chester's ghouls

one of my favorite books growing up was the comics anthology "the celebrated cases of dick tracy: 1931-1951":

(the first panel of the first strip featuring chester gould's iconic flatfoot)

even at 300-plus pages, celebrated cases had been heavily edited for space and violence. several decades passed before i got to see some of the outtakes of one story in particular, reprinted in full in "the dick tracy casebook: favorite adventures 1931-1990" (which i'd found on ebay for a penny). what follows are some strips from both books, reconstructing tracy's 1944 clash with sadistic nazi spy the brow. it was definitely one of his more grisly adventures, which spanned four months and also introduced us to the summer sisters (may and june) and gravel gertie:

let's fast forward to the "ironic" ending left out of celebrated cases:

remember, ladies:

(story and art by chester gould)