Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Volume 2 (v. 2) [Hardcover]

Chester Gould (Author, Artist), Ashley Wood (Author)

Book Description

Series: Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy | Publication Date: May 8, 2007

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.

Editorial Reviews

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

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: IDW Publishing (May 8, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1600100376
• ISBN-13: 978-1600100376
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 9.7 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #433,154 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fast-paced adventure by an American comics master, May 10, 2007

By 

Anthony L. Isabella - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Volume 2 (v. 2) (Hardcover)

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.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Dick Tracy Volume Two: Pretty Good, April 8, 2010

By 

Dominick Grace (Canada) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Volume 2 (v. 2) (Hardcover)

We're not quite yet to the golden Tracy years--the villains are still for the most part just garden variety crooks, though grotesquerie is beginning to appear (including a nicely disrurbing plot involving mutated rabies). The grimness of the strip is impressive. Gould's cartooning skills are getting strong, but the stories are still a bit unformed. And the book format is not ideal; the Sunday pages are reproduced slightly too small (and in black and white); they should have gone with the size they're using for the Little Orphan Annie reprints. Nevertheless, a good run of one of the seminal comic strips.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dick Tracy rides again., January 20, 2008

By 

Johnny Heering "trivia buff" (Bethel, CT United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Volume 2 (v. 2) (Hardcover)

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.