Write Up
Gasoline Alley
Ever read the familiar cartoon “Gasoline Alley?”
The master-mind behind the lines is 72-year-old
Dick Moores of Ballard Creek Road in Fairview.
Moores is a tall man mXh chin-length white hair.
He is a modest, easygoing person who has ad
vanced from $5 a week as letterer for another car
toonist in 1935, to selling his own strip to major
papers worldwide.
“I wasn’t very good at drawing, just mediocre,
but I had this tremendous desire to become a car
toonist,”he said. This “mediocre” artist received
the Rueben Award for outstanding cartoonist in
1974.
My reception of this award was the culmination
of a dream because it was presented to me by my
peers,Moores said.
Moores has worked for Chester Gould of “Dick
Tracey,” Walt Disney, and Frank Keene, the
originator of Gasoline Alley.”
It was Moores’ employment with Disney World
that kept him from getting drafted in World War II.
“Yep,” he said, grinning, “I was kept out of the war
because I could draw cartoons.” He said the only
money coming into Disney World was through our
by Janet Royster
cartoons and books. This money in turn paid for
the training films that Walt Disney supplied to
educate and entertain the soldiers.
“My cartoons are supposed to amuse people,”
Moores said. “A person reads all the terrible stuff
in the front pages of a newspaper; he needs to
turn over to the comics and find something lighter
to ease his mind.”
Moores studied art at the Academy of Fine Arts
in Chicago. Soon after graduation he was
employed as letterer for the cartoon “Dick
Tracey.” In 1942 Moores published his first strip
“Jim Hardy” which later became “Windy and Pad
dles.”
After these strips ran their course, Moores ac
cepted an offer from Disney World. “In 1950 I
started a television company that aired the first
coast to coast cartoon show.”
Frank Keene, the initiator of “Gasoline Alley,”
hired Moores in 1955 to do the lettering for this
cartoon. After three years Moores took over the
strip, and by 1960 he was doing it all.
Moores said, “I kept the strip alive by bringing
in new characters that appealed to a variety of
readers.”
“I build characters by watching people and
combining their perconalities to form one
person,” he said. “I never use one person per se,
through my son is similar to the character “Slim,”
and the Great Dane in the strip is like my
daughter’s dog was.”
Moores is an avid dog lover. He is the owner of
three frisky, ferocious Doberman Pinschers, one
of which lay prone at our feet for the duration of
the interview.
At 72, Moores works at home seven days a week
to keep 10 weeks ahead in his daily strip; at this
rate their seems no room for retirement.
Moores appeared perfectly content; snug and
secure in his home perched on top of a secluded
mountain with a spectacular view.
He is a perfect example of the “American
Dream.” He made his way to fame, successful in
both career and family, retaining all the way a
twinkle in his eye.