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The Complete Dick Tracy #4
The Complete Dick Tracy Volume 4: 1936-1938
Presenting the forth volume of IDW Publishing's deluxe hardcover collection of Chester Gould's timeless comic strip, Dick Tracy. Volume Four once again contains over 500 comic strips from the series' early years, this time covering material that originally ran from July 1936 through January 1938. -The Library of American Comics is the world's #1 publisher of classic newspaper comic strips, with 14 Eisner Award nominations and three wins for best book. LOAC has become "the gold standard for archival comic strip reprints... The research and articles provide insight and context, and most importantly the glorious reproduction of the material has preserved these strips for those who knew them and offers a new gateway to adventure for those discovering them for the first time." - Scoop
352 pages, Hardcover
First published May 14, 2008
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About the author
Chester Gould
335 books23 followersChester Gould was a U.S. cartoonist and the creator of the Dick Tracy comic strip, which he wrote and drew from 1931 to 1977. Gould was known for his use of colorful, often monstrous, villains.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
May 11, 2020
The Complete Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy Volume 4 takes the action adventure/police procedural strip from July of 1936 to January of 1938. Volume 3, which could be subtitled “looking for sidekicks,” as Gould tosses out one supporting character after another, is probably slightly stronger than Volume 4, which ends on a high note with “the Blank” storyline, but definitely has some less-than-stellar moments. As Max Allan Collins writes in his introduction to Volume 4, Chester Gould is really marking time here.
Volume 3 ended with something of a cliffhanger, as the gun moll Mimi was about to have her infected hand amputated. Mimi proves to be a much more entertaining character than Lips Manlis ever was. In the early weeks of Volume 4, we thankfully get the final appearance of Memphis Smith, Gould’s attempt at a Stepin Fetchit-type of African American character. Fortunately, Memphis was only in the strip for three months.
In Jay Maeder’s book Dick Tracy: The Official Biography, Maeder writes that Mimi’s amputation originally consisted of “an operating-room sequence so stomach-turning that the syndicate refused to have any part of it and ordered most of a week’s worth of continuity redrawn.” (p.59) Reading the strips that actually ran, Mimi’s amputation really isn’t grisly at all—it’s the thought of having your hand amputated that gives the reader the creeps. After her hand was amputated, Mimi always carried a shawl or towel over her hand, “doubtless by directive of Gould’s syndicate bosses.” (Maeder, p.96)
Mimi proves she’s not someone to be trifled with, as the first thing she does after having her hand amputated is swim out to a boat in the harbor. The owner of the boat is Toyee, an Asian gangster. Toyee won’t be in the strip for very long, because he has the bright idea of having himself sewn up in a giant fish to escape detection by the police. Ewww.
Mimi’s sole purpose in life is to hurl herself at Lips Manlis and win him back. (At the end of Volume 3, Lips went straight and took the name Bob Honor.) She kidnaps him not once, but twice. She’s nothing if not determined. Once Mimi has Lips in her clutches again, she drugs him and marries him. Mimi’s plan doesn’t work, as Lips slugs her as soon as he understands what’s happened. Mimi’s desperation is actually kind of sad, as she still holds on to this dream that she can get Lips back. “You’re not through with me, Lips! I won’t let you be!” she says to him. She even wants him to grow his mustache back and comb his hair like he used to. At this point, Mimi is kind of like Jimmy Stewart at the end of Vertigo, where he’s trying to convince Kim Novak to dress up like the dead woman he’s obsessed with.
Lips goes along with Mimi’s grooming for a while, and then Dick Tracy shows up and Lips makes it clear to Mimi that he’s through with her. When it becomes clear that Lips is going to turn her over to the cops, Mimi pulls a vial out of her garter top and drinks poison. It makes sense that Mimi kills herself, since all her actions revolve around one goal: getting Lips back. But even when she gets him back and convinces him to change his hairstyle back to how it was, it doesn’t work. She’s like Jay Gatsby. Mimi would definitely agree with Gatsby’s famous quote: “Can’t repeat the past? Of course you can.” But it doesn’t work out for either Gatsby or Mimi. As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in his short story “The Sensible Thing,” “There are all kinds of love in the world, but never the same love twice.” Mimi should have read her Fitzgerald.
Mimi is an awful person, but she’s an interesting character. Her default attitude is one of haughty disdain—she’s constantly calling her henchmen “stupid,” or telling them “Don’t ask so many questions!” “Stop the yelling-you idiot!” If she wasn’t so focused on getting Lips back, it’s easy to imagine Mimi presiding over a crime empire of her own. 4 stars.
The next storyline is the Purple Cross Gang. If Chester Gould had written this storyline in the 1940’s or 1950’s, it might have been a classic. The elements of a great storyline are here, but it just doesn’t quite come together. Part of the problem is that the Gang is so elaborate—they have purple Maltese crosses tattooed on their tongues! They wear matching chauffeur uniforms, complete with jodhpurs!—but yet their crimes are pedestrian. They just rob banks. Ho-hum. The crosses tattooed on their tongues is such a vivid detail, but it really makes no sense, since it would be so identifiable, and the whole point of the Purple Cross Gang is how secretive they are.
Baldy Stark is an interesting character, as he’s the one member of the gang who wants to go straight. It’s a bit melodramatic, sure, but it’s interesting. At the end of the storyline, we see Dick Tracy—the strip and the character—getting involved in the legal process, which doesn’t happen very often. 4 stars.
Perfume thieves: Definitely a letdown after the elaborate Purple Cross Gang, and a very low-stakes story of three young women stealing expensive perfume and re-selling it. Although it does feature the oddly sexual scene of Tracy tied down to a cot, grabbing Madeline’s hair between his teeth and threatening to yank her scalp off. 3 stars.
Johnny Mintworth: Based on my reading of Dick Tracy, Chester Gould hated inherited wealth. (See also Fling from the Purple Cross Gang.) If there’s a wealthy young person in the strip, the chances are extremely high that they’re a ne’er-do-well who is about to fall in with a dangerous crowd. Gould is like F. Scott Fitzgerald in this way—they both saw the very rich as morally lax and corruptible. Johnny Mintworth is an heir to a fortune, but he dawdles around, drives drunk, and falls in with the wrong crowd. He was engaged to one of the girls in the perfume thief ring, so he’s not the best judge of character. Mintworth’s storyline eventually centers around insurance fraud, and it feels even more low stakes than the perfume thieves. Johnny Mintworth is just an annoying character, but like other relatively innocent people in Dick Tracy, he ends up paying for his transgressions with his life. 2 stars.
The Blank: an excellent story, as a deformed ex-con hides his face behind a cheesecloth mask and starts gunning down his old partners. This is hands down the best story in the book, and a harbinger of where Dick Tracy will go in the future, with grotesque villains battling the titular detective. 5 stars.
Volume 4 of Dick Tracy is a mixed bag. It’s bookended by strong storylines, as Mimi and the Blank are both excellent villains, but there’s a lot of filler that bogs down the middle.
Volume 3 ended with something of a cliffhanger, as the gun moll Mimi was about to have her infected hand amputated. Mimi proves to be a much more entertaining character than Lips Manlis ever was. In the early weeks of Volume 4, we thankfully get the final appearance of Memphis Smith, Gould’s attempt at a Stepin Fetchit-type of African American character. Fortunately, Memphis was only in the strip for three months.
In Jay Maeder’s book Dick Tracy: The Official Biography, Maeder writes that Mimi’s amputation originally consisted of “an operating-room sequence so stomach-turning that the syndicate refused to have any part of it and ordered most of a week’s worth of continuity redrawn.” (p.59) Reading the strips that actually ran, Mimi’s amputation really isn’t grisly at all—it’s the thought of having your hand amputated that gives the reader the creeps. After her hand was amputated, Mimi always carried a shawl or towel over her hand, “doubtless by directive of Gould’s syndicate bosses.” (Maeder, p.96)
Mimi proves she’s not someone to be trifled with, as the first thing she does after having her hand amputated is swim out to a boat in the harbor. The owner of the boat is Toyee, an Asian gangster. Toyee won’t be in the strip for very long, because he has the bright idea of having himself sewn up in a giant fish to escape detection by the police. Ewww.
Mimi’s sole purpose in life is to hurl herself at Lips Manlis and win him back. (At the end of Volume 3, Lips went straight and took the name Bob Honor.) She kidnaps him not once, but twice. She’s nothing if not determined. Once Mimi has Lips in her clutches again, she drugs him and marries him. Mimi’s plan doesn’t work, as Lips slugs her as soon as he understands what’s happened. Mimi’s desperation is actually kind of sad, as she still holds on to this dream that she can get Lips back. “You’re not through with me, Lips! I won’t let you be!” she says to him. She even wants him to grow his mustache back and comb his hair like he used to. At this point, Mimi is kind of like Jimmy Stewart at the end of Vertigo, where he’s trying to convince Kim Novak to dress up like the dead woman he’s obsessed with.
Lips goes along with Mimi’s grooming for a while, and then Dick Tracy shows up and Lips makes it clear to Mimi that he’s through with her. When it becomes clear that Lips is going to turn her over to the cops, Mimi pulls a vial out of her garter top and drinks poison. It makes sense that Mimi kills herself, since all her actions revolve around one goal: getting Lips back. But even when she gets him back and convinces him to change his hairstyle back to how it was, it doesn’t work. She’s like Jay Gatsby. Mimi would definitely agree with Gatsby’s famous quote: “Can’t repeat the past? Of course you can.” But it doesn’t work out for either Gatsby or Mimi. As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in his short story “The Sensible Thing,” “There are all kinds of love in the world, but never the same love twice.” Mimi should have read her Fitzgerald.
Mimi is an awful person, but she’s an interesting character. Her default attitude is one of haughty disdain—she’s constantly calling her henchmen “stupid,” or telling them “Don’t ask so many questions!” “Stop the yelling-you idiot!” If she wasn’t so focused on getting Lips back, it’s easy to imagine Mimi presiding over a crime empire of her own. 4 stars.
The next storyline is the Purple Cross Gang. If Chester Gould had written this storyline in the 1940’s or 1950’s, it might have been a classic. The elements of a great storyline are here, but it just doesn’t quite come together. Part of the problem is that the Gang is so elaborate—they have purple Maltese crosses tattooed on their tongues! They wear matching chauffeur uniforms, complete with jodhpurs!—but yet their crimes are pedestrian. They just rob banks. Ho-hum. The crosses tattooed on their tongues is such a vivid detail, but it really makes no sense, since it would be so identifiable, and the whole point of the Purple Cross Gang is how secretive they are.
Baldy Stark is an interesting character, as he’s the one member of the gang who wants to go straight. It’s a bit melodramatic, sure, but it’s interesting. At the end of the storyline, we see Dick Tracy—the strip and the character—getting involved in the legal process, which doesn’t happen very often. 4 stars.
Perfume thieves: Definitely a letdown after the elaborate Purple Cross Gang, and a very low-stakes story of three young women stealing expensive perfume and re-selling it. Although it does feature the oddly sexual scene of Tracy tied down to a cot, grabbing Madeline’s hair between his teeth and threatening to yank her scalp off. 3 stars.
Johnny Mintworth: Based on my reading of Dick Tracy, Chester Gould hated inherited wealth. (See also Fling from the Purple Cross Gang.) If there’s a wealthy young person in the strip, the chances are extremely high that they’re a ne’er-do-well who is about to fall in with a dangerous crowd. Gould is like F. Scott Fitzgerald in this way—they both saw the very rich as morally lax and corruptible. Johnny Mintworth is an heir to a fortune, but he dawdles around, drives drunk, and falls in with the wrong crowd. He was engaged to one of the girls in the perfume thief ring, so he’s not the best judge of character. Mintworth’s storyline eventually centers around insurance fraud, and it feels even more low stakes than the perfume thieves. Johnny Mintworth is just an annoying character, but like other relatively innocent people in Dick Tracy, he ends up paying for his transgressions with his life. 2 stars.
The Blank: an excellent story, as a deformed ex-con hides his face behind a cheesecloth mask and starts gunning down his old partners. This is hands down the best story in the book, and a harbinger of where Dick Tracy will go in the future, with grotesque villains battling the titular detective. 5 stars.
Volume 4 of Dick Tracy is a mixed bag. It’s bookended by strong storylines, as Mimi and the Blank are both excellent villains, but there’s a lot of filler that bogs down the middle.
September 30, 2024
I've been aware of Dick Tracy most of my life, but I didn't have a lot of time reading the strip. I only saw two or three days worth when Chester Gould was still doing the strip when on vacation. I got to know a few villains via MAD Magazine and my dad mentioning them (e.g. Flattop, Pruneface, and Oodles). For a few years, I saw the strip occasionally in the '80's and 00's, the 40's movie "Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome" co-starring Boris Karloff, Warren Beatty's 1990 film, and read a book which included a few series including the introduction of Sam Ketchem and Gould's final story.
I had previously seen the third volume of this collection. The final story (featuring Lips Manlis who was in the '90 movie) was at a stopping point. But it wasn't finished - it too another 10 weeks worth to conclude it. There were three other stories in this volume, and stories 3 and 4 flowed together, as the final story let you know that it would be finished in Vol. 5.
Besides Lips, the only villain I was familiar with in this volume was The Blank, who had a key role in the '90 movie (a much bigger role than Manlis). However, Beatty's dealing with the villains differed from the original comic strip.
I enjoyed reading these books, and recommend them.
I had previously seen the third volume of this collection. The final story (featuring Lips Manlis who was in the '90 movie) was at a stopping point. But it wasn't finished - it too another 10 weeks worth to conclude it. There were three other stories in this volume, and stories 3 and 4 flowed together, as the final story let you know that it would be finished in Vol. 5.
Besides Lips, the only villain I was familiar with in this volume was The Blank, who had a key role in the '90 movie (a much bigger role than Manlis). However, Beatty's dealing with the villains differed from the original comic strip.
I enjoyed reading these books, and recommend them.
September 22, 2025
L'ingenuità delle trame rasenta il ridicolo, è però un bel tuffo negli anni '30
August 10, 2013
Volume 4 of IDW's Complete Dick Tracy is perhaps the weakest period of Gould's strip in the 30's but for one storyline towards the end of the volume.
This one great story introduces Gould's first great "grotesque": The Blank. The Blank is completely different from every villain in the strip thus far. He is no mere gangster; he's an insane, vengeance-driven serial killer.
Compared to the Blank, the other storylines here don't seem up to par. After a conclusion to the Lips Manlis/Mimi arc, Gould would devote six months to the exploits of the Purple Cross Gang. This story is violent but fairly pedestrian, but for an imitation of the Valentine's Day Massacre. For much of 1937 Tracy deals with perfume theft, insurance fraud, and a rich playboy's path towards self-destruction. This all seems a little beneath Dick Tracy, to be quite honest. Luckily the Blank story would appear and rescues the volume. But for it this is not essential Dick Tracy reading.
Incidentally, the Blank story also began a gimmick Gould would use for the next few years of giving names to characters that were other words spelled backwards that helped describe the character (the Blank's real name is 'Redrum' - murder spelled backwards).
This one great story introduces Gould's first great "grotesque": The Blank. The Blank is completely different from every villain in the strip thus far. He is no mere gangster; he's an insane, vengeance-driven serial killer.
Compared to the Blank, the other storylines here don't seem up to par. After a conclusion to the Lips Manlis/Mimi arc, Gould would devote six months to the exploits of the Purple Cross Gang. This story is violent but fairly pedestrian, but for an imitation of the Valentine's Day Massacre. For much of 1937 Tracy deals with perfume theft, insurance fraud, and a rich playboy's path towards self-destruction. This all seems a little beneath Dick Tracy, to be quite honest. Luckily the Blank story would appear and rescues the volume. But for it this is not essential Dick Tracy reading.
Incidentally, the Blank story also began a gimmick Gould would use for the next few years of giving names to characters that were other words spelled backwards that helped describe the character (the Blank's real name is 'Redrum' - murder spelled backwards).
April 13, 2009
I still love Dick Tracy, even in these early days of just gangsters with a racket and cops. There are times that I certainly don't like the way Tracy comes to conclusions about guilt despite a lack of evidence, his methods of kicking and punching people who irk him and of course, the racist attitudes of the time period towards the Chinese (although that's not Tracy's fault). I love the ridiculous gangster slang of the time period, for example "lamp that!". And I always love the way Tracy manages to finagle the damndest situations. This volume contains the ending to the Bob Honor/Lips Manlis saga, a major mix-up with the Purple Cross Gang, a run-in with some violent young dames who are perfume thieves, a dopey susceptible millionaire mixed up in gangs and scams, and an introduction to the Blank - a short about a man with no face who seeks to get even with his ex-buddies in crime. It ends with a lead-in to a new story about human smuggling. Kudos to Pat Patton for being more on the ball this collection.
November 28, 2014
By this point, the Dick Tracy comic strip had fallen into a bit of a rut. Tracy fights criminals, someone in the supporting cast is threatened/kidnapped/beaten/framed, and Tracy swoops in to save the day. Most of volume four follows this pattern, until the very last storyline, which introduces a "wild card" into the mix, a vengeance-filled killer named "The Blank," who appears to have no face. With the appearance of "The Blank," the book really picks up and becomes engaging, where the previous storylines were pretty mundane. Entertaining enough to read, I suppose, but mundane nonetheless. Volume four is probably the weakest so far, but the uptick of quality at the end bodes well for volume five.
February 16, 2010
This fourth volume concludes with 1937-1938 sequence introducing The Blank, the point at which the Dick Tracy enshrined in conventional wisdom starts to appear. In the previous volumes, Tracy has been a gangster-battling cop, and the strip, while dark, has been conventional, a police-procedure melodrama. But the Blank is something new: a macabre, vengeance-seeking monstrosity -- not supernatural, but gothic and unnaturally grotesque. Here's where the stip begins to go Grand Guignol, with its great run of arch-enemies soon to unfurl: Flattop, the Mole, BB Eyes, Itchy, and all the rest, coming in subsequent volumes.
May 22, 2011
This was my first Dick Tracy collection, and it certainly won't be my last. I dipped in the middle figuring that all the best stuff would come a few years in when Gould had hit his stride. Plus it was cheap on amazon. There were a lot of good storylines here, and I've already ordered Vol. 5. It's hard to believe there was a time when people were hooked on these ongoing strips. Why did they die out? I'm willing to bet that the web is a good place for them to make a comeback.
May 19, 2008
Dick Tracy battles the Purple Cross Gang, insurance fraud, and the Blank. Good art and good serialized storytelling.
December 28, 2024
We're finally starting to get to the more interesting villains.
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