Naperville’s Locher escaping long arm of Dick Tracy

More than 30 years have passed since Dick Tracy first locked up Naperville cartoonist Dick Locher, but now the sentence is almost over.

The 81-year-old Locher announced Wednesday he’s penning his last Dick Tracy comic strips and retiring.

“After 32 years, he’s letting me out for good behavior,” Locher said. “I shouldn’t talk about it like that. I’ve had the time of my life.”

His last installment of the comic strip will be featured in newspapers on March 13, after which two cartoonists selected by the Tribune Syndicate with Locher’s approval will take over production.

Locher said he’s wrapping up his final storyline for the series, which he also started writing in 2005.

“It’s time. It’s starting to take me longer to do because the hands are not responding to the brain quite as fast as they used to,” he said. “I’ve always insisted the strip remain as high quality as I inherited it, so it’s time to pass it on.”

The Dick Tracy comic strip was created in 1931 by Chester Gould and Locher began working on it off and on in 1957 before eventually taking it over.

“I got to work with a legend while creating an icon,” he said.

Armed with a plan to “make people enjoy Wednesday’s strip so they pick up Thursday’s,” Locher said his favorite Dick Tracy storyline was 2007’s introduction of the Queen of Diamonds character.

“I guess the best answer would be I haven’t done my favorite yet,” Locher said. “But I sure had a lot of fun when the Queen was chasing the Blue Eye of the Mondazzi. I got the most mail about that, too.”

Locher still intends to draw editorial cartoons for the Chicago Tribune in his retirement but he also plans to spend more time with his new hobbies of painting and traveling.

“I’m going to head west, wherever the road takes me, but I’ve always wanted to go see Utah,” he said. “Doing a daily strip really prevents you from ever going too far way from the studio.”