1937.05.02 “Armies are consumers not producers”
by Richard (Dick/Rick) Fletcher (1916-1983)
11.5 x 14.5 in., pencil/crayon on paper
Coppola Collection
In 1935, Rick wrote to a longtime friend, Joe Weber, a photographer at the new Tri City Star newspaper in Davenport, Iowa, asking about the possibility of a job in the art department. Mr. Hinkle, the publisher, liked Rick’s work and hired him for fifteen dollars a week starting October 3, 1935. Rick soon moved to Davenport, Iowa to become a one-man art department, within a week he complained in his diary “work is coming in too fast to get any quality” but decided “composition is what puts the drawing over.” He worked at the Tri City Star for two years after which he found a more desirable position at the Rudy A. Moritz Advertising Agency in Davenport Iowa. Rick was hired as the Art Director allowing him more time to produce a higher quality art; producing ads and campaigns for national accounts.
In 1942, Rick’s art career was interrupted by World War II. After the war, he was offered a job at two locations, the Chicago Tribune and a local Chicago engraving studio. In a diary entry Rick decided to choose the Tribune because “I just liked walking down Michigan Avenue and going into the Tribune Tower, which has quite a mystique in Chicago”. Rick joined the advertising art department in April 1946 handling illustrations and cartooning. Rick studied for several years under personal supervision of Carey Orr, Pulitzer Prize winning Chief Editorial Cartoonist; learning advanced comic strip technique. Carey Orr taught many illustrators, including (then high school student) Walt Disney in 1917.
He drew a series of weekly syndicated full color adventure story strips starting in February 1953. And 1961, an opportunity arose from another artist at the Chicago Tribune. Chester Gould, the creator of Dick Tracy, had a position open when his young assistant Dick Locher had to resign. Rick was thrilled with the opportunity to illustrate another world class strip. His duties included penciling panels, illustration, inking backgrounds, advertising composition and layout, as well as developing story lines. During the spring of 1962 Gould hired Rick on a full-time basis to be part of the Dick Tracy production team.
Fletcher took over production of Dick Tracy when Gould retired on December 25, 1977.
Working with a young new writer, Max Allen Collins, Rick began flexing his abilities by equipping Tracy with state-of-the-art equipment: a nickel-plated magnum revolver with illuminated night-sights and the famous 2-way wrist TV. Rick illustrated the Dick Tracy comic strip for five productive years, always researching the latest technologies, current trends in popular culture and the opinions of his fans.
Fletcher’s artistry in the small portraits is evident.
The image critiques the global arms race during the mid‑1930s, before full-scale war, when US taxpayers were resistant to absorbing rising military budgets.
In the mid-1930s, there was an international spectacle of mounting armies and military action abroad. German remilitarization was underway, including reintroducing conscription (March 1935) and expanding the Wehrmacht. In Italy’s military buildup, post–Ethiopian campaign (1936), Mussolini boasted large troop numbers. And massive military mobilization under Stalin, accompanying the Great Purge, was frequently discussed in foreign reporting.
Meanwhile, in the US, debates centered on continuing a more pro-isolationist view and the costs of building a military in light of the Great Depression. While the Neutrality Act (May 1, 1937) focused on neutrality, the US was also beginning to rearm during this period. The Act increased naval and army funding despite isolationist pressure, in addition to taxpayer resistance to sharp increases in defense spending.
