Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Volume 23 Hardcover – January 9, 2018

"I know it might be interesting to try out my new .45 up here on the moon," says Dick Tracey in this collection. This is mild next to other mayhem such as Mr. Bribery and his sister shooting one of the twins in the eye from close range through his glasses. I never could figure out how Mr. Bribery was considered a powerful threat. After many other failures, he failed at cutting his own throat with a sardine tin. On Sunday, October 30, 1966, Gould's striking drawing of an electric chair greeted his readers. Gould's views were contradictory to popular views as he goes on and on about why trees need to be cut down in Chicago to prevent crime. "We all love trees, but we know now that most 'causes' hide treachery." At the same time there is wild satire. When Moon Maid zaps and paralyzes a killer grabbing and about to stab a woman, a news photographer raises his camera and says, "HOLD IT, MISS!" Well, Moon Maid has played the vigilante and killed with her zap. The moon is explored further, Diet Smith proclaiming, "Existence is where you find it! The moon is Earth-man's new world." Police fly around in long buckets controlled by magnetism. Maybe in his way Gould was trying to keep pace with the 1960's. The old-time Tracy fans seemed to hate the space stuff, especially bothered by the constant "He who controls magnetism will control the universe" labels on the strips. I found it imaginative and entertaining. The language of cartoons has always been the language of extremes. It is fun to see Gould let his imagination fly free in the 1960's as he neared the end of his career.

To anyone who is a fan of Dick Tracy, or just a fan of the old "adventure" comic strips, this series is essential! These are well bound, high quality printings, showing the complete run, no skipping a strip to save space.In this volume you have the finish of the Lips Manlis/Bob Honor saga, in which Tracy tries to set a well known crook on the straight and narrow. You have the Purple Cross gang, Johnny Mintworth, and the first of Chester Gould's famous Grotesques, The Blank! This is crime-busting at it's best.Throw in the introduction by Chester Gould's successor in writing the strip, famed mystery writer Max Allen Collins, and you have an enjoyable read, with the only downside that it leaves you impatiently waiting for the next volume to come out!

Gave this book to relative who is a big fan of Dick Tracy. He has the entire collection of this series except for the final volume which he will receive next Christmas. Sorry this series has finally come to its end.

Received as advertised.

Dick Tracy is entering his best period. The plots are better planned than in the past and the characters begin to become more iconic. The only drawback is that the Sunday tables are too small and the script is hardly readable. Fortunately you can follow the plot also skipping the Sunday tables.

This is the fourth volume of the series that plans to reprint the complete run of the Dick Tracy comic strip. This particular volume reprints the strips from July 13, 1936 to January 20, 1938. This is great stuff, with the highlights being Tracy's battles with the Purple Cross Gang and The Blank (Tracy's first "grotesque" villain). If you are interested in old time adventure comic strips, you should read this.

great

First off, I'm going to assume that if you're making it to Vol 23, you're likely a completist, so don't take this review as telling you to stop reading the series.I've always looked forward to reading Tracy's rightfully-maligned 'moon period', due to the rarity of reprints. The whole subtext is utterly ridiculous, as you can imagine, but still fascinating, from a fan perspective.What made me want to write a review for this volume (my first for the series) is just that for the first 2/3s of the book, you're well aware of Gould really not being at the top of his game, anymore. Often, the storyline goes off the rails in to ridiculous tangents that have nothing to do with the story, often under the guise of really outdated (some, in the case of the "Sawdust" strips, I suspect were dated even for 1966) humor. More than once, I found my attention wandering, saying, "Okay, Chet, focus here. Get back to the damn story!".Similarly, Gould beats a few things to death, whether it be the constant preachiness and reminders of the superiority of magnetism (such as the constant fawning over it by Diet Smith and DT, and the ever-present "the nation that controls magnetism will control the universe" banners), or Mr. Bribery saying "no more corpus delicti' for the 800th time, which got old, perhaps, after the 20th time he says it.That said, there was a noticeable shift with the Haf-and-Haf sequence. Overall, it read much more like a classic DT strip, both in tone and form, and was a lot more focused, too.So, of course, get this book. I look forward to seeing how he gets out of the moon period, as well as seeing the cranky, reactionary, right-wing DT of the 70's.

A good story in the long running series of Dick Tracy. I have collected the whole set of books and look forward to the next book.

Dick Tracy è il fumetto che più rappresenta il modo di pensare e di agire dell'America. E' violento, immediato, senza sconti con la criminalità e a volte molto ingenuo. Molto americano appunto: si ama o si odia. Personalmente lo amo così com'è nella sua radicalità.

Best one yet, I loved the space stories growing up in the sixties!