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Rating: 
Summary: Checker scores another direct hit!
Review: Checker Books is filling a necessary role in the publishing field: bringing classic comic strips back into the public eye. Not only that, but they do it at a reasonable price and easily manageable format. Their STEVE CANYON volumes were well received, but the highlight for me has been DICK TRACY - THE COLLINS CASEFILES. Volume 2 continues the reprints of the Dick Tracy strips beginning in 1978 by Max Alan Collins (writer) and Rick Fletcher (illustrator), with oversight by creator Chester Gould. Long before Collins became known for Road to Perdition, he cranked out some excellent Tracy scripts that brought the plainclothes detective into a more modern setting, but with the same grit and thrills from the classic strip. Fletcher's fine-line art is exceptional, giving us a very stylized view of Tracy's world while retaining the characters' distinctive physical traits (it has a bit of an Alex Nino look, if that helps). This volume contains great stories featuring "the Computer Killer", the return of Mumbles (or is it?), Bony and Claudette, and Quiver. A back-up feature contains "case files" of various characters from the strip. Regarding the format, these books are trade-sized collections, which I love since they fit so well with my other trades on the bookshelf (I've never cared for oversized oblong collections, as they are more difficult to store, plus they can't be handled very easily while reading). I will make one complaint about this volume, albeit a minor one: my copy has a couple of pages where the ink did not apply as heavily, resulting in several slightly faded strips. I am hoping for more volumes in this series. Checker, don't let me down.
Rating:
Summary: Checker scores another direct hit!
Review: Checker Books is filling a necessary role in the publishing field: bringing classic comic strips back into the public eye. Not only that, but they do it at a reasonable price and easily manageable format. Their STEVE CANYON volumes were well received, but the highlight for me has been DICK TRACY - THE COLLINS CASEFILES. Volume 2 continues the reprints of the Dick Tracy strips beginning in 1978 by Max Alan Collins (writer) and Rick Fletcher (illustrator), with oversight by creator Chester Gould. Long before Collins became known for Road to Perdition, he cranked out some excellent Tracy scripts that brought the plainclothes detective into a more modern setting, but with the same grit and thrills from the classic strip. Fletcher's fine-line art is exceptional, giving us a very stylized view of Tracy's world while retaining the characters' distinctive physical traits (it has a bit of an Alex Nino look, if that helps). This volume contains great stories featuring "the Computer Killer", the return of Mumbles (or is it?), Bony and Claudette, and Quiver. A back-up feature contains "case files" of various characters from the strip. Regarding the format, these books are trade-sized collections, which I love since they fit so well with my other trades on the bookshelf (I've never cared for oversized oblong collections, as they are more difficult to store, plus they can't be handled very easily while reading). I will make one complaint about this volume, albeit a minor one: my copy has a couple of pages where the ink did not apply as heavily, resulting in several slightly faded strips. I am hoping for more volumes in this series. Checker, don't let me down.
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