Product Description

A blend of urban noir intrigue and social satire, Collins has revitalized the most popular detective in comic history while staying true to the milieu of the original strip. Collects teh 1979 episodes of the strip.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #374924 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 180 pages

From Booklist
When Dick Tracy creator Chester Gould retired in 1978 after 46 years at the helm, it took two to replace him: crime fiction author Collins (later known for the Nate Heller series and The Road to Perdition) and Fletcher, Gould's longtime assistant. The second volume of Collins Casefiles (for volume 1, see BKL D 15 03) continues their revamping of the classic, but threadbare, strip. Collins returned Tracy to street-level police work and colorful crooks (this volume introduces the nervous Quiver Trembly) and updated it with topical elements: embezzlement by computer, a punk-rock robber, and an air hijacker hoping to free her political-prisoner brother. Sometimes past and present are cleverly combined, as when Tracy confronts an apparent clone of his 1940s foe, Mumbles. Fletcher artfully contemporizes Gould's sparse visual approach, rounding off its more jarring excesses (literally, in the case of Tracy's impossibly squared chin). Collins and Fletcher eventually left the strip, which sank back into mediocrity, but for a while, they breathed new life into a venerable warhorse. Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
...intricate, innovative, and entertaining plots, characterization and dialog. Dick Tracy: The Collins Casefiles is highly recommended. Michael Vance --Suspended Animation

Ultimately, it's just great to have these serials collected in a convenient bookshelf format, and they make a fine accompaniment to IDW's reprint collections of the original Chester Gould strips. Christopher Mills --Gun in the Gutters

Dick Tracy really is the man. I don't mean was the man, I mean he is the man. Mark Rollins --Associated Content

Customer Reviews

Comics Junkie
Grew up reading this series. Now I have a permanent copy of my own. Good price and great product for comics junkies.

Checker scores another direct hit!
Checker Books is filling a necessary role in the publishing field: bringing classic comic strips back into the public eye. Not only that, but they do it at a reasonable price and easily manageable format. Their STEVE CANYON volumes were well received, but the highlight for me has been DICK TRACY - THE COLLINS CASEFILES. Volume 2 continues the reprints of the Dick Tracy strips beginning in 1978 by Max Alan Collins (writer) and Rick Fletcher (illustrator), with oversight by creator Chester Gould. Long before Collins became known for Road to Perdition, he cranked out some excellent Tracy scripts that brought the plainclothes detective into a more modern setting, but with the same grit and thrills from the classic strip. Fletcher's fine-line art is exceptional, giving us a very stylized view of Tracy's world while retaining the characters' distinctive physical traits (it has a bit of an Alex Nino look, if that helps). This volume contains great stories featuring "the Computer Killer", the return of Mumbles (or is it?), Bony and Claudette, and Quiver. A back-up feature contains "case files" of various characters from the strip.

Regarding the format, these books are trade-sized collections, which I love since they fit so well with my other trades on the bookshelf (I've never cared for oversized oblong collections, as they are more difficult to store, plus they can't be handled very easily while reading). I will make one complaint about this volume, albeit a minor one: my copy has a couple of pages where the ink did not apply as heavily, resulting in several slightly faded strips.

I am hoping for more volumes in this series. Checker, don't let me down.