"Dick Tracy" is kind of a guilty pleasure, like eating potato chips in bed. It's not particularly nutritious, and you'll forget the experience five minutes after finishing it. The strip is pretty overrated; the writing is stilted, the plots often outlandish, the art uninspired with flashes of brilliance, and the villains are generally one-joke creations. Still, I do enjoy the stories, and this collection introduces Flattop Jr., son of the deceased Flattop, and Lizz, a woman cop who makes her way into the department amazingly quickly after deciding to enlist. It's not a bad strip, but the critics who elevate it into the pantheon of America's greatest strips are nuts. ( )