Dick Tracy – Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Pete Poplaski — White-Collar Rogues

June 26, 2025 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Corporate Crime #2, April 1979

Pete Poplaski turns ordinary looking white-collar criminals into a rogues’ gallery suitable for Dick Tracy in this terrific cover for the short-lived “underground” comic, Corporate Crime. (Two issues, two years apart in 1977 and 1979.)

I’ve said plenty about Pete previously, but it deserves repeating: It’s amazing how he manages to capture so many classic art styles, so well. His originals (and I’m grateful that I own a few) are astonishing.

Seeing this cover for the first time a few months ago made me wistful that we (IDW Publishing) never pitched DC a Batman / Dick Tracy crossover set as a period piece in the 40s. Not sure if Pete would have been up for illustrating an entire series, but I certainly would have hired him for the covers.

I believe Mad Cave currently has the Tracy rights: Guys, it’s never too late.

If you want to sample the golden age of more “traditional” crime comics (1948-1954) you have plenty of opportunities with a plethora of terrific modern collections . Coincidentally, Poplaski also drew the cover for the Crime Does Not Pay sampler from Dark Horse Comics. (The original for that cover also came up for auction recently, but it was too graphic for my own taste.)

Chester Gould — The Trusty Detective

June 10, 2021 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Dick Tracy, Sunday Strip, March 12, 1961

One panel. That’s all it took to get my attention on this page.

Which one? Trust me, it’s not a quiz: It’s panel three, featuring the CLASSIC Dick Tracy profile by creator Chester Gould

And, as a bonus, our trusty detective is holding a gun.

Of course, it’s an overall great Sunday page with nice action to complement all that detecting. But that specific panel is iconic to a strip and creator that were inexorably tied together for nearly 50 years.