Piggy Butcher was an underworld figure who had been an associate of George Chin Chillar. He was a large man with pronounced lips, who often wore his hat brim down over his eyes. He habitually listened to a small transistor radio via an earpiece.
The Chin Chillars Arrive[]
George and his wife Notta were fugitives from the law, and they approached Piggy with their stolen Space Coupe. Piggy agreed to hide the couple on his farm, but in exchange he took them prisoner and worked them mercilessly.
Piggy enlisted George in his car theft scheme. George would pilot the Space Coupe into the city and airlift cars back to Piggy's farm. There, the cars would be stripped and then melted down. The metal and parts would be sold on the international black market. Piggy kept Notta as a hostage to ensure George's cooperation.
Piggy had a sizable operation, with a large underground smelting facility. While George was off flying the Space Coupe, Piggy held Notta hostage, forcing her to work as his housemaid and servant. Piggy took a fancy to the flirtatious Notta. As their relationship intensified, Piggy became increasingly obsessed with the "Little House Mother" (the nickname he gave Notta), though he didn't like her beard. He eventually ordered his men to shave it off, but he stopped them when she cried out in pain, leaving her with twin beards on either side of her chin. Piggy found this quite amusing.
Raided by Dick Tracy[]
Unbeknownst to Piggy, Dick Tracy and Sam Catchem had tracked the Chin Chillars to Piggy's farm. One night, the Chin Chillars spotted Tracy and Sam doing surveillance in air cars, and the couple flagged them down. They pleaded with Tracy for help and agreed to work for the police to spy against Piggy. Tracy gave the couple a wrist TV to communicate with them, but Piggy's henchman soon discovered the device and reported it to Piggy. By that time, the Chin Chillars had already provided Tracy with critical information needed to raid Piggy's operation.
Before the raid began, Tracy clubbed one of Piggy's guards, recovered the stolen space coupe, and rendezvoused with Moon Maid and Junior. Together, the trio used the space coupe to invade Piggy's bedroom and capture the criminal kingpin. Moon Maid used her powers to paralyze Piggy, and Tracy and Junior took him into custody, along with the Chin Chillars whom Piggy had tied up.
Following the capture of Piggy and the Chin Chillars, the police, FBI, and state personnel launched a successful raid on Piggy's farm that ended his stolen car operation and steel mill. As a shootout between law enforcement and Piggy's remaining henchmen was about to begin, another of Piggy's operatives detonated two tons of TNT inside the steel mill. The resulting explosion and fires destroyed most of the buildings on the farm, and Piggy's 22 men were burned to death by molten steel. The henchmen who ignited this conflagration was then killed by one of the bulls on Piggy's farm.
After being incarcerated, Piggy was quickly released on bail. The Chin Chillars were also released, and they became determined to get revenge on Piggy. Piggy and his attorney returned to the farm and observed from a distance as Dick Tracy and the police dug up Piggy's personal fortune in cash and precious metals that he had buried in the "cemetery" on his property. Having lost his criminal operation and ill-gotten savings, the devastated Piggy became increasingly fixated with getting revenge on Moon Maid because she had played a key role in the raid of his farm.
Piggy wanted Moon Maid dead, but wanted her brought to him first. To accomplish this goal, he enlisted his friend Pollyanna (a model) to impersonate Moon Maid at a costume ball and stun the real Moon Maid with a stolen laser pistol. Pollyanna, Piggy's lawyer, and another henchman of Piggy departed for the policeman's ball where Moon Maid was to be honored, but the group stumbled while getting into a taxi. Pollyanna accidentally fell on the laser pistol, which set it off. The resulting discharge vaporized the cab and all four people inside it, leaving a 10-foot-deep crater in the street. This left Piggy with no confederates or money, and more heavily sought by the police.
The End of Piggy[]
Piggy descended into drunkenness and poverty. One night as he was stumbling intoxicated through the streets, he was discovered by the Chin Chillars. The Chin Chillars dragged the semi-conscious Piggy to their apartment, where they intended to torture and eventually kill him as revenge for his cruel treatment of them.
Meanwhile, Tracy and Sam Catchem had tracked down the couple for questioning. They knocked on the door of the Chin Chillars' apartment just as the bearded couple was preparing to torture Piggy. The arrival of the police surprised and angered George, who began shooting wildly through the apartment door. Return shots were fired, and George was killed. Notta was taken into custody. Piggy was discovered to be dead (January 24th, 1968), having been accidentally strangled when the Chin Chillars attempted to hoist his heavy body onto a table. Tracy and his team later discovered that Piggy had murdered Marrg Plainsman, an employee of the Argonne National Laboratory who had helped Piggy steal the laser pistol that was used in his failed plot to kidnap Moon Maid.
Appearances in Other Media[]
IDW Comics[]
Dick Tracy: Dead or Alive[]
Piggy Butcher was one of several villains shown being taken into custody in issue #2 of the comic book miniseries Dick Tracy: Dead or Alive published by IDW.
Notes[]
- It was later revealed that Piggy Butcher was also an associate of Mr. Bribery. Bribery expected Butcher to kill the Chin Chillars after the couple helped Bribery fake his death (07/26/2015), but Butcher apparently changed the plan when he became attracted to Notta.
- There does not seem to be any connection between Piggy Butcher and the other criminal known as Pig E. Bank who was a recurring villain in the 1990s & 2000s.
- The strip strongly indicated that Piggy and Notta were sexual partners, but the exact nature of their relationship is subject to interpretation.
- Piggy Butcher was depicted as having several similarities to the strip's creator Chester Gould:
- Gould lived on a farm outside the city of Chicago. Piggy lived on a farm outside of Tracy’s city, which was analogous to Chicago in many ways.
- Gould used a sketch board in his line of work, as did Piggy.
- Gould struggled with weight issues for most of his career, and described himself as "a big, fat slob" (an exaggeration) in a 1944 interview. Piggy Butcher was overweight and slobbish.
- Gould and Piggy both smoked cigars.
- Gould had a "cemetery" on his real-life farm, with markers for the Dick Tracy criminals he had killed in the strip. Piggy had a fake cemetery on his farm which was the supposed burial ground of rival criminals that he had killed.
- During his lifetime, Gould frequently expressed contempt for criminals abusing their constitutional rights to escape prosecution, and often mocked the idea. Piggy was similarly contemptuous of the Chin Chillars' constitutional rights, as when he silenced Notta’s complaint that shaving off her beard was unconstitutional.
- Additionally, Piggy was a fan of the newspaper comic strip Sawdust, which was produced by Chet Jade (another Gould parody character).
- Lips Manlis' portrayal in the 1990 film has some similarities with Piggy Butcher, in that Manlis is overweight, has prominent lips, forces his attention on a reluctant female companion, and is eventually betrayed by criminal cohorts. Butcher was also consistently depicted with a bad complexion, as Manlis was in the film.
- In 2005, Piggy and his men appeared in an original artwork by the pinup/good girl artist Al Rio. Notta Chin Chillar and Pollyanna were both featured in the piece, though they never appeared together in the strip.