Joe Staton said goodbye as pencil artist in the Sunday October 24, 2021 Dick Tracy comic strip.
Shelley Pleger, who has been the inker and letterer of the Curtis/Staton Dick Tracy from the beginning, will now add layouts and pencils to her chores starting October 25, 2021.
And when we say “from the beginning” we mean before the Mike Curtis and Joe Staton debut on the syndicated Dick Tracy comic strip that started March 14, 2011. Shelley was part of the 2010 creative team as inker/letterer when they produced the Major Crime Squad strip as a tryout for the real thing.
In 2017 Shelley, subbing for Joe, supplied the full art in a sequence guest starring Svengoolie.
So Shelley is hardly the “new” artist for Dick Tracy.
She is, however, “the first female lead artist Dick Tracy has ever had,” as Tribune Content Agency says in a publicity release introducing Shelley as the main artist.
Shelley Pleger is a self-taught cartoonist and illustrator from the Pacific Northwest who has worked on various freelance comics projects, most notably, re-creating classic comics for Disney Gemstone. A digital artist, Shelley has always appreciated the classic brush-inked comics style and strives to bring this quality into her current work for Dick Tracy.
Readers can be assured that the storylines and art that characterize the uniqueness of Dick Tracy will forge ahead. Pleger will continue to work with Mike Curtis, the author of Dick Tracy for the past decade. They will immediately pick up with cross-over themes in Pleger’s first week. The Dick Tracy panels will feature a familiar classic face known to comic strip fans—Daddy Warbucks of Little Orphan Annie.
The Dick Tracy Wiki adds that Shelley “occasionally assists with dialogue.”
Thanks to Joe for reviving Dick Tracy and a hearty “onward” to Shelley.