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Richard E. Locher

Born: 1929 in Dubuque, Iowa
Pen Name: Dick Locher

Connection to Illinois: Dick Locher studied art at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. After graduating, he worked in Chicago until he joined the Military. Today he lives in Naperville, Illinois.

Biography: Locher is the Chicago Tribune's Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist. He is also a writer, illustrator of the world-famous comic strip Dick Tracy, artist, sculptor and a captain in the Air Force Reserve. He's also drawn the box art for Mattel-Monogram model airplanes. Locher began studying art at the University of Iowa and the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. While in Chicago, he became an assistant to Rick Yager, who was drawing Buck Rogers at the time. In 1951, he left the job just after few months to enlist in the Air Force, where he became a test pilot for two years. While at the Air Force, he began freelancing for the Stars and Stripes.In 1957, Locher began assisting Chester Gould on Dick Tracy, where he inked the figures and colored the Sunday strips. He left the strip in 1961 to work on other areas, including starting an advertising company, where he worked on designing some of McDonald's characters.Even after leaving the Dick Tracy strip, Locher kept in touch with Chester Gould. In 1973, an editorial cartoonist position at Chicago Tribune opened up and Gould recommended Locher to take the position. Locher continues in that capacity still today. Locher returned to work on Dick Tracy in 1983, when its previous cartoonist, Rick Fletcher, died. In 2009 Jim Brozman took over the drawing of Dick Tracy, however Locher continued to write the storyline and contribute sketches until Sunday, March 13, 2011 when Locher's last Dick Tracy strip was published. Locher has been a contributor of articles and drawings to magazines and newspapers in the United States and abroad, including ''U.S. News and World Report'', ''Forbes'', ''Playboy'', and ''National Review''.Dick Locher's paintings and sculptures are represented in galleries, showrooms, and corporate offices all over the world, and in the White House and Kremlin. His interviews include meetings with Henry Kissinger, President Gerald Ford, Presidents Jose Portillo of Mexico and Carlos Andres Perez of Venezuela. He has also interviewed Russian cartoonists in Moscow.


Awards:
  • In 1983, received the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. In 1983 and 1984, received the Overseas Press Club award for best cartoon on foreign affairs In 2006, inducted into the Oklahoma Cartoonists Hall of Fame in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma by Michael

Primary Literary Genre(s): Fiction

Primary Audience(s): Adult readers

Richard E. Locher on WorldCat : http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=richard+e.++locher


Selected Titles

Dick Tracy /
ISBN: 0975380885 OCLC: 58053526

Checker ; Miamisburg, Ohio : 2005.

Flying can be fun /
ISBN: 0882894498 OCLC: 11812666

Pelican Pub. Co., Gretna : 1985.

The daze of whine and neurosis /
ISBN: 1565541561 OCLC: 32429055

Pelican Pub. Co., Gretna, La. : 1995.

  Vote for me and it serves you right, or left /
ISBN: 0933893558 OCLC: 18887528

Bonus Books, Chicago : ©1988.

  Which one is the none of the above button? /
ISBN: 0941263657 OCLC: 28189259

Tribune Pub., Orlando : 1992.

 

 

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