Dick Tracy: The Collins Casefiles Vol. 3

Written by Max Allan Collins
Illustrated by Rick Fletcher
B&W, Trade Paperback
Checker Books, 2004

Today is Max Allan Collins' birthday. To celebrate, let's take a look at this third – and, to date, final – collection of the Collins/Fletcher Dick Tracy newspaper strip continuities from 1980 and '81.

Unsurprisingly, this trade paperback is right in line with the previous volumes from Checker Books: great stories, great art, poor design and somewhat overpriced. As in prior volumes, the Collins scripts are top-notch, and Rick Fletcher's cartooning is masterful. Also like the earlier volumes, Checker has chosen to put only three daily strips on each page when there's room for five, pumping up the page count and price.

This time, Checker has collected three complete continuities in this volume. Unlike some of Collins' earlier tales, which alternated classic Gould villians with new malefactors, all three of these stories introduce new villians to the Tracy mythos.

The first storyline, "Dick Tracy Meets Art Dekko," pits our favorite plain-clothes copper and his Major Crime Squad against a stylish art thief named Art Dekko, and his moustached girl Friday, Sue Real. This adventure also introduces the Tom Selleck-lookalike detective Johnny Adonis to Tracy's supporting cast.

The second continuity, "Dick Tracy Meets Breakdown," has Tracy's billionaire buddy Diet Smith kidnapped by his own former security chief, the anxiety-ridden Bernard Breakdown. Tracy is chosen to deliver the million-dollar ransom, but the situation is complicated by a teenaged, roller-skating pickpocket who steals the ransom briefcase right out of Dick's hands!

Finally, in "Dick Tracy Meets Torcher," a slumlord hires a professional arsonist to torch his condemned tenements, and the case falls to Tracy's task force to solve.

All three stories are fast-moving and smart, with Collin's usual strong plotting and clever wit. Fletcher's at his peak here, with some marvelous draftsmanship and storytelling – the climax of "Art Dekko," a shootout in a dark art gallery, is a visual tour de force under Fletcher's talented hands.

As I said above, the sparse layout and high price are definite drawbacks, but the quality of the material makes up for a lot of that.

Five out of Six Bullets.

Dick Tracy: The Collins Casefiles Vol. 3 is available from Amazon and other book dealers.