Book Review: The Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Volume 6: 1939-1941 (2008)

 

Cover of The Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Volume 6: 1939-1941, published by IDW Publishing in 2008.

The 6^th volume of The Complete Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy covers the period from July of 1939 to January of 1941. It’s an improvement on the weak volume 5, with hints of even stronger work to come. As usual, Chester Gould’s artwork is fantastic, with every panel full of interesting visual detail and startling images. The stories are somewhat uneven, but the strongest ones rank with some of Gould’s best work.

The main thing you’ll notice in Volume 6 is all the backwards names. This was a trademark of Gould’s for a while, and he really goes overboard with it in Volume 6. Ye Gods, even minor characters have backwards names! Here’s a list of the backwards names in Volume 6:

Edward Nuremoh=home run
John Lavir=rival
Nat Natnus=suntan
Professor Emirc=crime
Jimmy Epod=dope
Rudy Seton=notes
Kress Kroywen=New York
Junky Doolb=blood
Jerome Trohs=short
Roloc Bard=drab color
Toirtap=patriot (Mr. Toirtap is the publisher of a foreign language newspaper)
Johnny Naem=mean
Johnny Lennut=tunnel This character only appeared alive for one day!
Jerry Lesihc=chisel
Even Black Pearl’s real name is Pearl Erad=dare spelled backwards

 

I like how cool some of these names sound, like Nuremoh and Toirtap. Maybe I’ll use those as aliases the next time I need a fake name, or a junk email account. Hopefully edwardnuremoh at gmail isn’t taken yet. I’ll recap the storylines in Volume 6, and I’ll rank them on a scale of 1-5.

 

Tess Trueheart and her fiancee, Edward Nuremoh, July 22, 1939.

Edward Nuremoh/Tess: Tess Trueheart didn’t figure in much of the action in Volume 5, and as Volume 6 begins, it turns out that she has a new boyfriend: former major league baseball player Edward Nuremoh. The Nuremoh family are quite wealthy and live in a Gothic mansion near a clifftop. (Remember, Chester Gould hates inherited wealth!) Edward needs to find a bride that meets with the family’s approval so he can claim his share of the inheritance before Aunt Margot shuffles off her mortal coil. Tess and Edward get married, but, sadly, someone shot poor Aunt Margot in the heart. It’s up to Tess to do some detective work of her own, as Tracy is on the sidelines for this story. When Tess puts the pieces together and figures out that Edward killed Aunt Margot, he chases Tess to the top of a cliff, intent on murdering her as well. As Edward pulls out his gun and fires, his girlfriend Lola jumps out of the bushes and takes the bullet for Tess. (The family never approved of Lola.) Insane with grief as he realizes he has killed the woman he truly loves; Edward picks up Lola’s dead body in his arms and walks over the cliff to his death. It’s a haunting tableau. The Gothic romance element of the story is an interesting change of pace for the strip. 5 stars. (Tess’s marriage to Nuremoh was legally annulled in the October 1, 1939 strip.)

 

Tess Trueheart's not crazy! No way! She's totally sane! Maybe you're the one who's crazy! Tess and John Lavir, September 2, 1939.

John Lavir/Tess: Before the bodies of Edward and Lola have grown cold, Lola’s brother John drives up to the Nuremoh mansion and attempts to kill Tess by forcing her car off the road, as he blames Tess for Lola’s death. Even though Lavir quickly announces his murderous intentions, Tess declines to press charges against him, takes a shine to him, and the two drive off together. Lavir’s real gig is stealing dogs and then training them to be guard dogs for wealthy families. I know, yet another riff on that old con? (That was sarcasm.) Tess is fooled into thinking it’s a legitimate operation and becomes an investor. Once again, she figures out that he’s no good. Very weak plot and character motivations all the way through hamper this storyline from becoming anything more than filler. 2 stars.

 

Nat the Fur King: A very minor storyline, Nat only appears for about a month. His thing is stealing furs from farms and reselling them. Meh. 1 star.

 

In this striking panel, Stooge Viller has spilled alcohol on his daughter's photograph, December 22, 1939.

Stooge Viller: Gould rarely used villains more than once, but he used Viller in several storylines during 1933. At the time, Viller was one of the strongest villains Gould had yet created for his young strip. In Volume 6, Viller is released from prison, and vows revenge on Dick Tracy. He pairs up with Professor Emirc. (Crime spelled backwards!) Emirc is a true grotesque, and he spends his time inventing all sorts of nefarious devices. Emirc is more typical of the types of villains Tracy will encounter during the classic years of the strip, but he was clearly something of an afterthought, as Gould pivots the storyline to focus on Viller’s determination to reconcile with his young daughter. Emirc kicks Viller out of the gang and is never seen again. The storyline about Viller and his daughter is interesting, if perhaps too melodramatic for some tastes. Gould ends up killing off Viller on January 7, 1940, and it seems symbolic that the strip enters a new decade by firmly closing the door on one of its key villains from the first decade. 4 stars.

 

Baby in the suitcase/Kroywen family: After the strong Viller continuity comes this clunker, about a baby Tracy finds abandoned in a suitcase. The baby is connected to the wealthy Kroywen family, and it turns out that the baby’s mother is none other than Toby Townley, last seen in Volume 3. This continuity fits with the melodramatic tone of the previous storylines in Volume 6, but it’s not that interesting. 2 stars.

 

Tracy channels Columbo for a moment, playing dumb with Mr. Mason, April 2, 1940.

Mary X: A beautiful woman wakes up in the back seat of Dick Tracy’s car with amnesia. It turns out she has a beautiful singing voice and gets a gig with bandleader Rudy Seton—a caricature of Benny Goodman. Eventually Mary leads the cops to a body that was dumped in a swamp, and it turns out she’s witnessed a murder. There’s not a strong villain, but it’s an interesting story. 4 stars.

 

Junky Doolb buys the farm, April 24, 1940. Back when you could show bullets going straight through someone's head on the comics page.

Jerome Trohs and Mamma, April 27, 1940.

Jerome Trohs/Mamma: Here’s where things start picking up. Jerome Trohs is a midget, and he enters the strip bringing his Saint Bernard into the police station. He claims he’s a lawyer and wants to see his client in lockup. The cops oblige, and the hoodlum who’s been arrested gets a gun that’s been hidden in the dog’s mouth. But the joke is on the hood, as Trohs slipped him a gun with no bullets in it, and his escape is quickly derailed as he gets shot in the head. Trohs rides away on his dog, cackling manically over his treachery.

 

Trohs’ girlfriend is named Mamma, and she’s everything he’s not: tall and plump. Jerome and Mamma’s story runs nearly three months, and it’s by far the best one in Volume 6. This storyline is like a blast of cold water in the face compared to what’s come before it. It’s like a switch has been turned on in Gould’s brain. In this continuity we see Gould leaning into his sense of humor and the absurd, and his sadistic imagination. He’s really letting it all fly here. There’s much more narrative tension and drive, coupled with two truly memorable villains. Gould is figuring out the things that make his comic strip different from other adventure serials. In contrast to some of the other stories in this book that are over before they’ve begun, Gould spins the story of Jerome and Mamma out longer—he’s not afraid to let his imagination and plotting run wild. He takes Jerome on the run, lets Mamma break out of jail, and just watches what happens. The twists and turns of the narrative would become a trademark of Gould’s most famous stories. While Gould’s improvisational approach to storytelling meant that things might not always be tied up in a neat package, it meant that his stories were full of narrative drive, and the reader had no way of guessing where a storyline might go next.

 

The pursuit of the criminal would become Gould’s obsession, and we see more of that in this story, as we follow Jerome on the run. We also see Gould indulging his whims by focusing more on minor characters in this continuity. He’s able to make them fully realized characters—the rodeo chief who signs Jerome up to do trick riding, the couple who own the cabins that Jerome buys—these are real people, even if they’re not in the strip for very long.

 

While Jerome is being pursued by the law, he’s also being pursued by Mamma, who is incensed that he left her behind when he made his getaway from the cops. It’s just a matter of who will catch up with him first. It turns out to be Mamma, and Gould devises an extremely unpleasant death for Jerome: Mamma scalds him to death in a shower! 5 stars.

 

Yogee Yamma's wife provides a bit of cheesecake for the funnies, July 17, 1940.

Yogee Yamma: A fraudulent mystic who bends people to his will with the aid of a nerve gas. The gas is a creation of “the Professor,” (real name: Roloc Bard) whom Yogee keeps chained up in an abandoned subway tunnel. Yogee comes to a dramatic end, as he neglects to keep the nerve gas refrigerated, so it explodes and burns him to death in his hotel room. 5 stars.

 

Pat Patton and Dick Tracy provide some beefcake while testing Black Pearl's tank/submarine/airplane, October 11, 1940.

Black Pearl: Black Pearl is a female villain, or villainess, if you prefer, who is making a tank that can go underwater and also fly. She’s hoping to sell it to a foreign power. Tracy and Pat Patton are captured by Black Pearl and must test out the machine for her. They’re saved by G-Man Jim Trailer, making his last appearance while Gould drew the strip. It’s an interesting story, with hints of Gould’s sci-fi obsession that would blossom during the 1960’s. Too short of a storyline to really be a classic. 3 stars.

 

Deafy: Okay, so this villain’s nickname is decidedly un-PC. Very low-stakes story of bicycle thieves that sees Junior Tracy at the forefront of the action. Junior hadn’t been very visible in Volume 6, so perhaps Gould felt he owed Junior a storyline? 2 stars.

 

Krome begs for his life, January 16, 1941. Kitty is not amused. That hand looks bad, Krome, it'll probably have to come off.

Krome: This storyline carries over into Volume 7. Krome is a ruthless killer for hire. At the end of Volume 6, Krome’s girlfriend Kitty shoots him in the arm and intends to turn him over to the cops. As she’s phoning the police, Krome savagely kicks her, knocking the gun out of her hands. He ties her to a chair and electrocutes her. Oh, and Krome won’t have his bleeding hand too much longer. This is a great example of Gould’s pursuit tales. 5 stars.

 

Overall, Volume 6 is an improvement over the dullness of Volume 5, and the strip is just getting stronger. There’s more greatness to come in Volume 7, as Tracy will battle Littleface, the Mole, and BB Eyes, among others.