The Press: Just by Chance

Since his introduction last July, the poetry-spouting crook now villainously co-starring in Chester Gould’s comic strip. Dick Tracy, had been identified only by his surname: Ogden. Last week, however, Cartoonist Gould finally inked in the poet’s full handle: Providence M. Ogden. In the city room of the Providence, R.I. Journal, there was as much indignation as amusement.

Just by chance, the Journal’s executive managing editor is M. (for Michael) Ogden. Just by chance, Providence’s M. Ogden was instrumental last January in dropping Dick Tracy from the Journal for good, after taking offense at a particularly unsanitary Gould creation called Flyface, around whose face flies orbit continually. It was after the Journal’s action that Gould introduced felonious Poet Ogden to his readers.

Was all this coincidence? Certainly, said Gould—who added that it was also “providential.” As for the Providence Journal’s Ogden, a lean, unpoetic and law-abiding 49-year-old, he said smilingly: “Doesn’t look like me at all. I’m a distinguished, handsome chap.”