Book Review: The Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Volume 1: 1931-1933 by Chester Gould (2006)

Cover of The Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Volume 1: 1931-1933. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

Chester Gould wrote and illustrated the comic strip Dick Tracy for 46 years, from 1931 to 1977. Gould created a detective strip that became a sensation, spawning movies, radio shows, and all kinds of tie-in merchandising. In the years before he created Dick Tracy, Gould had written several gag-a-day comic strips like The Radio Catts and The Girl Friends. None of these strips had become a hit with the public. But Gould was a hard worker, and a persistent man. Gould bombarded Joseph Medill Patterson, the founder and owner of the New York Daily News, with ideas for strips all the time. Gould rarely received a reply, but he didn’t let that dissuade him. In August of 1931 Gould sent off 5 strips titled Plainclothes Tracy. It was unlike anything Gould had drawn before. The strips featured a hoodlum being tortured with a blowtorch applied to his feet, highlighted Tracy’s sharp skills of observation, and ended with the threat of an imminent shoot-out. Patterson cabled back to Gould: “Your Plainclothes Tracy has possibilities.” It was Patterson himself who changed the title of the strip to, simply, Dick Tracy. 

The first appearance of Dick Tracy, in the first of the five Plainclothes Tracy strips that Chester Gould submitted in August of 1931. In these strips Tracy doesn't yet have a first name, and he wears a straw boater hat instead of his famous fedora.

The Complete Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy, an ambitious project undertaken by IDW Publishing and the Library of American Comics, began with the publication of the first volume in 2006. The project is still not complete—the next book will be Volume 27, due to be published in January of 2020. Volume 1 of The Complete Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy includes all the strips from October 1931 to May of 1933. 

Gould’s vision for Dick Tracy was unlike anything else that had come along in newspaper comics. Gould created a mixture of scientific detective work, grotesque criminals, and hard-hitting violence, mixed with the occasional serving of humor.  In doing so, Gould essentially invented the modern police procedural. But all that would take time to perfect, and in Volume 1 we see Gould figuring things out as he goes along. If you’re expecting over the top villains with bizarre deformities, you’ll be disappointed. 

Dick Tracy began with two Sunday strips on October 4^th and October 11^th, 1931. The Sunday strips were originally stand-alone stories unconnected to the action of the daily strip. Indeed, on the second and third Sunday strips, Tracy captures the crime boss Big Boy two weeks in a row, while in the daily strip Big Boy remained at large until May of 1932. That same month, the Sunday strips finally connected to the Monday through Saturday continuity of the strip. The daily strip Dick Tracy started on Monday, October 12, 1931, and the initial storyline examined Tracy’s first case as a plainclothes police officer. 

Dick Tracy announces his engagement to Tess, October 15, 1931.

Dick Tracy became a detective by accident. One night, Tracy is having dinner with his girlfriend, Tess Trueheart, and her parents. Shortly after Tracy and Tess announce their engagement, hoodlums break into the Truehearts’ apartment, shoot Tess’s father, steal the $1,000 he has saved, knock out Tracy, and kidnap Tess. When Tracy regains consciousness, he pledges to bring the guilty parties to justice. Police Chief Brandon is impressed by Tracy and almost immediately offers him a job as a plainclothes officer. Tracy accepts. 

Tracy joins the force, October 22, 1931.

What probably strikes modern readers as odd is that there’s no explanation of who Dick Tracy is, where he came from, or anything about his background. In fact, throughout the strip there’s precious little background information about Dick Tracy, the man. But maybe we don’t need an explanation of how Dick Tracy came to be who he is. Dick Tracy simply is honest and tough and fearless and smart. In a 1980 interview with Chester Gould printed in Volume 1 and 2 of The Complete Dick Tracy, Max Allan Collins asks Gould what Tracy did before he became a cop. Gould replies, “I never gave that one bit of thought.” When Collins presses again, Gould says, “He was just a nice young guy.” And there you go. 

By the end of November 1931, certain trademarks of Dick Tracy are already there—Tracy’s ever-present fedora and trench coat have made their first appearances, and we get a gun battle in the street that fells the hood who killed Emil Trueheart. The violence of Dick Tracy was truly shocking for the time, and even today it’s still incredibly violent for a newspaper comic strip. 

Dick Tracy, in a rare moment of reflection as a beat cop, January 25, 1932. This isn't a classic snowstorm yet, but Chester Gould's snowstorms are great examples of his artistic skill.

Dick Tracy goes through some growing pains professionally. After a raid goes wrong in early 1932, Tracy is busted down to a beat cop. When he’s a beat cop, Tracy is uncharacteristically morose and full of self-pity. Fortunately, he quickly snaps out of it and gets promoted back to a plainclothes officer. 

The action in this first volume moves too fast at times. An example would be when Tracy is trying to find the kidnapped child Buddy Waldorf, crime boss Big Boy throws Tracy overboard from an ocean liner. Tracy gets thrown overboard, picked up by a Norwegian tramp freighter, transferred to a British aircraft carrier, and flown back to the ship, all in 6 days! It happens so quickly that there’s no real suspense to it. Had this sequence happened say, ten years later, Gould would have stretched it out and ratcheted up the drama.

The Dick Tracy of the early 1930’s was a talky strip. Gould eventually streamlined his dialogue and narration, but in these early strips he’s very loquacious, as many comic strips of that time were. The very first Dick Tracy daily has 100 words of dialogue and narration in it! That would be enough for a week’s worth of strips in 2019!

There are moments in this first volume of Dick Tracy that are very dated. For example, when Tracy rescues Buddy Waldorf and captures Big Boy, Tracy challenges Big Boy to a fistfight, no weapons, and promptly beats Big Boy to a pulp. I’m not endorsing the excessive force used by a comic strip cop 87 years ago, but I think Chester Gould intended Tracy’s pummeling of Big Boy to be a stand-in for the readers’ desire for the punishment of criminals like Al Capone, whom Big Boy was clearly modeled after, and the kidnapper of the Lindbergh baby, the crime that inspired Gould’s Buddy Waldorf storyline. 

Tracy's sidekick Pat Patton shooting a hood on June 30, 1932 is an example of the sometimes awkward artwork of the strip's early days. I know the guy's getting shot, but there's something about this panel that just makes me laugh.

Gould is still figuring out how to best tell a story in this volume. There are numerous clunky times when Gould makes strip time real time: i.e., someone will say “I haven’t seen Pat for 3 days.” Eventually this rightly falls by the wayside, as Gould makes it clear that the action of the strip is continuous. 

Dick Tracy was influenced by Sherlock Holmes, and several times in Volume 1 Tracy disguises himself, something that rarely happens after 1933. Like Holmes, Tracy is a sharp observer of human behavior and many times finds clues that others overlook. 

There are odd little continuity errors here and there, such as Gould not being able to decide if Dan Mucelli’s last name is Mucelli or Muzel. In the same speech bubble, Tracy uses both last names. Oops.

Mucelli or Muzel? Even Dick Tracy doesn't seem to know the crook's last name on November 27, 1932.

For me, Dick Tracy turns a corner for the better in September of 1932 when Gould introduces the character of Junior, a 9-year-old boy who has no parents and has been riding the rails with Steve the Tramp. Junior is eventually taken in by Dick Tracy himself, and the boy becomes key to the rest of the stories in this volume. 

Junior's first meeting with Tess Trueheart doesn't go so well, September 26, 1932. If you're annoyed by incorrect speech, Junior's litany of "dese" "dem" "dat" and "dose" will drive you nuts.

Personally, I think Steve the Tramp is the most terrifying villain that Gould had created so far in the strip. Sure, I wouldn’t want to meet any of the other villains in a dark alley, but Big Boy? Stereotypical Mob boss. Broadway Bates? He looks like the Penguin from Batman. Dan Mucelli? Meh, just a typical drug pusher, with a strange nose. Steve the Tramp, on the other hand, is a ruthless figure out of a nightmare—he strangles a postal worker just to get his hands on a postcard. Steve threatens severe bodily harm to Junior on an almost daily basis. He’s really, truly awful. I suspect Chester Gould’s response to my feelings about Steve the Tramp would be: “Good, he’s supposed to be terrifying and disturbing!” 

Steve the Tramp and Stooge Viller are the most interesting villains Gould had yet created, and in Volume 2 they will join forces and take up much of the strip’s storyline in 1933. Viller makes his first appearance in January of 1933, and he’s the opposite of Steve the Tramp, a well-dressed city slicker whose stock in trade is being an expert pickpocket. Viller, who resembles the actor Edward G. Robinson, was responsible for getting Tracy kicked off the police force by planting counterfeit money in his pockets. And to add insult to injury, Viller hangs around town and romances Tess Trueheart, who has broken her engagement to Tracy in the wake of his dismissal from the force. What a jerk! 

 

Stooge Viller romances Tess Trueheart, February 6, 1933. Just six days later, he'll shoot her. Tess's first warning that he was no good should have been his name. Stooge, really?

By the end of Volume 1, the strip has gone through some growing pains and is starting to emerge into the strip that readers of the classic Dick Tracy period will recognize. Gould’s artwork has also improved, and his visual style is becoming more distinctive. Gould could work wonders with shadows, and we see more of that as Volume 1 ends. Particularly effective is the strip from January 27, 1933, as we observe a 3AM phone call from Tracy to Tess, as he professes his innocence about the counterfeit money, and she hangs up on him. All four panels occur in darkness, with only shadows and cross-hatching, and it’s tremendously effective. 

The science of crime-fighting always played a large role in Dick Tracy, and we see examples of this throughout Volume 1. In November 1932, a nurse asks Tracy “But what’s ballistics?” This was a question that probably many real-life police officers would have also asked at the time, as the science of matching markings on bullets to specific guns was in its infancy. Throughout his career, Gould worked hard to keep Tracy ahead of the curve in any scientific advancements that would aid his crime-fighting. 

During my earlier boyhood Tracy-mania, I read all the strips in Volume 1, as they were collected in the 1978 anthology Dick Tracy the Thirties: Tommy Guns and Hard Times. At the time, in the early 1990’s, I had hoped that book would be the beginning of reprinting all the Dick Tracy strips, but Tommy Guns and Hard Times was just a one-off, as no books ever continued the story. Reading Dick Tracy as an adult, different things strike you. Like the wordless final two panels of the May 28, 1932 strip, as Buddy Waldorf’s mother is reunited with her son. It’s only two panels, but it’s so moving. Gould knew he didn’t need any narration to trigger emotion from his readers. 

The Complete Dick Tracy Volume 1 is an interesting look at the beginning of an iconic American comic strip, and I would recommend it to any fan of Dick Tracy.

2020 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot

"Now batting, number 2, the shortstop, Derek Jeter." (Said in the oldest, plummiest WASP accent this side of George Plimpton.)

The underrated Bobby Abreu.

Raul Ibanez: Just turtle-y enough for the Turtle Club.

Yesterday the 2020 Hall of Fame ballot was announced. The biggest name appearing on the ballot for the first time is Derek Jeter. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say I think there’s a strong possibility that Derek Jeter could get elected. (That’s a joke.) Obviously, Jeter will sail into the Hall. The only question to ponder is what will his percentage be? I’m going to predict that Jeter will get 95% of the vote. I think it’s unlikely that he’d be a unanimous choice, but then I was surprised last year when Mariano Rivera was named on all the ballots, becoming the very first unanimous Hall of Famer. 

Let’s look at the returning candidates, before taking a look at some of those players on the ballot for the first time.

Curt Schilling: Last year, Schilling reached a high of being named on 60.9% of the ballots. And that was with a very stacked ballot. I’m going to predict that this year Schilling will make the jump and be elected. As a player, Schilling absolutely deserves to be in. As a person, meh, not so much.

Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens: I’m going to discuss Bonds and Clemens together, since their arguments are essentially the same. If you want Bonds and Clemens in, your argument is simply that they were among the greatest players ever, and since they never failed a steroid test, well, we just don’t know if they were juicing or not. (Or you don’t care if they were juicing or not.) There is a valid argument there, as no one can argue that Bonds and Clemens weren’t two of the best players ever. The question is: how much of that greatness was aided by chemicals? 

Bonds and Clemens’ vote totals have moved together in lockstep fashion, making it clear that if you support one, you support the other. This is their 8^th year on the ballot, and it will be fascinating to see what happens. I’m not going to offer a prediction, since I have no idea. They were both at 59% last year, and they need to make a substantial jump, to say, 67%, to be in a position to one day get elected by the writers. 

What people have overlooked about Bonds and Clemens’ rising vote totals is the number of voters they’re actually gaining. Clemens gained 11 votes in 2019, and Bonds gained 13 votes. If they keep growing by those numbers, they’re not going to make it, assuming the number of BBWAA voters holds steady at around 420-430. 

Larry Walker is in his last year on the ballot. He made a huge leap forward in 2019, gaining 20% of the vote to end up at 54.6%. He’ll need another 20% jump to gain entry in 2020. It’s possible, as this year’s ballot is weaker than last year, and nearly every player gains votes in their last year on the ballot. (Except for Jack Morris, who then had to wait for the Veterans’ Committee to elect him.) 

Omar Vizquel had a nice showing last year, his second on the ballot, at 42.8%, and I predict he’ll move closer to 50% this year, making it likely we’ll see him in the Hall in a few years.

Manny Ramirez will continue to tread water in the Dave Parker/Dale Murphy territory of 20-30%. 

Jeff Kent is in the same category as Ramirez, holding steadily above 5% to remain on the ballot, but not making meaningful progress towards 75%. Kent is an excellent candidate, and it’s interesting that he hasn’t gained more support. 

I don’t have strong feelings about Scott Rolen, Billy Wagner, Todd Helton, and Gary Sheffield. They all deserve to stay on the ballot as we continue to scrutinize their careers. Maybe one of them will break through and have a significant gain. 

Andy Pettitte, Sammy Sosa, and Andruw Jones will all be hoping to stay above 5% and remain on the ballot. Will Jeter’s appearance lead to more people voting for Pettitte? Possibly, and the fact that there are no strong first-year pitchers on this ballot could lead to an uptick for Pettitte. 

New candidates for 2020:

Okay, so there’s that Jeter guy, who I think will do okay. Besides Jeter, who else debuts this year? The strongest candidates are Bobby Abreu, Jason Giambi, and I’d say Paul Konerko, even though WAR doesn’t agree with me. 

Bobby Abreu: He’s a fascinating candidate for the Hall of Fame. Abreu has a more compelling case for the Hall than you probably remember. Abreu finished his career with 60 WAR, and JAWS ranks him as the 20^th best right fielder. That’s below the Hall of Fame standard for right fielders, but that’s also skewed a little bit by how great the top three right fielders were: Babe Ruth, with 162.1 WAR, Hank Aaron, at 143, and Stan Musial at 128.2. Nobody is going to match up to those guys. Abreu’s JAWS score of 50.8 puts him just below Dave Winfield and Ichiro Suzuki, but it also puts Abreu above Hall of Famers Vladimir Guerrero, Enos Slaughter, and Sam Rice, among others. 

Abreu was good at a lot of things: he hit for power, he scored lots of runs, he had a lot of RBIs, he walked a lot, he was a great base stealer. But there isn’t one stat that jumps out and screams, “Hall of Famer.” Abreu is one of just six players with more than 250 home runs and more than 400 stolen bases. The others? Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonds, Rickey Henderson, Craig Biggio, and Joe Morgan. That’s a very impressive group to be a part of. I hope that Abreu does well enough on the ballot to show that he’s a serious candidate.

Jason Giambi: Giambi had an excellent career, leading the league in OBP three times, and winning the AL MVP in 2000. Unfortunately, he also took steroids. Giambi might get more than 5% of the vote, but seeing how other steroid users, and suspected steroid users, have fared on the ballot, Giambi probably won’t emerge as a serious Hall of Fame candidate. Man, Giambi just hung around forever as a pinch-hitter. Those last five years of his career didn’t really add much value, but they did allow Giambi to surpass 2,000 hits. 

Paul Konerko: On paper, Konerko looks like a possible Hall of Famer. He finished his career with 2,340 hits, 439 home runs, and 1,412 RBIs. But WAR tells us that he simply wasn’t an elite player, finishing with 27.7 WAR, putting Konerko right around players like Garry Templeton, Roy Smalley, Hal McRae, Terry Steinbach, Clete Boyer, and Lloyd Moseby. 

WAR is curious. How is it possible that Paul Konerko was as valuable as Lloyd Moseby? Paul Konerko hit 270 more home runs than Lloyd Moseby. He crushes Moseby in the slash line stats: .279/.354/.486 to .257/.332/.414. Huh.

Konerko will always strike fear in my heart because I was almost hit by a home run he hit at the Metrodome. My Dad and I were sitting out in the left field bleachers. I didn’t have a glove with me, and I could tell the ball was coming right towards me. I got out of the way. The ball clanked off of the seat I had been sitting in, and bounced several rows away. I didn’t even get the ball. I don’t know the exit velocity of that home run, but I can tell you, it was hit hard, and I did not want it to hit me in the chest. 

Konerko is probably too similar to a lot of other first basemen, both in and out of the Hall of Fame, to be a strong candidate. It’ll be interesting to see how he does on the ballot. I think he deserves to get 5% of the vote, but he might fall short of that. 

Cliff Lee: He had a nice career, but due to injuries, he was done at age 35. He’s not a Hall of Famer, but he had some good runs in the postseason: 7-3 with a 2.52 ERA. 

There are some other notable names on the ballot, like Brian Roberts, who looked for a while like he might be the new doubles leader. (Not really, since the leader is Tris Speaker, with 792.) Still, Roberts had three seasons of 50 or more doubles. There’s Alfonso Soriano, who smacked 412 home runs. (I saw Soriano’s last major league game at Target Field on July 5, 2014.) There’s Adam Dunn, who crushed 462 home runs and saw his career fade out in a burst of Chris Davis-like futility, as he hit .159 in 2011. I was always secretly hoping that Dunn would play a couple more years and break the all-time strikeout record. Dunn was only 218 strikeouts shy of Reggie Jackson’s record, so he really only had to play one more year. There’s Raul Ibanez, who had a solid career, despite not becoming an everyday player until he was 30. Although he’s not a Hall of Famer, Raul Ibanez was just turtle-y enough for the Turtle Club. 

To sum up, my bold prediction is that Derek Jeter and Curt Schilling will be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2020.