Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Volume 20

The previous volume of Dick Tracy wasn’t my favorite. By the standards set by Chester Gould I felt like it was one of his weaker efforts with Dick Tracy doing some of his worst detective work yet. By contrast this is probably my favorite volume so far. Volume 5 starts where the previous left off with a human smuggling ring. This is an extremely brutal story with men being thrown from a ship to their death to remove evidence. One thing this story reminded me was that if Dick Tracy ever asks you to help him in a case run away as fast as possible. It never goes well. Dick Tracy asks a member of the Chinese community named Tau Ming to assist in spying on the human traffickers and he’s promptly killed. In the next story a woman named Noana is asked to spy on some criminals and ends up getting waterboarded and later forced into planting bombs. Later in the book a jeweler helping Tracy gets bound, gagged and stuffed in a pipe with the intention of killing him by starvation and a woman asked to spy on her ex gets punched in the face and knocked out. In the previous volume he asked a fellow to dress as a criminal’s girlfriend to do some spy work. The disguise worked for half a second before the man was killed. Tracy has even involved Dick Tracy Jr, getting the poor lad a beating.The Noana story was a bit silly. About half way through Dick Tracy has an abrupt mental breakdown and appears to commit suicide. Chester Gould does cheat a bit to convince the reader that Dick Tracy is truly cuckoo and later a mysterious bomb maker named Pete Reppoc shows up. The bomb makers name is a bit too clever and to the best of my knowledge this is the first time Gould uses his reverse name trick; something he would employ often in the future. The next story introduces Gould’s failed attempt at a humorous character, Brighton Spotts. When it comes to gritty detective stories there few who can match Gould but when it comes to comedy Gould is a bit lacking. This is another story with a lot of brutality but I had to laugh at some of Dick Tracy’s detective work. A desperate thief named Jojo Nidle ends up backing into the wet paint of a door frame and Tracy removes the frame to take it back to his lab for analysis. What makes it so funny is that there can be no doubt that the fellow who was in the just painted room was Nidle so all that detective work Tracy did was entirely superfluous. This is not the only time in the book where Dick Tracy’s detective work has been gratuitous and time wasting. I felt bad for the poor guy who had his door frame hacked up so Tracy could learn something he already knew.The next story is thus far my favorite in the series. Dick Tracy tangles with a villain named Karpse who’s using slave labor to create chemical weapons to sell to foreign governments. Dick Tracy ends up getting badly injured and with his plan revealed Karpse decides to lay low and reinvent himself as a legitimate baker and ends up working for Tess Truehearts mom at her bakery. This is where the story gets very interesting as Karpse becomes quite popular as a talented baker and comes of as perhaps a legitimately decent fellow. After getting badly burned in a cooking accident Karpse is put into the same hospital as Dick Tracy but neither knows the others identity. Of the 5 volumes I’ve ready I probably enjoyed this section most of all. The next story where Dick Tracy goes to a health spa and gets entangled in a jewelry heist involving the son of the health spa owner is also a personal favorite.The second to last story features a watershed moment with the introduction of Scardol. Scardol is very reminiscent of future villains with a distinctively appalling appearance. With dark beady eyes, a bizarre squared off chin and grotesquely huge pock marked forehead he looks as hideous outwardly as he is inside. The name Scardol, although not a description of his physical features as later villains would commonly have, is a strange name to go with this strange, ruthless villain. Like just about all Dick Tracy villains he doesn’t survive the end of the story but he is one of the most memorable villains we’ve seen. There is some silliness in this volume but it may well be my favorite thus far and I look forward to starting volume 6.

Well, here we are getting into the 1960s era of Dick Tracy, with another volume of all new (to me) stuff.First up, is the conclusion of the Fresh and "Little Boy Beard" story left incomplete at the end of the previous volume. Fresh's Aunt Soso had rescued them, but actually she hates Fresh for killing her mother, Soso's twin sister! With he chauffeur Tartar Soss, they setup an interesting death trap for the pair so it looks like an accident. But Tracy and company save them and put an end to the Soso and are able to pin an earlier murder on her (from earlier in the storyline)And as I wondered if the Beard Boy was yet another attempt, after Little Pineapple, to YET again create a popular child character, we will actually have to have him around until August. No idea if he every reappeared in the strip, but doubt it.Well, Little Boy Beard will hang around. This leads into the next storyline, where Fresh gets a job with a man running a kennel and dog-training center. He trains seeing-eye dogs and the like. But sadly, some of his employees, led by "Trusty" Hubbub, are instead training dogs and a pair of panthers to rob! There is a big deal were it seems that Little Boy Beard is in danger from the panthers!Next up is a strange case of 2 newly released cons with strange patches on the waists: "Spready" Spensive and "Duke" Keene. Turns out they are keys to a safety deposit box leading to a load of money hidden away by an now dead crime lord, Mr Etah, at his abandoned estate. We also met their lawyer, Mona the Mouthpiece. Interesting how that character gets thru this storyline.That abandoned case leads Tracy to the next storyline, when he meets an old lady and her 2 grandchildren. There is much more to her then meets the eye! A real tearjerker that also leads to solving a 40 year old cold case of a man who escaped the gallows for murdering a police chief.Our next major villain, "Brush", who claims that his face is covered by hair, perhaps due to radiation mutation. From this he gets donations from various people. But he's a fake. This leads to a gripping tale of murder, and escape when the bad guy, now "unmasked" makes off with the money in a huge bag.His stash of loot falls into other's hands, which leads to the final, short, storyline. A cautionary tale that leads to murder and lives destroyed.No cliffhanger this volume. The next volume we will be introduced to the Space Coupe and Moon Maid!!! I know others hate this period, but as a long-time science fiction fan, I recall a little of this period and look forward to reading it.Can't wait!As always, this volume is rounded out by other articles for the intro and background, which delves into the storylines and the characters and where Gould got some of his info. Interesting is the final article on the Dick Tracy cartoon from UPI, which I recall seeing as a kid. I think its available on DVD, hopefully unedited.

Excellent part to my collection

Volume 20 is a mixed bag. Some good stuff, but not like the good old days of Tracy. I found some of it to be pretty dismal. I have collected through volume 22, but not sure If I will continue.After reading 30 years of Tracy, I should know not to get attached to any characters, but I found the "golf ball" incident to be a real disappointment, given the significance of the character involved. The story was well done in many ways, with some great art, but it just struck me as unconvincing and insincere, (even in a comic strip world.)

Classic wild and weird Dick Tracy. Chester Gould had a wonderful and strange imagination. There has been no comic strip like it before or after.

Anyone know why this volume is so expensive? Some of the prices are ridiculous.

Not the most interesting period of this comic, but still very good.

great

fino al sesto volume il formato è più piccolo che in seguito, le striscie per pagina sono 2 anzichè 3 e le pagine domenicali sono ridotte e si leggono a fatica. Rimane comunque un must per gli appassionati della serie

Great book of the continuing adventures of Dick Tracy

Une de mes BD favorites. J'attends avec impatience la suite de cette série très noire. C'est fou ce que j'apprends comme slang avec.