IDW Publishing Forums

[emb021]

Got 2 strip reprints recently, the latest Dick Tracy and Buck Rogers collections.

The Dick Tracy collection was great. I had read the Crewy Lou story as well as most of the Model story in other reprints, but the rest was new. Thought it interesting that most of the rest of the volume, while dealing with various characters, all tied into a longer story with Mr. Crime.

The Buck Rogers collection was good. A good chuck of the middle story I had already read in the old Chelsea House reprint, but was good to find out how it all started and ended.

Can't wait to see the next volumes in both these series.
_________________
MB

[Gryphon]

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1Z32J182FUAJR/ref=cm_aya_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1600105483#wasThisHelpful

I wrote a review of the first LOAC family circus collection, check it out and if you can, please click that it was useful.

[Cnwl]

ITEM! Roger Ash of Westfield Comics has produced a review of OPUS -- you can see it here: http://westfieldcomics.com/blog/interviews-and-columns/rogers-comic-ramblings-idws-berkeley-breatheds-opus-the-complete-library/. A nicely done piece!

ITEM! Gryph -- glad to see you back in these parts; seems like you'd been away for a while. Muchos gracias for the FAMILY CIRCUS review at Amazon!

ITEM! Meta -- This RIP KIRBY availability matter seems like it's an issue on Amazon's end of things. We'll sell 'em to pretty much whoever wants to stock 'em!

ITEM! My travelogue to UCLA is now up and running at www.libraryofamericancomics.com. The second BUF volume is delayed somewhat, as the University gets us the materials out of the George McManus Papers that we requested, but there's some _sweet_ artwork a'comin'; I like to think when they see it, BRINGING UP FATHER fans will decide it was worth the wait.

ITEM! Shameless plugola time -- if you'd like to read more by old friend (and FLASH GORDON serial expert) Doug Thornsjo, you can visit his site at http://www.ducksoup.me/. Many interesting nooks and crannies to peer into there!

ITEM! No more Items! Well, not right now, anyway ...
_________________
Best wishes --

- B -

[Gryphon]

I found these books in the diamond catalogue

ARCHIE: THE COMPLETE DAILY
NEWSPAPER COMICS 1960–1963

Continuing the Eisner Award-winning series collecting the Archie newspaper strip — by far
the rarest of all Archie comics collectibles. As the country entered what would become the
Swingin' Sixties, Bob Montana entered his 14th year writing and drawing the series.
• This volume includes 800 comics from September 1960 — when the school year begins — to
April 1963.
SELECTED PREVIOUS VOLUMES:
• Archie: The Classic Newspaper Comics Volume 1 HC (ISBN-13 978-1-60010-669-9, $39.99)
ISBN-13: 978-1-61377-669-8
Price: $39.99 ($49.99 CAN)
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Imprint: Library of American
Comics
Writer: Bob Montana
Artist: Bob Montana
Size: 11 x 8.5
Page Count: 302
Format: Hardcover,
Black & White
Recommended Age: Mature
Readers (ages 16 and up)
Genre: Comic Strip Collections
Ship Date: 6/26/2013


COMPLETE CHESTER GOULD'S DICK
TRACY VOLUME 15
•

• In Volume 15, reprinting alland Sunday comic strips from April 19, 1953 to October 24,
1954, we learn the fate of “Little Wings” and her radioactive dad. On the lighter side, we
meet Canhead (B.O.'s brother, Kincaid Plenty), his not-so-light and not-so-nice ex-wife
Pony, and her crony, the downright creepy 3-D Magee. Meanwhile, Tracy has to deal with
TNT vests and killer ants while showing Open-Mind Monty that he's no “dummy.” Plus, the
unlikely duo of Dewdrop and Sticks, the oversized Rainbow Reiley, and Chester Gould's
latest and greatest grotesque: Rughead.
SELECTED PREVIOUS VOLUMES:
• Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Volume 14 (ISBN-13 978-1-61377-507-3, $39.99)
ISBN-13: 978-1-61377-668-1
Price: $39.99 ($49.99 CAN)
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Imprint: Library of American
Comics
Writer: Chester Gould
Artist: Chester Gould
Size: 11 x 8.5
Page Count: 256
Format: Hardcover,
Black & White
Recommended Age: Mature
Readers (ages 16 and up)
Genre: Comic Strip Collections
Ship Date: 6/26/2013

[Gryphon]

[Delhidally]

Just saw the latest update on the LoAC homepage.

Thank you! Thank you!! Thank you!!!

Keep swinging!

[bem1]

http://marvelmasterworksfansite.yuku.com/topic/22092/IDW-Tarzan-Russ-Manning#.UPxeXfKvN6Y

If the above link works, it should be a link to a thread on another message board with people excited about Russ Manning's Tarzan. I must admit I know nothing about Russ Manning or his work on Tarzan. I've always associated the name Burne Hogarth with Tarzan so apparently I need to do some research to see what the big deal is.

Working my way through Steve Canyon vol. 1. Sometimes the dialogue strikes me as a bit too stylized or too full of slang where I have to stop and think about what the characters are saying. But when I get into a story I really enjoy it, and sometimes I like just looking at the artwork. Caniff could draw, boy, could he draw.

I have seen amazon fish for Archie and Dick Tracy vol. 15, so thanks for pointing those out.

[Delhidally]

[Cnwl]

Glad there's some buzz a'building about the Russ Manning TARZAN. We're excited to bring the Ape-Man under the LOAC banner as part of his second century!

Mighty busy around here, but good, good, good stuff happening! We're getting an advance look at GENIUS, ISOLATED very soon -- eagerly awaiting that!

Our new friends at UCLA have delivered the BRINGING UP FATHER artwork and photos I requested. Dean practically *PLOP!*ped out of panel when he saw the stuff! We'll be sharing a small sample of this art on the LOAC webpage in the near future, and with the UCLA contribution in hand, OF CABBAGES & KINGS is slated to head off to the printer before month's end.

Accolades are coming into the (virtual) office about the recently-streeted LI'L ABNER Vol 5 -- nice to see folks are as delighted to see Fearless Fosdick again as we were! In the pipeline, at reasonably advanced stages of completion: KING AROO Volume 2 (at last! at last!); GUMPS ESSENTIAL ("The Death of Mary Gold" -- the extended sequence culminating in comics' very first death of a featured character ... originally published back in the days when death wasn't something you came back from!); STEVE CANYON Vol 3 (which could be called "The Pulchritude Volume" -- some great stuff coming in here!). And we received a very nice note from Ron Harris, who was delighted to see our STAR TREK NEWSPAPER STRIPS volume.

I'm busily writing POLLY & HER PALS text for our 1933 dailies ESSENTIAl volume. This is a long-time dream assignment, since I've adored POLLY since I first laid eyes on it in the first issue of NEMO magazine (which, yes I admit, I bought at the comics shop when it was initially released). If you recall our website travelogue feature from early last summer, I'm using the results of the research I did, including a trip to the Wells/Ogunquit (Maine) Historical Society, as I shape this piece. Some interesting background info, and a piece or two of never-printed-for-comics-audiences Cliff Sterrett artwork, too!

OK, fun time's over -- now, off to (ugh!) pay some bills before I call it a night. We're in the midst of a mighty chilly cold snap here in New England -- effective temp outside as of 11PM: minus six degrees. Highs tomorrow won't make it to 20. 'Tis the season!
_________________
Best wishes --

- B -

[Cnwl]

If you haven't been there since Thursday, Jan 24th, please take a visit to the LOAC website ... Dean's been through the advance copy you'll see there, and now it's headed my way, likely arriving around the 28th or 29th. Oboyoboyoboyoboyoboy!
_________________
Best wishes --

- B -

[Cnwl]

I hope the silence in these parts is because everyone is busy reading, not because our books have put everyone to sleep!

Busy but exciting times around here (and I don't mean the computer problems that slowed me down for a chunk of this week, either). Bringing Up Father: Of Cabbages & Kings proofs have come back from the printer and I immodestly have to say, "Wowee-kazowie, this is one delightful book!" You're likely sick of hearing me go on about UCLA by now, so I'll just remark that I was again struck by all the detail in the McManus/Zekley work, as well as their vivid color palette on the Sundays. Bee-you-tee-ful stuff ...

Final edits are being done on Steve Canyon Volume 3 this weekend. The trenchcoat-only-wearing Miss Mizzou makes her inaugural appearance in this volume, and we have photos of the lovely real-life chorine Milton Caniff used as her model -- along with photos of the models for Princess Snowflower, Doe Redwood, and Summer Smith Olson! Plus plenty of other good stuff as well, o'course, but if you're a fan of Caniffian pulchritude, this is the Steve Canyon for you!

Wrapping up the writing for our LOAC Essentials: Polly and Her Pals book of dailies. We're debunking some long-held misconceptions about Sterrett and his residence in Maine, and it's a delight doing this piece, since writing about Sterrett and Polly is a dream I've had since back in the 1980s.

And I'm taking a slow, careful read through the advance copy of Genius, Illustrated: The Life & Art of Alex Toth you may have seen recently displayed on our website. So far I'd say this one has turned out exceptionally well ...

That's what's news here in the frigid northland (not quite as bad as Frostbite Falls, Minnesota, but no one's reaching for the Coppertone around these parts!); hoping all is well for you and yours --
_________________
Best wishes --

- B -

[WW Doctor]

I haven't posted here since July, so please forgive the somewhat long post!

I really enjoyed the Opus volume, especially since that particular strip had never really been reprinted prior to this, other than a few of the early strips in the Opus 25th anniversary volume from 2004.

The introduction to the Opus volume was a great counterweight to those who feel that cartoonists should retire while at the top of their game. Berke, in a speech at a National Cartoonist Society meeting, offers his opinion that "wouldn't it have been great if Charles Schulz had retired while at the top of his game", similarly to what Jim Watterson did with Calvin and Hobbes and what Berkeley himself did when he retired both Bloom County and the successor Sunday-only strip Outland. Afterwards, Jeanne Schulz (who was in the audience) points out that, for Schulz, working on the strip was basically his life and something that he enjoyed doing.

And given what was mentioned during the introduction, we owe great deal of thanks to Jeanne and, by extension, Charles Schulz for the five wonderful years of Opus strips. And I agree with Berkeley that the ending of Opus was a much better send-off for the Bloom County characters than the ending to the Outland strip. It's just a real shame that this will be the last of the Berkeley Breathed volumes!

Things I'm looking forward to in 2013:

The Mickey Mouse Sundays by Floyd Gottfredson - Fantagraphics is taking a break from the dailies to reprint Gottfredson's Sunday work.

Terry and the Pirates by George Wunder - I've heard that the George Wunder Terry just doesn't hold up when compared to Milt Caniff's Terry. Personally, though, I'd rather make up my own mind and I'm really glad that Hermes Press has taken up the challenge to reprint the Wunder strips.

Peanuts Every Sunday by Charles Schulz - Just announced this week, Fantagraphics is going to reprint the Peanuts Sundays in color! That's darn exciting, because the one thing that I always though was missing from the Fantagraphics reprints were color Sundays. Glad to see this being rectified! http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/fantagraphics_launches_peanuts_every_sunday_series_this_fall/

From LOAC, the big things that I'm looking foward to:

Blondie Volume 3 (glad to see this series continued! It was a major favorite of mine!)

King Aroo Volume 2 (and who knows, maybe if we're lucky Volume 3!) - Long time awaiting, but it will be worth it! The first volume was absolutely great!

Gasoline Alley Volume 2 (and, hopefully at some point a new Walt and Skeezix volume from Drawn and Quarterly) - it's nice having two Gasoline Alley reprints going, both the 1920s-30s version being done by D+Q and now the LOAC 1960s version. Having the latter day reprints makes the really long waits between D+Q volumes much more bearable.

New Dick Tracy and Little Orphan Annie volumes.

On another note-

I've been actively working on my collection of Fawcett Crest (and similar) reprints from the 1960s-1980s. I completed the Peanuts reprints back in the late 1990s, and have been working on some of the other strip reprints as well. I've completed the B.C. reprint set and I'm almost complete on the Tumbleweeds and Crock sets. I'm actively working on the Wizard of Id, Heathcliff, Beetle Bailey and Marmaduke reprint sets. Some of these books, while not very expensive, are quite rare. I find these are well worth seeking out, though, since most of these strips have only seen occasional reprint volumes in recent years, and the Fawcett (and similar) reprints are the only real way of amassing an extended run of these strips.

[mister allen]

I don't know how popular this will be, but I just finished Opus and think it's Breathed's best work. The heart of the previous work is still in this strip, but the unrestricted Sunday format is perfect for Breathed. The old Sundays were good, but the pacing was always the same. In Opus, the stories have room to move at a pace that best fits that strip.

Breathed's art, too, was better in Opus. More accomplished and sure of the work being done. I have no idea what he was doing between Outland and Opus, but if someone told me Breathed did nothing but draw those characters, I would not be surprised. Definitely the art of his career, including the colouring. It was wonderful.

I would love for Breathed to do another strip, with new characters, it wouldn't matter, but that doesn't seem likely. Opus really was the height of his career, with plenty of room to still do more impressive work.

[Gryphon]

I need to write an amazon.com review for secret sagent corrigan vol 1. It was good.

[violentmarv]

When will the Polly and Her Pals daily book be listed on Amazon?