Dick Tracy Case Files #2: Mimi and Lips Manlis (1936)

In my review of The Complete Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy Volume 3, I wrote a little about the hoodlum Lips Manlis and his girlfriend Mimi. Since their storyline spans both Volume 3 and Volume 4 of The Complete Dick Tracy, I thought it would be appropriate to discuss their storyline in more detail in a stand-alone post. 

For me, Lips Manlis always conjures up an image of Paul Sorvino playing him in the 1990 movie Dick Tracy. Specifically, I think of the scene where he’s noisily slurping down oysters. In the film, Lips is clearly a powerful gangster, who is rubbed out by Big Boy in a turf war. In the comic strip, it’s never made clear what exactly Lips Manlis does, or has done. Manlis first appears as a suspect in the hotel murders storyline, but he’s not the guilty party. When Tracy questions Manlis again two months later, Tracy suddenly gets the notion that Manlis should go straight. 

Mimi, displaying her default attitude of haughty disdain, June 1, 1936.

It's an interesting plot twist, and Tracy raises some fascinating questions about human nature, and how we perceive people. As Tracy says to Pat Patton in the May 16, 1936 strip: “Did it ever occur to you that maybe a gangster wouldn’t be a gangster if he was treated like an ordinary human?” But because we don’t really know much about Lips Manlis, it’s hard to be very invested in his rehabilitation. And Manlis’ desire to go straight happens so quickly, it doesn’t have much drama in it. The guy just tried to blow up Tracy in an elevator, and now Tracy thinks he can go straight? The storyline is an interesting contrast to the later Dick Tracy strips of the 1960’s and 1970’s, where Gould was often critical of the judicial process, and the whole “innocent until proven guilty” thing. 

Tracy gives Manlis a new name, calling him “Bob Honor.” And while Manlis’ rehabilitation might seem like a lame beginning to a new storyline, it does introduce us to his girlfriend, Mimi, who will wreak havoc and chaos in the strip throughout the summer of 1936. Ultimately, Mimi proves to be a more interesting villain than Manlis ever was. 

Lips Manlis, now renamed "Bob Honor," tells Mimi to get lost, June 4, 1936.

When Mimi finds Lips at his new job as a watchman at a warehouse, he pretends he doesn’t know her and sends her packing with this cruel parting shot: “I’ll give you two seconds to haul your fat face down the street—before I call a wagon and turn you over to the dicks.” The needless addition of “fat,” which doesn’t describe Mimi at all, makes it a much harsher insult. And “turn you over to the dicks” sounds even worse today, because that’s not really a slang term you can use anymore. 

Bob slaps Mimi, July 7, 1936. That left hand doesn't look too good.

But Mimi proves the adage, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” as she makes it clear she’ll stop at nothing until she gets Lips back. Mimi and her goons kidnap Lips, and plan to make him an unwilling accomplice in their thievery. However, things don’t go according to plan, and Lips ends up capturing the rest of the gang in the getaway truck. Mimi deliberately crashes her car into the truck, causing mayhem that ends with Lips pulling the gang out of the fiery wreckage and handing them over to the cops. Mimi escapes, but her left hand is crushed. As Volume 3 ends, Mimi learns from an underworld doctor that her hand is infected and will have to be amputated. She blithely says, “Then amputate.” This is not a woman to mess with. 

Volume 4 opens with Mimi’s hand being amputated. 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) 

Immediately after leaving the doctor’s office, Mimi once again proves her status as a tough customer by swimming out to a ship in the harbor. The ship belongs to Toyee, an Asian criminal. Toyee refuses to help Mimi, and his men are about to throw her back in the harbor when Dick Tracy and Pat Patton show up. Toyee and his men get the jump on Dick and Pat, tie them up, and toss them overboard. It’s always interesting to me how criminals in Dick Tracy choose to escalate things. Toyee very quickly goes from “Ugh, there’s no way I’m helping you, Mimi! I don’t want to attract the attention of the police!” To “Let’s needlessly murder these two cops.” There’s some very stylish Gould artwork as Dick and Pat are rescued in a rainstorm at sea.  

Toyee peeks under Mimi's towel, July 19, 1936.

Back on shore, Mimi and Toyee are once again just a step ahead of the cops when Toyee has the crazy idea of having himself sewn up inside of a giant fish to escape the notice of the cops. Ewww. Needless to say, it doesn’t work. 

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 stunning two panels, Mimi stabs Pat, August 13, 1936. These are great examples of Gould's drawing style, and it shows 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 gets away by stabbing Pat Patton, and then she kidnaps Lips again! She’s nothing if not determined. Once Mimi has Lips in her clutches again, she drugs him and marries him. (The justice of the peace just thinks Lips is really drunk.) Surprise, surprise, Mimi’s plan doesn’t work. (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. 

Lips is less than thrilled to learn that he's now married to Mimi, September 1, 1936.

Mimi trying to repeat the past, September 6, 1936. Note that she's still carrying a towel over her hand.

Mimi approaching Lips with a crazed look in her eyes, September 17, 1936. I think she was supposed to be holding a knife, which somehow got erased. Lips' panicked reaction makes a lot more sense if she's holding a weapon.

Lips smacks Mimi on the jaw, September 18, 1936. You can see a mysterious flying knife, lending credence to my theory that Mimi was supposed to be holding it in the previous day's strip. This is the third time that Lips has slapped or hit Mimi.

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. The artwork for September 17^th and 18^th makes it seem like Mimi may have had a knife. In the third panel on the 17^th, her hand is empty, but it’s positioned as though she’s holding a knife. When Lips punches her in the jaw on the first panel of the 18^th, a knife is suddenly seen flying through the air. So, where did the knife come from? Was Mimi about to stab Lips? That would make his action of punching her in the jaw a little more called for. My guess is that the knife Mimi should have been holding in the third panel on the 17^th somehow got erased. 

Mimi's death scene, September 19, 1936.

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, which kills her instantly. 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.