Checker Book Publishing Group - Published Works - Newspaper Reprints - Dick Tracy

When Chester Gould retired from writing and drawing the Dick Tracy newspaper strip in late 1977, it fell to crime writer Max Allan Collins to take up the writing reins (with Gould's assistant Rick Fletcher on art until his death in 1983, when Dick Locher took over) until 1993.

CheckerBPG released their first "of several" volume of Collins' Tracy works in November 2003 as Dick Tracy: The Collins Casefiles Volume 1, and a second and third volume followed within a year. Reprinted in the 'regular' trade paperback format, Checker's volumes print three daily strips per page, with the Sunday strips (in the first volume) "chopped up", losing the logo and "Rogues Gallery" headers (some of these were subsequently included as separate extras in Volume 2).

• Volume 1 (Nov 2003) collects Max Allan Collin's Tracy-writing debut, covering the rough period of January–December 1978.
• Volume 2 (May 2004) collects the Dick Tracy strips originally published during 1979.
• Volume 3 (Nov 2004) collects the strips from January 6, 1980 to January 17, 1981.

Checker's Press Release announcing Volume 3 claimed that the first two volumes had "met with across-the-board positive response, from critics to consumers", quoting favourable reviews from Suspended Animation and Booklist.

Although re-stating their intention that: "Strips from 1978–1989 to see reprint in multiple volumes," no further volumes have been solicited or released. This could simply mean that subsequent volumes are on indefinite hold while Checker focuses its efforts elsewhere.