Original Unpublished Cover Art for Dick Tracy Monthly #118 (c. 1957) Art Likely by Joe Simon

Although we don't know for sure why this fantastic cover went unused, we can hazard a guess- during this period the series consisted mostly of reformatted reprints from older issues or of the daily newspaper strips which were created before the institution of the Comics Code. According to Grand Comics Database heavy edits were often required to conform to the code, which possibly led the publisher to decide that the story this cover was produced for was too much work to edit. As this art was unpublished the artist cannot be verified, though at this time in series' run Joe Simon was the book's cover artist ghosting as 'Chester Gould'. Pencil and ink with Title logo and corner box stats on art board. 13 3/4" x 19".