CBR have been informed the series, “Dick Tracy: Dead or Alive!,” written by Michael and Lee Allred, with pencils by Rich Tommaso and coloring by Laura Allred, will start in September. Original story is as follows:
Late last year, Archie Comics announced a new “Dick Tracy” series, co-written by Alex Segura and Michael Moreci, with art by Thomas Pitilli. A month or so later, the book was announced as cancelled, The Tribute Content Agency, who owns the rights to the property, had unwillingly licensed the book to Archie while another company still held the license. Little more was said at the time, including never announcing which company actually held the license.
Well, it appears that IDW was said company, and they are set to announce a new “Dick Tracy” series from the team of Lee, Mike, and Laura Allred and Rich Tommaso (“She-Wolf,” “Dry County”). Tommaso announced the project over the weekend at HeroesCon, and shared the following image and message on Instagram:
Heroescon Exclusive Announcement: I am currently working on a new Dick Tracy comic book series with all them Allreds (@allredmd will be inking, I’m penciling, Lee is script master, and of course it will be gorgeously colored by Laura) for IDW! First ish launches in September!
The last time the Allreds all worked together was the “Bug! The Adventures of Forager” miniseries for DC/Young Animal, which is about as different, tonally, from Tracy as you can get. Tommaso, aside from a few pieces in books like “Shutter” and “Adventure Time,” has almost exclusively focused on creator-owned work. The initial collaboration will be for four issues according to The Beat, though it is not known if that is the length of the series, or the length of the first arc with these creators.
The IDW solicitations for September are due to hit this week, so we may have some more answers shortly.
It isn’t often you get a legend like Mike Allred (“Madman,” “X-Statix”) inking someone else’s work, especially someone with as fully realized as Tommaso. Lee, Mike’s brother (“Batman ’66,” “FF”) and Laura, Mike’s wife (Too many credits to attempt), are frequent collaborators of his, and the ersatz adoption of Tomasso into the Allred clan is exciting news.
