Christmas always had a special place on the comic strip page. Many artists creatively wove Yuletide celebrations into their storyline or just broke the fourth wall for a day to send holiday messages directly to readers. Over the next few days we will recall some of the most creative examples. But let’s start with one of the heartiest celebrants of the holidays, Dick Tracy, and trace how he and Chester Gould treated the holiday.

“What a Christmas Dis Is” – 1932

From the premiere in 1931 and through much of the 1930s, Christmas was incidental to Dick Tracy, if even noted at all. In the 1932 Dec. 25 strip, Tracy celebrates the holiday by posing as a cab driver to capture a mob without bloodshed.

“The Old Optics” – Dec. 25, 1938

In 1938, Dick starts getting the holiday spirit after a long convalescence. Months earlier he had fallen down a deep shaft during a fight, which left him blind and hospitalized. The final panel, with a message from “Chet Gould” himself, is unusually intimate for the strip. But part of the evolving tone of Dick Tracy was a kind of hard-boiled sentimentalism that often peaked in the holiday episode.

“A Prayer of Thanks That we Live In This Glorious Country” – Dec. 24, 1940

Speaking of piety…and patriotism. By 1940, Gould is starting to turn his Christmas strips into holiday cards to readers. For many, America’s involvement in war, at least in Europe, seemed inevitable. France had fallen and London was under nightly bombardment. The Nazi march seemed like a barbaric setback for modern civilization, hence Tracy’s prayer.

“Our Boys Overseas” – Dec. 25, 1944

Despite the now-obligatory Christmas interstitial, Tracy never lost the plot. Storyline teases often snuck into the holiday number. Perhaps the ever-savvy newspaperman Gould wanted to assure his readers that he and Dick would remain on the case during holiday week. In 1944, however, he was foreshadowing one of the strip’s most famous encounters. Flattop was hired by the local mob to erase their nemesis, Dick Tracy. His name carried a wartime reference as well. “Flattops” were the nickname for aircraft carriers, which played a major role in the lingering war in the Pacific.

“May It Orbit Forever” – Dec. 24, 1962

When Tracy joined the space race in the early 1960s, things got strange fast. Industrialist and proto-tech bro Diet Smith became the main source for the detective’s famous gadgetry. The iconic two-way wrist radio came out of the Smith labs, for instance, as would its wrist TV successor. In 1962, and just two months after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the world seemed to need an especially creative tech solution – a permanently orbiting Santa. From Smith’s Space Coupe, he and Tracy monitor the launch of this durable plastic fixture to inspire goodwill towards men year-round.

But hang on, Tracy gets even stranger.

Have a Merry Llǫnnai – Dec. 25, 1964

Two months after Junior Tracy marries the otherworldly Moon Maid (yep, there’s a story there), we get an intergalactic ecumenical Christmas from of all people Chester Gould and Dick Tracy. Gould was as buttoned down, conservative, pious and patriotic as his rock-jawed, by-the-book detective. Sending the strip to the Moon in the early 60s was notably off brand enough for him. But having one of his principle cast marry another species was a real shocker. In their first Christmas together, Junior and Moon Maid invoke the Lunar faith of Llǫnnai. I haven’t a clue how to pronounce this word, nor even what MM means by “only the good read the good.” The “ǫ” is character is called an ogoneck and indicates a nasal vowell sound. Again, it is all an unusually exotic turn for the straight-laced Gould.

Look for a range of holiday strips in the next few days. I will leave Dick Tracy at the height of his strangeness in 1964, although I could write about this strip forever. I think I already have. It remains my all-time favorite. For those who want more Dick, I discuss his infamous conservatism here, his grisley sense of retributive justice here, his dissection of juvenile delinquency here and the Moon Maid marriage here.