Product Description

Volume Seven contains over 500 Dick Tracy comic strips from the series' early years, this time covering material that originally ran from January 1941 through June 1942. Also included is an introduction by Max Allan Collins, as well as the third historical feature from J.C. Vaughn looking at the evolution of Tracy merchandise.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #73120 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 344 pages

Customer Reviews

Introducing LITTLE FACE, B-B EYES & The MOLE
As befits IDW's new format (featuring larger dimensions and a full-color dust jacket), Volume 7 represents a stylistic turning point in Chester Gould's Golden Age classic - DICK TRACY. At last, here's the "good stuff" you've been waiting for! By the early 1940s the strip's conventional, public enemy-type bad guys (like BIG BOY CAPRICE and STOOGE VILLER) gradually gave way to innovative, larger-than-life weirdness - and the American comics page would never be the same.

This volume documents the breathless transition - and I DO mean "breathless"! Tracy is hurled from one bizarre, hair-raising deathtrap to the next, by villains whose gruesome facades are more than matched by their thoroughly malignant souls. Gould's justly famous "Rogues Gallery" of grotesques (glimpsed embryonically with JEROME TROHS and MAMMA in Volume 6), springs to life with a vengeance in the saga of LITTLE FACE FINNEY, (who's ultimate fate is at least as disturbing as his unforgettable pan and moniker.) And soon to follow, in rapid succession: The MOLE, B-B EYES, PRUNEFACE, LAFFY, MRS. PRUNEFACE, FLATTOP, The BROW, etc...

Gould's work was an uneven mix of stark realism and broad, cartoony stylization. His villains - deformed, repulsive, detestable - were visual metaphors. It was Gould's way of saying, "Evil is ugly." So recognizable was the TRACY-style of criminal that by 1944, when FEARLESS FOSDICK (Al Capp's classic recurring parody from LI'L ABNER) came up against "Bombface" and "Rattop", readers would have known instantly who was being spoofed. So would audiences in 1946, when DAFFY DUCK (as "Duck Twacy" in Bob Clampett's brilliant Warner Bros. cartoon, The GREAT PIGGY BANK ROBBERY) met "Jukebox Jaw," "Pickle Puss", "88 Teeth" and "Neon Noodle"!

In addition, there's still Gould's usual cast of oddball miscreants: escaped lunatics, blackmailers and black marketeers, a crooked physician and his overgrown, cross-eyed, retarded "nurse", greedy heirs and spoiled debutantes, midgets and misfits, hypnotists and hitmen in drag, kidnappers, frauds, torturers, urban terrorists and assorted madmen. They're all here in spades.

Drawing inspiration and momentum from Hollywood's emerging Film Noir genre at the time - and in turn, influencing other wartime comic book creations like BATMAN and the great Will Eisner's SPIRIT - Gould's beloved strip would become a force to be reckoned with for the next two decades. It all starts here, in this milestone volume. Enjoy!

Big improvement
The Complete Chester Gould's DICK TRACY Volume 7 is a big improvement in publishing this series. The larger pages and the spread of a Sunday to two pages comes a lot closer to doing Gould's work justice. It should have been this way from the start. Most of Tracy's fans today have challenged eyesight, and the previous six volumes were challenging that challenge. Thanks to Dean Mullaney for seeing what needed to be done, and for doing it.

Weird logic
I thought the reason for changing to a larger format was to increase the quality and readability. But in this new, larger book format there are three strips per page, while in the previous smaller book format, there were two strips per page.

With the result that the strips are actually reproduced *smaller* in this new "large" format than they were in the previous six volumes!