Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Volume 15

Here we have the latest Dick Tracy volume. This one covers the years 1953-54. This one was all new to me, as I had never heard of the characters in this volume. So, another volume with virgin stories.This volume gives us several great stories:First up, is the conclusion to the Little Wingy storyline from the last volume. As noted, Little Wingy is the daughter of would-be crime-lord Odds Zonn. She had been adopted by the Plentys and found to be contaminated with radioactive paint. Tracy and others work to save her life, finally bringing in a Doctor von Nucleus, the creator of the radioactive paint. Can he save her? And what about Odds Zonn? Well, he does get his just deserts in Tracy fashion.Then we get a very LONG story-line (7 months), the center of which is a new Plenty relative: Kinkaid "Canhead" Plenty, one of B.O.'s 7 brothers. He is actually a successful and rich oil man, tho he has had a string of wives (5 so far). He tries to help the Plentys by offering to build them a bathroom on their home (remember, their home is really the sales office for a failed subdivision, so it never had a bathroom in it). But the main villains of the story enter: 3-D Magee and his girlfriend (and soon wife) Pony. Pony is actually Canhead's last wife, who has been blackmailing him for years, claiming that a sealed off dry-well holds the body of someone that Canhead has murdered!! They threaten him to get $100,000. He scoffs at them until they threaten Sparkle and Wingy. They eventually get money from him, but are soon captured. And Canhead decides to put the story of the oil well to rest, and open it up. What will they find?Now, I had never heard of Canhead, so I guess he never returned in further stories. Certainly, I can't recall hearing any more about B.O.'s other brothers, either.Next up is a strange story that is sometimes called the "Wailing Tree". Walking in some woods, Junior (whom we haven't seen in awhile) hears a crying baby. Eventually they find the baby, in a hollowed out tree! A Mrs. Green comes forward as the mother, but doesn't explain what is going on. We soon learn that it's part of a scheme by Dewdrop and her husband Sticks. Dewdrop had be disinherited by her rich father for marrying Sticks, until she told him she had a son. For $10,000 she got Mrs Green to loan her baby to pretend it's her son, to get her inheritance from her sick (and maybe soon dead) father. But she can't wait, and suffocates her father. It seems like natural death.But things go array when a maid discovers evidence of murder. Mrs Green snagged it, as her chance to get more money. Dewdrop and Sticks try to kill her, which makes her confess all to the police. Sticks is shot and Dewdrop is on the lam. This leads to the next story.Where we meet Stick's brother, Open-Mind Monty, who has part of a knife stick in his head which he can't remove. Since Tracy killed his brother, he works to bump off Tracy, but it doesn't go well. He's arrested, but they have to release him. We see that his main scheme is dealing in hot jewelry. He had been using potted plants to move them, but Tracy learned of this, so he tried to use homing pigeons. But that, too, fails and the gang is rounded up. And we learn the truth about Open-Mind.The final story starts off with a flood. The Plentys are affected, as Sparkle and Wingy are washed away. They are found by a blind girl named Rainbow Reilly, who seems to have come from Dogpatch. They stumble on the farm of Rughead, a fur smuggler. The girls are soon returned to the Plentys, and Rainbow is found by the police. But Rughead is still on the loose. We'll have to get the next volume to find out the rest of this.Also in the volume is the solution to the "Black Bag Murder" promotional contest that was features in v12. At the time the solution wasn't know, but it was found, so we get it here.I look forward to the next volume, even if it has a few story-lines I know about.

For the comic strip collectors among you, Volume 15 of Chester Gould's Dick Tracy series has been released in all it's hardcover glory. The cover features 3D Magee one of several sociopathic villains introduced during this collections time period, April 19, 1953 to Oct 24, 1954. Like the previous volumes, former Dick Tracy writer Max Allan Collins writes a detailed introduction filled with images of old advertisements for the Dick Tracy comic strip.In the last volume we were introduced to Odds Zonn, the new Mr. Crime and his daughter Susie who he abandons near the Plenty farm, a cliffhanger ending. B.O. Plenty and Gravel Gertie of course take little Susie in, calling her Little Wingy and are concerned to find she glows in the dark. Little Wingy is suffering radioactive poisoning and Diet Smith asks Dr. Von Nucleus to cure her. Her criminal father's fate comes to a more tragic end with a bullet to the head and Susie is adopted by the Plenty's, becoming a sister to young Sparkle Plenty.Sparkle, a recent addition to the strip has been a marketing hit for Gould, with a very popular Sparkle Plenty doll in stores. Chester may have hoped to repeat this performance with Little Wingy, pairing the two little girls together and putting them in peril when 3D Magee and Pony use their lives (and some lethal ants) to blackmail rich Uncle "Canhead" Plenty. 3D and Pony are clearly sociopaths, willing to kill to achieve their goals and the chase to arrest them lasts for the remainder of 1953. Uncle "Canhead" seems to have filled the role of Vitamin Flintheart in the strip during this time period and a new character Chick Smithly seems like an beta test of a Lizz Worthington like female crime fighter.After Christmas Tracy, Junior and Sam discover a baby inside a heated tree. The child belongs to Mrs. Green, who has been renting out the babe to Dewdrop and Sticks Hepbeat. Dewdrop pretends its hers so her ill father will let her inherit his ten million dollars. When Tracy arrests Mrs. Green and takes the child, Dewdrop smothers her own father with a pillow to keep her secret. The despicable actions continue with a maid and released Mrs. Green trying to blackmail the Hepbeats and soon Sticks is dead and Dewdrop flees to her husband's brother, Open-Mind Monty.Open-Mind Monty is a weird individual, drawn with a knife blade sticking out of his head and it would be interesting to know where Gould came up with the concept. Open-Mind harbors the fugitive Dewdrop and the two come up with a scheme to kill Dick Tracy. He fools the two with a dummy and they believe they have killed the great detective. Tracy reveals the ruse and the two are arrested. After the arrest we learn the blade sticking out of Open-Mind's head is fake, simply used to unsettle his criminal enemies. We agree it would be unsettling, but it also seems like it would be easy for an enemy to finish Open-Mind off if a blade was already halfway through his forehead.In the final story of the collection, Sparkle and Little Wingy accidentally discover a stolen fur racket ran by the villain Rughead and Tracy is soon on his trail. The detective spies on the gang by posing as an electrical worker but his undercover skills are slipping and Rughead identifies him as a cop and we are blessed with a shootout. Rughead runs of (briefly) to Mexico while his right hand man, Happy attempts to assassinate the detective. This story line ends the volume but Rughead will return to begin the next Volume when it goes on sale. Volume 16 will also introduce Mumbles, so we can't wait for it!

I'm glad to see IDW and the Library of American Comics continue this series. This volume continues Chester Gould's classic strip. The writing and art continue to entertain.That's not to say this is or will be the best of Gould's work from the 1950's. 3D Magee and Open-Mind Monty both have serviceable stories, but they probably won't be making anyone's list of all-time classic Tracy rogues anytime soon. And Sparkle Plenty and (especially) Little Wingy get into perhaps too many scrapes that seem unnecessarily dragged out a little longer then they probably should have. And as Izzy There? pointed out, when the reprint format changed, some of the strips seem to not be as clear as others, although it didn't seem to be quite as bad to me as is might to others. And the story where the Plentys get a new bathroom seemed endless...But that's not to say there isn't good here as well. I enjoyed Odds Zonn's last stand with Tracy. 3D Magee and Pony show remarkable changes after their bouts with Tracy. And as a bonus, we get an intro to one of Gould's classic rogues... Chrome Dome! Er, I mean Rughead! As a nice bonus, the book also prints the solution to the Black Bag Mystery from Volume 12 (which was previously said to have never published)!So while this book may not showcase the best of Tracy, it is still a solid volume that I recommend getting to keep your collection going. I really hope we luck out and Volume 16 is published before the end of 2013!

I husband has collected Dick Tracy since he was a boy. I know, we have all the original clippings. This series of books is true to the strip and does not leave anything other. Consequently, he has the missing clips that we have visited many libraries to obtain. His only frustration is they do not come out frequently enough.

Perfetto sia come stampa che come formato, è addirittura rilegato con segnalibro di seta. Extralusso per la gioia dei fans del celebre poliziotto di Chicago.