Product Description

Presenting a deluxe hardcover collection of Chester Gould's timeless comic strip, Dick Tracy. The second volume of this multi-year project includes nearly 500 comic strips from May 1933 to January 1935. This special second volume also features an exclusive essay from Consulting Editor and longtime Tracy writer Max Allan Collins. Each volume will feature book design from award-winning designer/artist Ashley Wood.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #142085 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

From Publishers Weekly
"Escape! Freedom! Revenge on Tracy!" screams the wonderfully hyperbolic narrator in this second collection of one of crime fiction's most beloved-and most influential-serialized adventures. Collecting dailies and Sunday strips from May 1933 to January 1935, the book is an onslaught of plot, chock full of protection racketeers, smugglers at sea, crooked politicians, car theft rings and whatever else Gould's wildly fertile imagination could concoct in time for deadline. Frankly, it's a bit much for prolonged reading but is a wonderful historic resource nonetheless, and fans of police procedurals can bask in the genre's early, experimental days. The world has changed a lot since then, of course, and some plot elements (Tracy "slapping some sense" into a woman; the fairly common endangerment of his adopted son Junior as bad-guy bait) might not sit well with modern readers. A well-written and surprisingly un-fanboy introduction by Max Allan Collins, himself the author of the Tracy strip from 1977 to 1998, nicely sets the tone, pointing out that much of the territory covered in this book represents Gould's on-the-job education in how to tell a great story. A lengthy and revealing interview with Gould from 1980 will delight long-time fans of the strip.
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From Booklist
A year and a half after its inception, Dick Tracy's familiar ingredients began coming together. In these 1933–35 strips, Gould's drawing becomes simpler and more assured, sporting his trademark use of solid black areas in a panel; and his integration of soap opera and comedy into the predominantly cops-and-robbers milieu grows smoother. While the villains are rather mundane compared with the freakish foes that Tracy would soon begin to encounter, their unalloyed viciousness already attests the black-and-white worldview that would mark the strip's 46-year run. Flagg, Gordon

Customer Reviews

Fast-paced adventure by an American comics master
This review is from my "Tony's Tips" column in COMICS BUYER'S GUIDE...

I planned to pace myself reading The Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Volume Two [IDW Publishing; $29.99], but that plan went awry pretty quick. This volume reprints the strip - both dailies and Sundays - from May 21, 1933 to January 29. 1935. As author and Gould successor Max Allan Collins recounts in his introduction to this volume, Gould was learning while he was earning, refining his storytelling while creating one of the most exciting comic strips of all time. The action moved as fast as speeding bullets and it often seemed like Tracy or sidekick Junior or girlfriend Tess were in mortal peril weekly. It must have been maddening for readers of the era to have to wait an entire day to find out what would happen to Gould's good guys and bad guys. I breezed through eight months' of the strip in a morning and couldn't turn the pages fast enough.

I'd still be reading if I didn't have to stop to write this review. The sacrifices I make for you...

Tracy has already amassed a number of mortal enemies as this volume opens and their aggregate hankering to rid themselves of the detective puts him and his loved ones in life-threatening peril on a far too frequent basis. But the hatred of the villains is just as likely to work against them. It's a dangerous dance and there are casualties on both sides.

Junior emerges as a star in his own right during these strips. He's smart, tough, and a crack shot. But, just when you think he's invincible, his youthful naivety gets him into a seemingly hopeless jam. No wonder he was such a popular character back in the day. Indeed, the more I read of these early strips, the more I'm convinced he was the main inspiration for Batman's Robin.

Besides 20 months of the strips themselves and the insightful Collins introduction, this second book also features the conclusion of the 1980 Gould interview conducted by Collins and Tracy expert Matt Masterson. Though Gould often has to be prompted to remember specific details of his work, his drive, loyalty, and strength of character come through loud and clear.

There are books I can't imagine not being in the library of a serious comics buff. This is one of them.

The Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Volume Two earns the full five out of five Tonys.

Dick Tracy rides again.
This second volume of the complete Dick Tracy reprints the strips from May 21, 1933 to January 29, 1935. This is great, exciting stuff. Tracy has rematches with the villains Steve the Tramp, Stooge Viller and Big Boy. And new villains like Larceny Lu, Doc Hump and Boris Arson are introduced. Many other significant events occur. Junior's biological father dies and his biological mother is found. Tess Trueheart gets a rival for Dick's affection named Jean Penfield. Tracy gets a friendly rival in the police department, an English detective named J. Scotland Bumpsted. And that just begins to scratch the surface of the action packed exploits within this book. Highly recommended to fans of classic adventure comic strips.

Dick Tracy Vol 2
I really enjoyed this book. I have recently become quite enamored with Dick Tracy. I am making my way through the Golden Age comic characters and these compiled editions are wonderful to read.

As per Dick Tracy's life, the book is almost like a visual novel. He and Tess have their ups and downs, the kid, Junior, struggles with changes in his life and even falls into a gang of crime, and Dick Tracy shows that though he's good, he's not always perfect.

I really enjoyed the interview with Gould in the beginning of the book that detailed Tracy's orgins as a mob-fighting Sherlock Holmes, and also gives and approximate age for him (around 25 when the strip starts).

If you like love, mystery, suspense, and a bit of 1930's CSI: Dick Tracy style, you will enjoy this book.