I've written about my favorite American comic strip, Dick Tracy, numerous times on this blog (here, here and oh, yeah, here, for example) and pretty much each time I lamented the fact that there is no "complete" reprinting of Chester Gould's legendary comic strip. Many have tried. First it was the Cupples and Leon books, cardboard-bound strip collections that featured stories taken from the strips, pre-dating comic books. Then bits and pieces appeared in Big Little Books, the classic little hardbound tomes that featured a lefthand page of text opposite a righthand page of art, each a panel from an actual strip. The publisher, David McKay, featured the character in their Feature Books series and Dell started reprinting Tracy in anthology books like Super Comics and Popular Comics. He finally "graduated" into his own book, Dick Tracy Comics Monthly. That book moved over to Harvey Comics in 1950 with number 25 and the seminal Tracy story featuring his arch enemy, Flattop. Harvey published the book for 11 years, ending with 5 lovely "Harvey Giant" issues, #141-145, in 1961. And then, for a while, nothing.
In the early 70s, book publishers flirted with comic strips big-time, with a number of reprint projects. The Celebrated Cases of Dick Tracy was one of them, and one of the more annoying ones, to boot. While it published some great examples of the strip, it also printed incomplete stories. (The "nostalgia craze" of the late 60s and early 70s didn't cater to us completists.) DC Comics even got into the Tracy game for one brief shining moment: a large-sized "Collector's Edition" reprinting of, again, the most famous Tracy story, featuring Flattop. It took a small, ambitious company in San Diego to step up to the plate and at least TRY to tell the full Tracy story. Blackthorne published 99 issues of Dick Tracy Monthly (also known as Dick Tracy Weekly), to varying success. Reproduction wasn't great, the strip shifted eras abruptly, and the company almost flooded the market with additional Tracy material. Their best format was the "Reuben Award Winner" series, square-bound albums that today would be called "graphic novels" by some enterprising mainstream bookstores, no doubt. They also published "The Early Years," "The Unprinted Stories," and even dabbled in 3D. They got all the way up to the mid-60s (and Moon Maid) before crumbling just one issue short of their 100th. Gladstone picked up the revolver and ran with it, with 3 albums and 5 regular comics issue, all, mistakenly, in color. A Canadian company, Dragon Lady Press, reprinted some of Max Allan Collins' stories, too. Tony Raioli has reprinted some of the Feature Books over the years, and has had an ongoing series of mainly 30s oriented reprints. And a newer company, Checker Comics, has an ongoing series of Collins' strips, starting from his first in 1977.
For the most part, all these projects have one thing in common: They do NOT present the strips as they were originally conceived and formatted. Most of them cut them up, panel by panel, and repasted them into comic book format. This was really apparent in the Blackthorne books, when occasional panels were left out. The Harvey books were published at the beginning and height of the Comics Code Authority, so often times characters would be talking about a dead body missing from the panel (in their defense, Harvey also presented, pre-Code, some of the wildest Tracy comics scenes EVER on their covers, including bloody dog bites and the signature Gould bullets whizzing through villains' foreheads...some of these covers were drawn by the likes of Golden Age greats Al Avison and the legendary Joe Simon).
Until now "The Complete Dick Tracy" has eluded us. But the wait is over. Once again, a small, ambitious San Diego-based company has stepped up to the plate. IDW Publishing is releasing the first volume in The Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy in October. If that cover design (below) looks a tad familiar, that's okay...this book is in the same format as Fantagraphics Books' wonderful The Complete Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz series (which is about to see Volume 6 being released). IDW's Tracy is the first in a 3-times a year series, featuring almost 2 years of reprints per volume (close to 500 strips), dailies and Sundays, all in glorious black and white (color is an afterthought for Gould and as unneccesary here as in the Peanuts reprints, where it's also not missed). This is very different fare for IDW, best known for such edgy fare as 30 Days of Night, the hip Supermarket, and TV licensed books like 24, CSI, Spike and Angel. But IDW seems to have gotten it right with an accelerated publishing schedule, and a brilliant choice as consulting editor: Max Allan Collins, mystery and comics writer and creator of The Road to Perdition. Collins took over the strip from Gould in 1977 when he retired and wrote it until 1993. The first volume includes an interview between Gould and Collins.
Gould produced Tracy for over 45 years. That means approximately 23 volumes of books, an 8-year project if IDW is able to keep their 3 per year schedule. Here's hoping they can. The comics world is littered with the bones of dead companies who tried before them. Tracy deserves this kind of quality, deluxe presentation (as do Peanuts and Gasoline Alley). It's one of those strips that mirrors its time, decade by decade. Gould was often way ahead of the curve when it came to technology, too. Tracy is not only a rip-roaring great crime series, violent, suspenseful and, at times, even startling, it's also, at times, a touching family drama. Beyond all of that, it's a daily historical document of the state of the nation. Chester Gould is a "Master of American Comics." This series will prove that, once and for all, with a chronological, high-quality reprinting of his work as it was meant to be read, day by day, one complete strip at a time.
When are the greats like Shaky Flatop, pruneface, Mumbles, And My personal favorite Jerome Trohs coming? Please I stave for the 1940 strip which I think was the best times of this great man comic career?
Posted by: Anthony | 01/22/2007 at 02:23 PM
We are truly in a period in which those of us who appreciate classic strips are seeing them done right. Thank you for this piece, which has been the most informative I have read yet as we near the release of the first Dick Tracy volume.
While the Peanuts and Gasoline Alley volumes have been breath taking, as more publishers get on board with these projects, I hope the quality standard remains just as high. If they retain that same quality, we only have to hope that they stick with the program year after year.
Let's not forget that Popeye and the Thimble Theatre gang join the hardcover club in the coming months as well! Where do I put my bet down that we'll see Little Orphan Annie receive this treatment by next autumn?
Posted by: DizzyChad | 09/19/2006 at 10:25 AM
Gary, thanks for this. I got hooked on Blackstone's DICK TRACY WEEKLY waaay back in the 1980s, and I'm looking forward to these new collections.
Posted by: Mike Lynch | 09/18/2006 at 04:51 AM