Chester Gould was one of the all-time masters of the American comic strip. This superb collection of his early Dick Tracy work from IDW Publishing provides a powerful demonstration of why. Gould isn't yet in his 1940-1956 prime but, with these full-bore, hard- fisted, rocket-swift continuities from the heart of the Great Depression, he is unmistakably hitting his stride. And what a stride! The characters are colorful, the action is brutal, the perils are imaginative, and the pace is terrific. The storytelling oscillates wildly from unrestrained tear-jerking to hard-boiled crime to proto-police procedural to shameless Victorian melodrama. The drawing is rough and unsubtle but also direct and forceful. Gould blends it into a potent cocktail that enthralls and compels even as the jaw drops at wild coincidences and outlandish plot turns. The unhesitating force, total conviction, and unstoppable narrative drive of a great natural storyteller make the result work like magic.

The characterization is basic and uncomplicated but also firm, consistent, and elemental. The set of Dick Tracy's granite jaw tells the reader everything there is to know about him, that he is a relentless pursuer of his enemies and unshakeably loyal to his friends and loved ones. It is the glory of Gould's imagination that he was able to work endless variations on this basic template. His work with Tracy's great supporting cast of partner Pat Patton, girlfriend Tess Trueheart, and adopted son Junior is equally effective. A more quirky sensibility is in evidence in such eccentric supporting characters as the phlegmatic J. Scotland Bumpstead and the mercurial Jean Penfield. At first glance, the villains in these early continuities may not seem as colorful or as compelling as the likes of such classics as Flattop, the Brow, and Pruneface. However, on closer acquaintance, they prove more than nasty, ruthless, and determined enough to hold the reader's interest and then some. The strength of such crooks as Big Boy, Larceny Lou, and Steve the Tramp is apparent in the ability of their villainy to sustain multiple continuities. Gould's tendency to draw his characters from real life counterparts has been dealt with in more detail elsewhere. I will content myself with pointing out that the crooked lawyer, J. Peter Twillbrain, seems to be a thinly disguised one-sided swipe at the great criminal lawyer Clarence Darrow. Physically, Twillbrain is a dead ringer down to Darrow's mop of grey hair and slovenly appearance. His closing argument at the end of the previous Dick Tracy volume is also a good representation of how right-wing law and order types like Gould saw him.

This volume also contains continuities which, I suspect, influenced Dick Tracy (1937), the first Dick Tracy serial from Republic. In the serial, Tracy is a G-Man. In the Boris Arson continuity, he works with a thinly disguised version of the F.B.I. for which he functions as an unofficial operative. Also an obvious influence is the hunchbacked mad scientist Doc Hump who seems to be the prototype for the serial's equally sinister hunchbacked mad scientist, Moloch. In the movie serial, Moloch was played very effectively by John Piccori, an actor who closely resembled Gould's drawings of Doc Hump.

A much appreciated bonus in this second volume of Tracy's adventures is a revealing interview with a flinty Chester Gould. Also an introduction by former Dick Tracy writer Max Allan Collins. This introduction is illuminating even by his high standards. His demonstration of the influence of Charles Dickens on Gould's writing provides an original fruitful perspective on the wellspring of the great cartoonist's inspiration.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys full-blooded mystery and two-fisted action as one of the undisputed high points of the American adventure strip.