Book Review: The Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Volume 4: 1936-1938, by Chester Gould (2008)

The cover of The Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Volume 4: 1936-1938, published by IDW Publishing in 2008.

The Complete Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy Volume 4 takes the action adventure/police procedural strip from July of 1936 to January of 1938. Volume 3, which could be subtitled “looking for sidekicks,” as Gould tosses out one supporting character after another, is probably slightly stronger than Volume 4, which ends on a high note with “the Blank” storyline, but definitely has some less-than-stellar moments. As Max Allan Collins writes in his introduction to Volume 4, Chester Gould is really marking time here. 

Volume 3 ended with something of a cliffhanger, as the gun moll Mimi was about to have her infected hand amputated. Because the Lips Manlis and Mimi storyline straddles Volumes 3 and 4, I wrote a separate, all-encompassing review of it. Mimi proves to be a much more entertaining character than Lips Manlis ever was. In the early weeks of Volume 4, we thankfully get the final appearance of Memphis Smith, Gould’s attempt at a Stepin Fetchit-type of African American character. Fortunately, Memphis was only in the strip for three months.

In Jay Maeder’s book Dick Tracy: The Official Biography, Maeder writes that Mimi’s amputation originally consisted of “an operating-room sequence so stomach-turning that the syndicate refused to have any part of it and ordered most of a week’s worth of continuity redrawn.” (p.59) Reading the strips that actually ran, Mimi’s amputation really isn’t grisly at all—it’s the thought of having your hand amputated that gives the reader the creeps. After her hand was amputated, Mimi always carried a shawl or towel over her hand, “doubtless by directive of Gould’s syndicate bosses.” (Maeder, p.96) 

Mimi briefly comes on to an oblivious Pat Patton, August 12, 1936. It kind of looks like Mimi is feeling up Pat with her right hand.

In these visually stunning two panels, Mimi stabs Pat, August 13, 1936. These are great examples of Chester Gould's drawing style, and the panels show how far his style had evolved in the almost 5 years since the beginning of the strip. There are no words, because none are needed to convey the brutal action.

Mimi proves she’s not someone to be trifled with, as the first thing she does after having her hand amputated is swim out to a boat in the harbor. The owner of the boat is Toyee, an Asian gangster. Toyee won’t be in the strip for very long, because he has the bright idea of having himself sewn up in a giant fish to escape detection by the police. Ewww. 

Mimi’s sole purpose in life is to hurl herself at Lips Manlis and win him back. (At the end of Volume 3, Lips went straight and took the name Bob Honor.) She kidnaps him not once, but twice. She’s nothing if not determined. Once Mimi has Lips in her clutches again, she drugs him and marries him. Mimi’s plan doesn’t work, as Lips slugs her as soon as he understands what’s happened. Mimi’s desperation is actually kind of sad, as she still holds on to this dream that she can get Lips back. “You’re not through with me, Lips! I won’t let you be!” she says to him. She even wants him to grow his mustache back and comb his hair like he used to. At this point, Mimi is kind of like Jimmy Stewart at the end of Vertigo, where he’s trying to convince Kim Novak to dress up like the dead woman he’s obsessed with. 

Mimi trying to repeat the past, September 6, 1936. Note the towel over her amputated left hand.

Lips goes along with Mimi’s grooming for a while, and then Dick Tracy shows up and Lips makes it clear to Mimi that he’s through with her. When it becomes clear that Lips is going to turn her over to the cops, Mimi pulls a vial out of her garter top and drinks poison. It makes sense that Mimi kills herself, since all her actions revolve around one goal: getting Lips back. But even when she gets him back and convinces him to change his hairstyle back to how it was, it doesn’t work. She’s like Jay Gatsby. Mimi would definitely agree with Gatsby’s famous quote: “Can’t repeat the past? Of course you can.” But it doesn’t work out for either Gatsby or Mimi. As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in his short story “The Sensible Thing,” “There are all kinds of love in the world, but never the same love twice.” Mimi should have read her Fitzgerald. 

Mimi is an awful person, but she’s an interesting character. Her default attitude is one of haughty disdain—she’s constantly calling her henchmen “stupid,” or telling them “Don’t ask so many questions!” “Stop the yelling-you idiot!” If she wasn’t so focused on getting Lips back, it’s easy to imagine Mimi presiding over a crime empire of her own. 4 stars.

The Purple Cross Gang at work. For a super secret gang, they never got along all that well. November 25, 1936.

The next storyline is the Purple Cross Gang. If Chester Gould had written this storyline in the 1940’s or 1950’s, it might have been a classic. The elements of a great storyline are here, but it just doesn’t quite come together. Part of the problem is that the Gang is so elaborate—they have purple Maltese crosses tattooed on their tongues! They wear matching chauffeur uniforms, complete with jodhpurs!—but yet their crimes are pedestrian. They just rob banks. Ho-hum. The crosses tattooed on their tongues is such a vivid detail, but it really makes no sense, since it would be so identifiable, and the whole point of the Purple Cross Gang is how secretive they are. 

A stunning panel from February 26, 1937.

Baldy Stark is an interesting character, as he’s the one member of the gang who wants to go straight. It’s a bit melodramatic, sure, but it’s interesting. At the end of the storyline, we see Dick Tracy—the strip and the character—getting involved in the legal process, which doesn’t happen very often. 4 stars. 

A courtroom "fan," eh? That should have been Tracy's first clue that perfume thief Madeline was a weirdo. March 22, 1937.

Perfume thieves: Definitely a letdown after the elaborate Purple Cross Gang, and a very low-stakes story of three young women stealing expensive perfume and re-selling it. Although it does feature the oddly sexual scene of Tracy tied down to a cot, grabbing Madeline’s hair between his teeth and threatening to yank her scalp off. 3 stars.

Dick Tracy offers some advice to the clueless Johnny Mintworth, May 31, 1937. It seems like everyone in Gould's strip in the late 1930's had a globe in their office.

Johnny Mintworth: Based on my reading of Dick Tracy, Chester Gould hated inherited wealth. (See also Fling from the Purple Cross Gang.) If there’s a wealthy young person in the strip, the chances are extremely high that they’re a ne’er-do-well who is about to fall in with a dangerous crowd. Gould is like F. Scott Fitzgerald in this way—they both saw the very rich as morally lax and corruptible. Johnny Mintworth is an heir to a fortune, but he dawdles around, drives drunk, and falls in with the wrong crowd. He was engaged to one of the girls in the perfume thief ring, so he’s not the best judge of character. Mintworth’s storyline eventually centers around insurance fraud, and it feels even more low stakes than the perfume thieves. Johnny Mintworth is just an annoying character, but like other relatively innocent people in Dick Tracy, he ends up paying for his transgressions with his life. 2 stars. 

The Blank, still creepy after all these years. October 23, 1937.

The Blank: an excellent story, as a deformed ex-con hides his face behind a cheesecloth mask and starts gunning down his old partners. This is hands down the best story in the book, and a harbinger of where Dick Tracy will go in the future, with grotesque villains battling the titular detective. 5 stars. 

Volume 4 of Dick Tracy is a mixed bag. It’s bookended by strong storylines, as Mimi and the Blank are both excellent villains, but there’s a lot of filler that bogs down the middle.