IDW's continuing series of chronological reprintings of Chester Gould's Dick Tracy has certainly switched into high gear this year. With Eisner Award winning editor Dean Mullaney coming on board to edit the series, Tracy has undergone a makeover into the format of the Terry and the Pirates and Little Orphan Annie books, and couldn't have come a better time. Mullaney's presence has also upped the publication of this amazing series to three books a year. Volume 7 came out in April, the current one in July, and volume 9 is scheduled for December, just in time for Christmas gift-giving.
The format change coincides with the beginning of Tracy's--and Gould's--golden age. Volume 8 (click here to get your own copy!) introduces us to a number of classic villains, including Pruneface, 88 Keyes, Laffy, Mrs. Pruneface, and the one and only Flattop. The front page headlines during these years--mired deep in World War II--were horrifying enough, but somehow Gould outdid himself with these incredible bad guys. While World War II is certainly a part of Tracy's world--Pruneface is a spy, gas and tire rationing are apparent, one story deals with a daycare center for children whose mothers work for the war effort, and--most tellingly--that single shot of a star in someone's window, indicating a soldier killed in action--but it stays that way: just in the background. Gould wisely knew his reader wanted to escape from the horrors of war, and he certainly gave them his own horrors to concentrate on.
Gould still sometimes gets befuddled with his own writing...Flattop has money from "killing" Tracy that we never actually see him get; Mrs. Pruneface wants revenge for the death of her husband at Tracy's hands, but the last we hear of him, he's being transferred to the county jail, "heading straight to the electric chair," as Chief Brandon exclaims. (Mrs. Pruneface shows up just a few short months later, so I guess we're to take it that justice acted much more swiftly in the 1943...) When Mrs. P. captures Tracy, she devises one of the most insidious death traps ever: chaining him to the floor between two blocks of ice, with a refrigerator resting on boards above. Attached to the back of the fridge is a huge metal spike, designed to pierce Tracy's heart as the ice melts. And oh, yeah...it's in the kitchen. In August, And they close the windows. And turn the oven on. And leave the oven door open. Yikes! I can't make this stuff up, but Chet Gould sure could.
And then there's Flattop, the quintessential Dick Tracy villain. Cool, calm, and collected, a paid assassin brought into town just to kill Tracy--during Christmas, 1943, no less; how's that for warm holiday sentiment?--Flattop has nine lives and escapes to bedevil Tracy in the next volume (almost 15 years later, his identical son, Flattop Jr., appears in one of my all-time favorite stories--clearly Gould knew a great character when he saw one). It's very wise of IDW--however annoying--to split the Flattop storyline into two volumes. As the top Tracy baddie, he probably represents the one storyline more people will want to read. As good as volume 8 is, volume 9 will present the pinnacle of Gould's creativity: in addition to the conclusion of the Flattop storyline (featuring the introduction of ham actor Vitamin Flintheart), we'll meet The Brow, Shaky, Measles, Breathless Mahoney, Gravel Gertie, B. O. Plenty, and the Summer Sisters. This is Gould running at his fastest and most furious. Don't miss it!
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