Now that issue #2 of “Dick Tracy: Dead or Alive” is
available, I thought I would publish my reaction to issue #1.
To put it simply, I didn’t like it very much.
Granted, it’s only one issue, but as an introduction to the
look and tone of this mini-series, it did not inspire confidence.
I’ll start with the characters- I read another review that
took issue with this comic’s violent content, specifically the amount of it
coming from Dick Tracy. In the newspaper comic strip, Tracy has typically been
depicted as using violence as a necessary means to an end. He famously doesn’t
shoot first, and he’s never been shown reveling in or enjoying violence and gunplay.
That doesn’t seem to be the case with this version of Tracy.
I find the opening sequence especially disturbing, in which
Tracy assaults the fugitive tech guru. This criminal (guilty murderer though he
may be) doesn’t pose any physical threat to Tracy, yet Tracy kicks him hard
enough to knock a tooth out and send him tumbling down the stairs. It
demonstrates a cavalier attitude about violence from Tracy that is unbecoming
in a hero, particularly in the modern-day context of the militarization of police
and their use of violence.
I’m willing to give the comic some leeway, though, if the
point of the violence is to show Tracy changing his ways later in the series, perhaps
due to the influence of Junior or Tess. We’ll see.
I also had a problem
with the art style. I don’t mean to suggest that the comic is drawn badly, but
it’s too cartoon-y given the content. Everything is stylized and drawn with clean,
sharp lines and bright colors that are at odds with the grim nature of the
goings-on. If it’s supposed to be ironic juxtapositioning, it did not work for
me. Even Kyle Baker’s art (which is notoriously stylized) in the 1990 movie tie-in
comic was a kind of “messy” that suited the material. It was a dimly-lit, rumpled,
disorganized world that reflected the nature of its villainous inhabitants. This
new comic does not achieve that same tone.
One of the major problems that I had was with the anachronistic
nature of the depiction of the world that these characters inhabit. It’s
clearly a world with old-style cars and clothes and buildings, yet they still
have very modern communication technology (i.e. cell phones and flat screen
TVs). It felt to me like the creators refused to make a choice about the era in
which they wanted the story to be set. It’s just a truth of storytelling that
if you want your characters to be in pinstripes and using tommy guns, they can’t
have cell phones, and vice versa. Progress has either happened or it hasn’t.
Trying to have it both ways makes it not work.
I’ll point out that I could not avoid comparing this comic’s
use of technology to that of “Batman: the Animated Series”, which also had
old-style cars and buildings but also had computers. I can’t fully put my finger
on why it works on BTAS and doesn’t work here. Perhaps because Batman is
inherently more fantastical? This Dick Tracy is apparently trying to be gritty
and realistic (to a degree), but the anachronistic look undercuts that.
Along those same lines, I had trouble processing how much
time passed during the course of single issue. It seems to be a matter of only
a day or two between Tracy’s arrest of Mr. Peepers and his arrival in Chicago
(The City by the Lake, whatever…), then within hours of his arrival in the city
he’s dismantled Big Boy’s whole operation. Then it’s apparently only another day
or two before Big Boy is tried, convicted and executed. Events happen at an
implausibly fast pace, and the story takes no time to breathe, so the impact of
the events don’t land.
Again, this could be intentional, where the creators are
attempting to create a heightened reality. If that’s the case, they succeeded
but I didn’t enjoy it. And I’m the target audience for this comic.
I have purchased issue #2 of this miniseries but have not
read it yet. I will most likely buy the next two as well. Hopefully, sales will
warrant further publications from IDW, perhaps with a different creative team
on each 4-issue series, each showing their take on Tracy in different eras with
different styles.
