful voice and silky hair. Finally, he gets frustrated with the bandages and rips off them off his head—and is horrified.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: After ending up with B.O. as her neighbor, the two of them started out despising each other and thinking that each was the ugliest thing they'd ever seen. Now they're married with two kids.
- Butterface: As drawn by Gould, she actually has a surprisingly decent body at times. In addition, her voice and hair are beautiful. However, her face isn't just that of an elderly woman, but a particularly odd-looking one, though Gould eased up on this somewhat as time went by.
- Caring Gardener: Not long after she leaves prison, she takes a job at a florist's shop and finds that she really loves growing things.
- Crocodile Tears: When she and The Brow are arraigned, she fakes a sobbing act over her home being destroyed, so she can grab a guard's gun and toss it to her "love". Fortunately, Tracy's quicker on the draw.
- Even Evil Has Standards: She has nothing but contempt for drug dealing, at least partly because her father died of drugs.
- Falling into the Cockpit: Sort of a proverbial case? After she decides to leave the prison, her hair gets caught on a florist's truck and she rides back to said florist's shop, where he proves so desperate for a worker that he hires her on the spot. It turns out to be the happiest and most fulfilled she's ever been as she has a real knack for the work, takes great joy in growing things, and even lives at the greenhouse.
- Good Old Ways: When the injured Brow finds his way into her gravel pit, Gertie binds his head wounds with spiderwebs and soot to congeal the blood and bind the wound—and she does ultimately join the side of the angels.
- Heel–Face Turn: Noticing a pattern with these main characters? She starts out a man-lusty witch helping a Nazi agent — The Brow, but gets royally pissed when a drug-dealing scam is hatched in her prison (her father died of the habit). Throw Bob Oscar into the mix and we have a more lawful character.
- Hidden Depths: She's a very skilled mandolin player and singer, talents she passed on to her daughter.
- Human Notepad: When she was a nine-year-old kid at the orphanage, someone tattooed a treasure map onto her head, which she was unaware of until her hair started thinning.
- Long Hair Is Feminine: Her extremely long and lustrous hair and her lovely voice are the only attractive feminine qualities she has.
- Love at First Sight: In the original version of the story, she'd been alone for thirty years before the Brow happened into her life.
- Massive Numbered Siblings: One of eight, though we've only met Agate Aggie so far.
- Orphanage of Fear: Implied. Shortly after her head was tattooed, she ran away from the place. Also, they had her head tattooed!!
- Prematurely Grey-Haired: She's usually depicted as being white-haired. Given that she's apparently younger than she appears to be, this would appear to be prematurely so. It may be a family trait, too, as one of her younger sisters is shown to also be white-haired. That said, on occasion she's been inconsistently colored, ending up a platinum blonde or even red-headed.
- Progressively Prettier: As Gertie became more of a regular cast member (and Gould's art improved), her features became somewhat less rough—most notably, she lost the hair on her upper lip, though she still doesn't quite qualify as conventionally attractive.
- The Thing That Would Not Leave: After serving her six-month sentence for aiding the Brow, Gertie insists on staying in prison, saying it's the best place she'd ever lived, and the other inmates were fond of her, especially because of her performances. So the chief worked out a deal where she could work for the prison and be paid in room and board. She also had a plan up her sleeve to expose Matron Enog's dope smuggling.
- Vocal Dissonance: While the audience doesn't get to actually hear her (this being a comic strip), she's said to have a very beautiful voice that's a stark contrast with her ugly appearance.
- Younger Than They Look: Although she looks like an ancient old hag, after marrying B.O., she soon falls pregnant with her first child Sparkle, and has a second child (Attitude) when Sparkle was grown and had had a child herself. From what we hear of her youth, Gertie had a pretty rough time of things, which may explain it.
Sparkle Plenty
B.O. Plenty and Gravel Gertie's daughter, and Junior Tracy's eventual second wife.
- Famed In-Story: One of the few child stars who's managed to keep a career into adulthood, although her fame is more low-key these days.
- Instant Expert: To B.O.'s surprise, she turns out to be an excellent singer and ukulele player—given that Gravel Gertie was shown singing and playing the mandolin to Sparkle as a baby, it's likely that's how she picked it up.
- Long Hair Is Feminine: She was born with beautiful hair (inherited from her mother) reaching all the way down to her hips, and is considered genuinely attractive, unlike either of her parents, with her hair remaining just as long and regarded as one of her charm points.
- The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: How B.O. plenty and Gravel Gertie managed to produce someone as attractive as her is anyone's guess.
Diet Smith
An inventor and industrialist who has created many fantastic innovations in technology.
- AB Negative: At one point he needed a heart transplant, and his rare blood type led him to deal with a shady attorney who ran a black market organ ring. Unbeknownst to Smith, the ring wasn't just underground, it was actively harvesting organs from homeless people. Upon learning about this, he took steps to stop it and eventually found a legitimate donor.
- Accidental Murder: He calls Dick Tracy, confessing to a murder. It turns out that someone had set up his business partner so that when Smith turned the lights on in his billiards room, the man would be electrocuted...or so it seemed. His partner had actually been choked to death, and the body set up in an effort to deceive Smith and the cops.
- Comfort Food: While in prison in suspicion of murder, he breaks his ulcer diet and has a massive amount of food sent in. It becomes uncomfort food soon after.
- Gadgeteer Genius: An inventor in his own right, his company also comes up with technology beyond the cutting edge.
- Honest Corporate Executive: He contributes many of his great technological advancements to the police department.
- Meaningful Name: Since he's got severe ulcers, he has to eat strained vegetables and drink milk to keep them settled. He does cheat occasionally, though, to his regret.
- Might as Well Not Be in Prison at All: While being held on suspicion for the murder of his partner, Diet has phone lines brought in so he can keep his business going, as well as his butler's services and all the food he wants. Justified in that the cops don't really think he killed his partner and are just holding him 'til Dick Tracy can get him cleared.
- My God, What Have I Done?: After he learns the circumstances behind Moon Maid's return, he's horrified and feels personally responsible as she was created so one of the scientists who made her could steal the Moon Coupe.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Brilliant, his adopted (later revealed to be natural) son, was murdered by Big Frost.
- Replacement Goldfish: He's looked into cloning himself or his deceased son in order to keep his legacy going. So far it's been a bust, alas.
- Unscrupulous Hero: Diet is a good and well-meaning person, but isn't above doing shady things as long as no one gets hurt.
- Working with the Ex: After divorcing his ex-wife Irma, he kept her on as one of his scientists. This turned out to be a bad idea, as she would later frame him for murder.
- The World Is Not Ready: In a 2010s storyline, he decides this of his more advanced and potentially-dangerous inventions, such as the Moon Coupe and an advanced ray weapon he'd been designing for the government.
Vitamin Flintheart
An aging actor and a friend of Dick Tracy who's crossed paths with some of Tracy's more notable rogues.
- Afraid of Blood: Flintheart, as introduced, was very squeamish about real-world violence and gore.
- Catchphrase: "Egad!"
- Compressed Vice: At some point he managed to lose $20,000 (a lot of money in 1946) at a casino owned by Influence, but fortunately this seems to have turned him off gambling.
- Famed In-Story: He's done a lot of acting work in his career, and is frequently recognized.
- Functional Addict: A mild case. In his early appearances Vitamin was constantly eating vitamin pills and washing them down with bromo-seltzer. He seems to have shaken this odd habit.
- Hypno Fool: During the Influence storyline, the horrible hypnotic heavy had him in hock for $20,000 and forced him to both embezzle money from a theater patron and perform degrading personal acts.
- Large Ham: Interestingly, he's more like this in his personal life than he is on stage.
- Love at First Sight: When he meets Kandikane Lane, he's overwhelmed by her beauty and can say "Egad!" in a daze. It takes smelling salts to snap him out of it.
- May–December Romance: In the 2010's he took up with Kandikane Lane, with whom he had a child and then married. She's probably in her late twenties or early thirties, while one of his first acting gigs was for a show on the DuMont Network. Do the math.
- Mistaken for Murderer: He's so shaken up over nearly getting a kid shot that he absent-mindedly pocketed Flattop's gun when Pat handed it to him to hold for a second. After wandering into a bar, the gun slips partially out of his pocket and the barman thinks Flintheart is trying to rob him. Worse, Flintheart, shocked at finding the gun in his pocket and panicking, accidentally drops it and it goes off, winging the barman. After this, he has a breakdown, believing himself to be a murderer and tries to turn himself in, retaining his Large Ham tendencies.
- Mugged for Disguise: Flattop, after entering his room accidentally while running from the cops, spies Vitamin's makeup kit and mugs him in order to disguise himself as an elderly man.
- My God, What Have I Done?: After he's Muggedfor Disguise, Tracy beings him along to identify what Flattop now looks like. Unbeknownst to Vitamin, however, Flattop had given the hat and wig from his disguise to a random kid, and nearly got said kid shot by misidentifying him. This rattled him badly for quite a bit.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Vitamin was partly inspired by John Barrymore.
- Out-Gambitted: He does this to the Sprockets, having had a friend who was tricked by them beforehand. By pretending to have been tricked into buying fake lost footage of himself, he helps Tracy get evidence on them.
- Silver Fox: He keeps himself in great shape for an older man, and has a active lifestyle. As such he's managed to score with at least two women decades younger than himself.
- Weirdness Magnet: He attracts criminals at a remarkable rate.
