Book Review: The Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Volume 29: 1976-1977 (2021)

 

The cover of The Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Volume 29: 1976-1977, published by IDW Publishing, 2021.

The Library of American Comics, through IDW Publishing, embarked on their project of reprinting all 46 years of Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy in 2006. The project finally wrapped up with the 29^th volume in the series, released on February 16, 2021. Volume 29 covers the period from March 15, 1976 to December 25, 1977, when Chester Gould’s last Dick Tracy strip appeared. Gould had written and illustrated Dick Tracy for more than 46 years, from October of 1931 to December of 1977.

1976 isn’t the peak year of Dick Tracy, but really, what comic strip peaks in its 45^th year? No one says, “Oh, you like Peanuts? Well, the best place to start is definitely in 1995. That was when Charles Schulz was really hitting his peak.” Volume 29 features Gould’s trademarks of bizarre villains and scientific police work combined with his latter-day enthusiasms for science fiction and contempt for anyone or anything standing in the way of law and order.

By the time of Volume 29, newspaper space for comics had shrunk. Gould’s audience had also shrunk. From 1960 to 1974, the number of newspapers carrying Dick Tracy went from 550 to 375. (Dick Tracy: The Official Biography, by Jay Maeder, p.199) Due to the shrinking size of the comics, by 1976 there was simply less story Gould could get through in a day. The pacing throughout Volume 29 is sometimes just odd, as Gould repeats himself, or the narration tells us about off-stage action that would have been a dramatic scene. These narrative lapses are more evident reading the strips in a book collection, which was obviously not how the strip was meant to be consumed and read.

In Volume 29, Gould seems less interested in the kind of “classic” pursuit stories that were a hallmark of Dick Tracy. Gould was a master of the claustrophobic chase, where the net slowly closes in on the criminal, who becomes increasingly desperate as their options become more and more limited. Many times in the strip, the villains become literally stuck as well, as when Shaky took refuge under a boardwalk, but then found himself trapped as he was frozen in by an ice storm. I don’t know if Chester Gould was claustrophobic, but if he wasn’t, he sure knew what would strike terror in the hearts of many readers, myself included.

Gould’s humor was always something of an acquired taste. There was terrific black humor and sharp irony throughout Dick Tracy, especially evident in Gould’s character designs. But Gould’s attempts in the strip at actual jokes were usually puns and old-fashioned groaners. For years before he came up with the idea for Dick Tracy, Gould wrote humor strips like The Radio Catts and The Girl Friends. There are plenty of jokes in Volume 29, but don’t worry if you can’t tell if someone’s telling a joke or not—the other characters will hugely oversell their reactions, telegraphing to everyone for miles around “This is a joke! This is where you laugh!”

The Gallstones attempt to cheer up Dick Tracy in the hospital, June 27, 1976.

Gould’s least successful attempt at humor in Volume 29 is the singing group the Gallstones. Comprised of two brothers and a sister, the Gallstones specialize in golden oldies like “Silver Threads Among the Gold,” written in 1873. Throughout the summer of 1976, Chester Gould was obsessed with the Gallstones’ album, titled I Want a Girl Just Like the Girl. Gould draws the album cover repeatedly during the Gallstones’ story, as though without the album cover we would forget who they were. Granted, the storyline is about record bootlegging, but still, from June 23, 1976 to September 13, 1976 Gould drew their album cover 39 times on 34 different days during those 3 months! Clearly, Gould was highly amused by the Gallstones, but the general reader will probably be less entertained. The notion that their records are popular enough to be bootlegged seems pretty ridiculous.

A striking image from the June 14, 1976 strip. Pucker Puss lies dead, as Tracy pulls a cab driver from the burning wreckage, and a police officer dumps water on Lizz to extinguish the flames on her clothes.

As always throughout the 46 years that Chester Gould drew Dick Tracy, the artwork in Volume 29 is stunning. By the 1970’s, Gould’s style was heavily reliant on thick black lines, and it was visually simpler than the look of the “classic” Dick Tracy strips from the 1940’s and 1950’s. There are still striking visual tableaus throughout the final year and a half of Gould’s drawing, especially in his masterful and expressionistic handling of shadows.

I’ll recap the stories in Volume 29, and rank each story on a scale of 1-5. (5 being the best.)

Pucker Puss: Introduced in Volume 28, the aptly named Pucker Puss shoots people through a customized set of dentures, using his mouth as a gun. Ewww. Also, probably not actually physically possible, but hey, it’s a comic strip. Pucker Puss has an interesting character design, but he’s not a very interesting character himself.

Chester Gould wasn't shy about showing off Lizz's figure, May 3, 1976.

Lizz the policewoman does the majority of the work in the Pucker Puss storyline. If you’re a fan of Lizz, you’ll most likely appreciate the fact that she wears a bikini for most of this story. There’s even one panel where we see Lizz from behind wearing a thong bikini. Introduced to the strip in 1955, Lizz quickly established herself as a strong woman who could kick butt and look beautiful while doing so. As the fashions of the 1960’s changed and miniskirts became popular, Gould never wasted an opportunity to show off Lizz’s figure. Reading these strips now, it’s clear that Lizz is Dick Tracy’s “work spouse,” and although their relationship is always strictly professional, Lizz gives Tracy a kiss on the cheek after she shaves his mustache off. 3 stars.

Dick Tracy editorializes, July 20, 1976. So much empathy! (Tracy's grizzled appearance is due to the burns he suffered pulling the cab driver out of the burning car in June.)

The Gallstones: As mentioned above, this is a dull storyline, plus the Gallstones are just not as funny as Gould obviously thinks they are. It turns out their manager, Bolo, runs a bootleg record processing plant on the side. 1 star.

Perfume Plenty and Dick Tracy get nose to nose, December 2, 1976.

Perfume Plenty/perfume thieves: Yet another relative of B.O. Plenty and his wife Gravel Gertie. (Although Perfume is Gertie’s cousin, so her last name shouldn’t be Plenty. Oh well.) Perfume is a beautiful young woman who has unfortunately met the wrong types of people. As in, the types of people who would send B.O. and Gertie on a vacation and then use their house to establish a bootleg perfume operation. Oddly, the two perfume thieves remain nameless throughout the story. Perfume is a successful character design, and she will play a large role in the final year of Gould’s strip. 2 stars.

If Gould needed to fill some time in the 1970's, having Dick Tracy editorialize became his go-to solution. I think this is a great quote, from December 9, 1976.

Speaking of filling time, perhaps the oddest detour in Volume 29 is the mini-story in which Sam Catchem is wounded and doctors have to reconstruct his nose. As Sam so rightly says, his "new" nose looks just the same as his old nose. I'm not sure what the point of this story was. December 20, 1976.

Perfume Plenty/DaMill/Tanya: This is barely even a storyline, as we follow Perfume as she gets discovered by a TV commercial director, DaMill. (Cue laughter.) DaMill is shot and wounded by Tanya, a model who used to work for him, and resents Perfume taking her place. There’s no real villain as such, and this continuity feels like just filler. 2 stars.

Zero Nought/Leyden Aigg: An improvement over the last few stories, this is a slightly more conventional story. (Although in a world as bizarre as Dick Tracy, is there ever a truly conventional storyline?) Zero Nought is seeking revenge on everyone who sent him to prison 20 years ago, and of course one of those people is Dick Tracy. Nought isn’t a truly great villain, but he’s at least moderately interesting. A more humorous character design is Nought’s unwitting accomplice, the perfectly named Leyden Aigg, a bald, bespectacled amateur photographer whose head looks like, well, an egg. Leyden is quite funny—he’s of indeterminate age, but he still lives at home, and he’s clearly a Mama’s boy.

Chief Pat Patton waxes nostalgic about Pawnee. Pawnee, Oklahoma was Chester Gould's hometown. From the April 27, 1977 strip about the runaway air car.

There are several lasts in this storyline, as we get the very last of Chester Gould’s backwards named characters—Nought’s accomplice Dale Elad. Zero Nought’s biggest claim to fame is that he’s the very last villain to be shot and killed by Dick Tracy during the Gould years. This storyline also sees the final appearance of the air car, the last hint of Dick Tracy’s “Moon Period” of the 1960’s.

Zero Nought decided to handcuff himself to Leyden Aigg and Mrs. Aigg. An odd choice, but quite humorous. I'm not sure how they changed positions between days. May 27-28, 1977.

Zero Nought becomes the very last criminal to be shot and killed by Dick Tracy during the Chester Gould years, June 17, 1977. I wonder what Tracy's body count was over the span of 46 years?

Gould’s humor is on better display in this storyline. As things start tightening for Nought, he has the odd idea of going to the Aigg’s house and handcuffing himself to Leyden and his mother. I’m not sure what Nought’s end game plan is, but it leads to some oddly humorous moments as the three handcuffed characters eat meals together. (Note sure how they used the bathroom, though.) Leyden gets the idea to attempt an escape by buttering his wrist to slide it through the handcuff, which leads to one of Gould’s hilarious explanatory captions: “still buttering his wrist.” 3 stars.

Dade Plenty/the Governor: Gould’s last continuity of Dick Tracy begins with the introduction of Dade Plenty, who is yet another Plenty relative. Dade is nabbed by the police in a sting targeting subway purse thieves. It turns out Dade has studied dress designing, and Tracy arranges for Dade to have a drafting table and fabric available to him in his prison cell. (A nice gesture for a detective who loudly complains about the rights of the accused.)

The Governor, arguing with a Senator, August 14, 1977.

The story is an interesting one, centering as it does on the subject of possible criminal rehabilitation. The Governor of the state becomes a major character in the story, as his wife picks one of Dade’s dress designs to wear to a ball. When a photo of the Governor’s wife kissing Dade on the cheek hits the newspapers, the Governor becomes enraged that the political fallout is hurting his chances at re-election and his campaign to focus on rehabilitation for criminals. On August 10^th, we see the Governor making a speech, saying, “And I say to you, unless we rehabilitate these people, our penal system is DOOMED!” A few days later, on August 14^th, the Governor is arguing with a Senator, asking “Is rehabilitation a dishonorable word to you Senator?”

These are interesting sentiments for Gould to examine, since he was clearly on the side of the police and of “law and order.” Gould’s attacks on any kind of criminal protection greatly increased during the 1960’s and 1970’s. Suffice it to say, you weren’t going to learn the Miranda warning from reading Dick Tracy. However, throughout the long history of the strip, Gould did occasionally portray criminals who had been successfully rehabilitated. One of the final images of his last story is Dade Plenty with tears in his eyes at the Governor’s funeral, kissing the Governor’s face and saying to himself, “The only friend I ever had. He believed in me.” (December 12, 1977)

A striking use of shadows on Lizz and Dick Tracy, November 20, 1977.

There’s a lot going on in this story, and at times it feels rushed, perhaps as Gould knew he was working on his final deadlines. Dade and the Governor are complex, multifaceted characters, and the story affords the opportunity for real depth. The storyline could easily be expanded into some other medium. (If Warren Beatty is reading this, call me and let me pitch you my idea for a Dick Tracy mini-series, with each season focusing on a different period of the comic strip.)

The Governor and Perfume Plenty, stranded atop the Ferris wheel, December 1-2, 1977. Gould was always great at drawing snowstorms.

A striking panel of the Governor and Perfume Plenty, December 4, 1977.

Because Gould is obsessed with Perfume Plenty, she ends up coming into the storyline after the Governor’s wife is murdered. The Governor and Perfume are carjacked by hoods who want the Governor to pardon one of the friends. When the Governor refuses, the hoods leave him and Perfume stuck at the top of a Ferris wheel in the middle of a freezing snowstorm. Like so much in Dick Tracy, the Ferris wheel sequence is an example of a truly odd scene that is quite terrifying. Gould’s artwork was always outstanding when using the elements of nature, and here he is, using a snowstorm, one last time. The sequence is a final testament to Chester Gould’s superb imagination. 4 stars. (Oddly enough, in a book I had as a kid, Dick Tracy: America's Most Famous Detective, the Dade Plenty/Governor storyline was reprinted, but it was only the Sunday strips, which left some gaps in the story. It's nice to have them filled now, so many years later.)

After the Governor’s death, Gould had a couple of weeks left to run out the string. He fills them with an odd mini continuity highlighting Perfume Plenty. It’s odd and a little sad to have Dick Tracy himself so absent for the last weeks of Gould’s run. On December 24, 1977, Dick and Tess look back at the very first Dick Tracy daily strip, from October 12, 1931, and thus the Chester Gould years come full circle. Except there was one more day of the strip to run. The December 25, 1977 strip shows us Perfume Plenty’s latest TV commercial. And on that unlikely note, Chester Gould headed toward the exit, after 16,878 Dick Tracy strips. Gould’s name continued to appear on the strip until 1982 as an emeritus contributor, but that was merely a sign of respect and homage rather than an indication of the role he played.

My towering stack of all 29 volumes of The Complete Dick Tracy. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

Dick Tracy continued on, with Gould’s longtime assistant Rick Fletcher handling the artwork, and mystery writer Max Allan Collins taking over the story. Collins was only 29 years old when he was tapped by the syndicate to continue Dick Tracy. A huge fan of the strip, Collins knew Gould, but it doesn’t seem as though Gould had any say in Collins’ selection. And now Dick Tracy continues, just months away from it’s 90^th anniversary in October 2021. Dick Tracy has now been written and illustrated by people other than Chester Gould for more than 43 years, a fact that would no doubt fill Gould with pride.