Dick Moores
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Richard Arnold Moores (December 12, 1909 – April 22, 1986) was an American cartoonist whose best known work was the
comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...
''
Gasoline Alley Gasoline Alley may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Gasoline Alley'' (comic strip), a comic strip by Frank King, first published in 1918 ** ''Gasoline Alley'' (radio series), a 193149 radio series based on the eponymous comic stri ...
'', which he worked on for nearly three decades.


Biography

Moores was born in
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, on December 12, 1909. After graduating from high school in
Fort Wayne, Indiana Fort Wayne is a city in Allen County, Indiana, United States, and its county seat. Located in northeastern Indiana, the city is west of the Ohio border and south of the Michigan border. The city's population was 263,886 at the 2020 census ...
, he attended Fort Wayne Art School. He also received a year of training at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts before spending five years working for Chester Gould on ''
Dick Tracy ''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 T ...
''. While working for Gould in Chicago, he met and married Gretchen, a musician. He met Frank King while in Chicago, sharing a studio with him while drawing his own strip, '' Jim Hardy'', from 1936 to 1942. The strip, distributed by
United Features Syndicate United Feature Syndicate, Inc. (UFS) is a large American editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States and established in 1919. Originally part of E. W. Scripps Company, it was part of United Media ( ...
, was about a young man, down on his luck. It was never a success, and in its later years, pivoted to focus on a
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supporting character, Windy, and his horse Paddles. The title character left the strip in 1940, and it was retitled ''Windy and Paddles'' from 1941 to 1942.''Jim Hardy''
at
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Archived
from the original on October 8, 2016.
That was followed by 14 years working on
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, inking the ''
Mickey Mouse Mickey Mouse is an American cartoon character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime icon and mascot of the Walt Disney Company, Mickey is an anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red shorts, large shoes, and white ...
'' comic strip, drawing the ''
Uncle Remus and His Tales of Br'er Rabbit ''Uncle Remus and His Tales of Br'er Rabbit'' is an American Disney comic strip that ran on Sundays from October 14, 1945, to December 31, 1972. It first appeared as a topper strip for the ''Mickey Mouse'' Sunday page, but after the first few ye ...
'' strip and later '' Scamp'', and a short period in the 1950s at
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drawing funny animal comic books. The best known of these is the
Mickey Mouse Mickey Mouse is an American cartoon character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime icon and mascot of the Walt Disney Company, Mickey is an anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red shorts, large shoes, and white ...
story "The Wonderful Whizzix" (''
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'' #427, Oct. 1952), which some regard as the inspiration for the Disney's ''
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''. In 1942, Moores teamed up with Jack Boyd, an effects animator at Walt Disney Studios, to form the company Telecomics, Inc. Their intention was to produce a television show that would present still panels from a comic strip on television, with a narrator and voice actors performing the characters' voices, including an adaptation of ''Jim Hardy''. The program finally reached the air in September 1950 as ''NBC Comics'', which ran for six months, until March 1951. After the cancellation, Moores and Boyd continued to try to pitch a ''Telecomics'' series to sponsors, but they were not successful.


''Gasoline Alley''

Moores moved to Florida when he was hired by Frank King in 1956 to assist him on the ''Gasoline Alley''
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. King's former assistant Bill Perry had taken over doing the
Sunday strip The Sunday comics or Sunday strip is the comic strip section carried in some Western newspapers. Compared to weekday comics, Sunday comics tend to be full pages and are in color. Many newspaper readers called this section the Sunday funnies, t ...
in 1951. Moores' signature began to appear on the strip in 1964, and when King died in 1969, Moores assumed writing and drawing duties for the daily strip. When Perry retired in 1975, Moores added the Sunday strip to his workload and combined the stories into one continuing story. Moores relocated near
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, where he spent the rest of his life. In his later years, Moores composed stories, penciled faces and sketched the action, and then sent the strips to another artist for inking, such as his assistant,
Jim Scancarelli James Scancarelli (born August 24, 1941), known professionally as Jim Scancarelli, is an American cartoonist and musician. Since 1986, he has been writing and drawing the syndicated comic strip '' Gasoline Alley'' for Tribune Media Services. In t ...
, who took over the strip upon his death. Moores died of liver and kidney failure. Although in other strips, children would mature into adults, ''Gasoline Alley'' was the first comic strip in which adults aged. Allison "Skeezix" Wallet started out at a foundling left on bachelor Walt's doorstep in 1921, grew up to fight in the Pacific during WWII, married Nina Clock, and they had a daughter, Clovia, in 1949, who married Slim, a mechanic at Skeezix's ''Gasoline Alley'' garage. Moores introduced local events into the comic strip. At the same point that Fort Wayne residents were trying to raise money to save a grand old theatre, the Embassy, from the wrecker's ball, and to restore it, the characters in ''Gasoline Alley'' were trying to do the same with their
Emboyd Theatre The Embassy Theatre (formerly the Emboyd Theatre) is a 2,471-seat performing arts theater in Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA. It was built in 1928 as a movie palace and up until recently, it was the home of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic. History The ...
. Even many Fort Wayne residents were unaware that their theatre had been originally called the Emboyd, named after Emma Boyd, daughter of the owner. (For that matter, neither of the Fort Wayne newspapers carried the syndicated ''Gasoline Alley'' strip.) ''Gasoline Alley'' had strong characters that were animals. Joel was always with his mule (Becky), and Rufus carried his cat (Kitty) under his arm. A Doberman Pinscher (Kleine) and a Great Dane (Sieg) comically shared Slim and Clovia's already too-small apartment. One memorable story introduced a baby donkey with a forked tail, which the neighbors accuse of being a demon. While the ''Los Angeles Times'' speculated that the use of animal characters may be due to his Disney experience, Moores did not market as Disney did, though Frank King licensed a Clovia doll and held a contest to name Clovia. Moores said that Walt Wallet was his alter ego. "I use Walt to create homey situations and for anybody who's feeling his age to identify with," Moores said two months before his death. "He's the father figure. He's what keeps them together. He's the one I go to when I want to pull the strip together."


Awards

Moores received the
National Cartoonists Society The National Cartoonists Society (NCS) is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the ...
Story Comic Strip Awards for 1973, 1980, 1981, 1982 and 1985, and their
Reuben Award The National Cartoonists Society (NCS) is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the ...
for 1974 for his work on this strip. NCS Awards


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moores, Dick Gasoline Alley (comic strip) 1909 births 1986 deaths 20th-century American artists 20th-century American male artists American comic strip cartoonists Disney comics artists Reuben Award winners Artists from Fort Wayne, Indiana Artists from Lincoln, Nebraska