I picked up True Hearts and Tommy Guns because it has Kyle Baker art. A friend gave me the second issue of it (there are three) and I was going to order the first and last, but then came across the collection when I was in Milwaukee. I was up there for a comic art exhibition, which featured original Chester Gould “Dick Tracy” art. I didn’t like it. The art was fine (until Gould started getting old), but the writing was so bad... Additionally, I didn’t care for the Dick Tracy movie when it came out (these comics are tie-ins), I couldn’t stand it when I tried watching the DVD, and I try to avoid True Hearts writer John Francis Moore, as he’s written some really bad, really expensive comics. So, True Hearts and Tommy Guns really surprised me. Not only is the Kyle Baker art good--it’s from back when he drew by hand, not computer--but the writing is good and the story is engaging. Almost. Two-thirds of it. More on that third later.
These issues were big--sixty-four pages I think--so Moore has a lot of time. Since I’d seen the movie, I could tell Moore was doing a prequel, but it’s a good prequel. He’s not discrete or deceptive, he just takes his time getting laying down the foundation and building up on it for each of the salient characters (Tess Trueheart, the Kid, ‘Big Boy’ Caprice, and Breathless Mahoney). Dick Tracy’s busy doing other things--Tracy’s the focus of the stories, but those other characters’ long arcs mix in--and he’s the central character, but Moore’s got a great approach. He sets about defining the city and its problems--sometimes using the primary cast, sometimes not--and he gets the reader involved. There’s a lot of dialogue and a lot of action. He’s got a technique of doing a lot of summary of different characters, going real fast, then slowing down and taking his time. The first part’s the best, maybe because its quality is such a surprise, but there’s nothing wrong with the second part either--even if it does introduce the wristwatch radio....
The problems come with the third part, which is the adaptation of Dick Tracy, the movie. The long dialogue passages are gone because it’s the crappy dialogue from the movie. I didn’t remember the movie well enough to know it didn’t have any real scenes and instead of Moore’s summary to full scene from the first two issues, the adaptation is just summary. As such, most of Moore’s work is gone. Tess Trueheart is a different character, the Kid--who Moore used to show the city of crime--is lame, Breathless Mahoney is missing a big chunk of her character arc. Only ‘Big Boy’ Caprice comes off well, like Moore’s character arc completes, because Caprice was never the focus in the first two issues.
Baker’s art is occasionally a lot of fun and, particularly in the last issue, sometimes not dynamic enough. Just like I was forcing myself through the adaptation (once I realized Moore wasn’t getting to do what he did in those first two issues), Baker forced himself through it too. The movie made a bunch of bad visual choices and Baker’s stuck with them. As for the character art, Baker interprets Chester Gould’s weirdos and does a great job of it. While Dick Tracy looks like Warren Beatty, Breathless Mahoney only looks like Madonna in one panel, then never again. Caprice is obviously modeled after Al Pacino’s rendition, but it’s loose.
After I found the collection in a shop, we went to another shop (touring the Milwaukee comic scene). The second shop had all the issues. Had I known about the adaptation, I might have only gotten the first issue then. Still, since--at the time--I was buying it just for the Baker art, I suppose I would have wanted to be complete on it.
As it stands, True Hearts and Tommy Guns is doubly shocking. First, John Francis Moore did some good work and second, I actually liked a Dick Tracy comic.