Tuesday, Jan 31st, 2012

Bookshelves Are Us

posted by Dean Mullaney

Bruce Canwell started the "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" bookcase organization challenge and Jeff Dyer is first to join the game. It's fascinating how we each have our own collating principles. Here's what Jeff says:

"I grouped Bloom County with my older Calvin & Hobbes books, as I think of those two as the finest strips of the 1980s. I put Dick Tracy with Rip Kirby, of course...two great detectives from two different eras. I do look forward to the day when I can (hopefully) replace Dick Tracy Vol 1-6 with larger editions to match the others. I have a Caniff Shelf...Terry, Caniff, Scorchy Smith (by honorable mention) and now, happily...Steve Canyon! I have Annie with Abner (probably because it sounds good when spoken together!) but also want to point out my old Li'l Abner metal toy. It's from my great aunt who passed away. She had this toy in her home for years and years. I never knew about the comic strip until many years later. But now the books and toy match nicely! Finally, I have my large shelf for the really big books! This of course includes Flash Gordon and Polly!!

"After taking these pics and seeing all the great books you have coming soon, I realize...I NEED MORE SPACE!!"

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Friday, Jan 27th, 2012

Show and Tell

posted by Bruce Canwell

Once upon a time I used to keep my comics collection/graphic novel books separate from my prose books. Of course, sometimes the line would blur a bit—where would prose books about comics, like Gerard Jones's exceptional Men of Tomorrow, best be kept? Should something like Gil Kane's Blackmark be shelved with one group of books or the other? I found there were too many times when I was hunting for one specific volume or other, so I lost patience and did a big reorganization project that put all my books in simple alphabetical-by-author order. That means J.G. Ballard is next to James Bama, Paul Chadwick is next to Raymond Chandler, and Jack Kirby is next to Ernie Kovacs (a place neither of those fine men would have expected to occupy!). In the years since I made the switch-over, I've never had a problem finding any book.

In some cases, "author" equates to "imprint." Marvel and DC books are best grouped together…and yes, I decided it was easiest to shelve all Library of American Comics books together. Here's a look at how they look:

The way things are currently grouped together, as you can see, the LOAC titles occupy the lower portion of one shelf and the top end of the neighboring shelf. They're organized by cartoonist within the LOAC grouping: Caniff currently leads the pack, with Blondie (by Chic Young) finishing off the run. (OK, the two "Champagne Edition" books, Polly and Her Pals and Flash Gordon/Jungle Jim Volume 1, are out of sequence—nuthin's perfect! But those books are jumbo-sized, meaning they aren't likely to get lost in the shuffle.)

Some may wonder why Berkeley Breathed doesn't get the pole position in this display, ahead of Caniff; the eagle-eyed among you will notice our five Bloom County volumes are not present here. There's a simple reason for that: they're currently in my office, on my "To Be Read" shelf, because one of my goals is to re-read all of Bloom County during 2012. Once I've gone through the series, Bloom will take its proper place amongst our other books.

That's the view of my LOAC bookshelves, but we'd be curious to see what yours look like, too.

If you send us pictures of your LOAC books—with some explanation of how you organize all your books, if you're so inclined—they may appear in this space in a future installment, and we might have a wee token we can send you as a way of saying thanks.

Now, if you'll pardon me, I have to go clear some space. Gotta make room for Blondie Volume 2, and Steve Canyon Volume 1, and Cartoon Monarch, and…

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Tuesday, Jan 17th, 2012

Serendipity

posted by Bruce Canwell

As I mentioned to Dean shortly before Christmas, 2012 marks the fifth anniversary of the existence of The Library of American Comics. It was summer of 2007 when advance copies of our first release went on sale at the San Diego Comic-Con—I was in San Diego that year, participating with such luminaries as Eric Reynolds, Steve Tippie, Charles Pelto, and R.J. Harvey in a panel discussion devoted to The Great American Comic Strip. Someone in the audience asked what was going to be forthcoming from the publishers represented on the panel that day—because we didn't want to take attention from our first book, so I could only promise that person, "Our plan is to surprise and delight our readers."

I like to think over the past five years, we've done just that.

We arranged with Mr. Tippie and Tribune Media Services to be the home for the three "crown jewels" of the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate, and our Dick Tracy and Little Orphan Annie series continue to hold their devoted audiences. We've also become the home for Alex Raymond, following up his complete Rip Kirby with an oversized presentation of Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim. We've unearthed forgotten gems like King Aroo and Miss Fury, we've shed new light on old favorites like Blondie and helped breathe new life into the domestic hijinx of the Perkins (Polly and Her Pals), Yokum (Li'l Abner), and Jiggs (Bringing Up Father) clans. We've offered the 1960s chic and cheek of Williamson/Goodwin's Secret Agent X-9 while producing extensive biographies of Noel Sickles, Alex Toth, and Milton Caniff. We've won three Eisners, for Archie and Bloom County ... and for the book that started it all.

Exactly five years ago this month, Dean and I started work on Terry and the Pirates Volume 1, gearing up for that summertime debut. We had decided to produce Terry (the third of the Trib/News crown jewels) because we share a love for Caniff's timeless adventure saga, which remains an amazing work today, almost eighty years after its debut. We had no idea where it would take us—certainly not to an Eisner win!—but it's been a fun and sometimes wild ride, with lots of work and lots of laughs along the way.

And what will we be releasing this month but Steve Canyon Volume 1, and what could be more fitting than that? The truck below is bringing Steve Canyon to your favorite comics shop today; Amazon copies will be availble on the 31st.

Canyon debuted in January sixty-five years ago—January 13, 1947, to be precise. Its first week of continuity is still hailed as a textbook example of comics storytelling. For us, it completes a circle of The Library of American Comics's first five years—we started the period producing Milton Caniff's Terry and we finish it by releasing our 50th book, Caniff's Canyon. That's the type of journey any comics fan would find incredibly satisfying, a journey the twentysomething version of me, reading Caniff for the first time thanks to publishers such as Kitchen Sink Press and NBM, could have never envisioned.

We don't intend to rest on our laurels, of course. As I type this, I literally just finished doing edits on Cartoon Monarch, presenting the brilliant Otto Soglow and The Little King, with an entertaining and illuminating essay by Ohio State University's Jared Gardner. Be on the lookout for this wonderful release in March

There are other big, innovative projects in development, as well. We aren't ready to discuss them just yet, but our plan hasn't changed in five years—we still plan to surprise and delight our readers.

In the meantime, it's a Happy 65th anniversary to Steve Canyon, and a Happy 50th book to the Library of American Comics.

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Sunday, Jan 8th, 2012

2011: The LOAC Year in Review (part two)

posted by Bruce Canwell

Welcome back to our curtain call for 2011. If you've forgotten how great the second half of the year was, at least in LOAC terms, read on and remember…

JULY

LOAC was in attendance at the San Diego Comic-Con and was humbled (but mightily pleased) to receive the Eisner Award for "Best Archival Project: Newspaper Strips" for Archie Volume One. It was our first back-to-back win (Bloom County won in this category during 2010), and we had three total Eisner nominations during '11, our most ever.

San Diego Comic-Com time is also time for major releases, and this year we turned out the last of our Alex Raymond Rip Kirby run (Volume 4, that is), as well as a book we were all especially pleased and proud to release—Caniff: A Visual Biography.

There were somber moments amidst the euphoria: we said goodbye to our dear friend, Lew Sayre Schwartz, and while at the Comic-Con, Dean participated on panels honoring both Bill Blackbeard and "The Dean" of the classic Marvel Comics bullpen, Gene Colan.

AUGUST

Never mind M&Ms, Little Orphan Annie Volume 7 brought us A & A: Mister Am and The Asp!

This was also the month when we let the world know horizons were unlimited, because Steve Canyon was coming to LOAC in 2012.

SEPTEMBER

While we took a pause in our publication schedule, Jeff Kersten's family expanded by two as his and his wife Keri's twins were born. Dean and Lorraine jetted off to Paris. On our blog space, I also accurately predicted the Texas Rangers emerging as American League champions. Did I foresee the epic collapse of my beloved Boston Red Sox? Hey, even the highest-profile seers didn't see that one coming!

OCTOBER

Things went pearshaped and folks felt wormy as Dick Tracy Volume 12 hit the stores. The fifth and final Bloom County Library book was released, but don't fret, Berkeley Breathed fans—Outland will be released in 2012..

On this very website, we premiered Tracy's "Black Bag Mystery." We also announced Cartoon Monarch, our upcoming reprinting of Otto Soglow's The Little King and The Ambassador.

NOVEMBER

We took a deep breath before diving into December, though we did announce a second Bringing Up Father book for 2012. We were sad to mark the passing of Bil Keane, the respected creator of The Family Circus. On October 29th, a sneak-attack snowstorm swept up the East Coast and struck New England, leaving my home without electricity or hot water for three days. Good thing I was too busy to have done a grocery shopping—all I lost was one pork chop and one small steak when my refrigerator and freezer inevitably reached room temperature ...

DECEMBER

And so we came to the twelfth month, and what a month it was!

Secret Agent X-9 Volume 3 rolled off the presses ...

... Then Flash Gordon/Jungle Jim Volume 1 came out, proving that, contrary to the old joke, size does matter.

We announced that, thanks to popular demand, we were continuing to reissue Rip Kirby, with a volume featuring the work of John Prentice slated for 2012. We followed that with the very exciting news that we would be reprinting Percy Crosby's Skippy! Dean and I also began making appearances at the LOAC forum on IDW's website.

Finally, less than two weeks before Christmas, Chuck Jones: The Dream That Never Was hit the shelves and was a hit with fans of comics and animation.

And that's the way it was—major releases, exciting announcements, a big industry award, new babies we were glad to welcome and passings we were sad to mark. It was quite a year!

If you enjoyed this website and the LOAC line of books in 2011, keep watching this space. We think you'll like what lies ahead in 2012! It all starts in a week or so with the release of Steve Canyon Volume One!

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Sunday, Jan 1st, 2012

2011: The LOAC Year in Review (part one)

posted by Bruce Canwell

True, a "Year in Review" feature isn't the most original idea ever hatched, but hey, ‘tis the season! And certainly, during the past twelve months everyone at LOAC Central has been busier than Santa's elves, so what better time than now to take a deep breath and look back on The Year That Wuz?

JANUARY
We ended 2010 with a pretty fair one-two punch, publishing Rip Kirby Volume 3 and our first Champagne Edition release, the wonderful Eisner-nominated Polly and Her Pals. We began the new year with two new entries in our two longest-running series, Dick Tracy and Little Orphan Annie. Could there be a better way to usher in 2011 than by reading the introduction of Punjab and Mumbles?

This month we also announced our second printings of other sold-out titles: Terry and the Pirates Volumes 2-6, Tracy Volume 8, Rip Kirby Volume 1, Bloom County Volumes 2 and 3, Archie, and Bringing Up Father. It was—and remains—very gratifying that enough folks have supported LOAC books enthusiastically enough to make new printings a necessity.

FEBRUARY & MARCH
Bloom County Volume 4 was published, while Volume 1 migrated to the iPad, and we released our second Secret Agent Corrigan, to the delight of fans of Al (Williamson) and Archie (Goodwin)…including ourselves, of course.

APRIL
We bid a heartfelt farewell to Bill Blackbeard while also welcoming Jeet Heer's daughter, Bella, into the world. We announced the Chuck Jones project and produced our first-ever paperback, The Very Best of Dick Tracy.

Still, the highlight of the month was the release of our much-anticipated Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth. This book, two years in the making, was a project near and dear to our hearts. Positive reactions from readers and critics, as well as Alex's family and friends, confirmed we had produced a fitting tribute to Alex's immense talent and fascinating life story.

MAY & JUNE
We unveiled our plans for the oversized second LOAC "Champagne Edition" project, Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim. We then released Li'l Abner Volume 3 and a strip that was on our original 2007 list of projects we wanted to do—Miss Fury!

Sleek Miss Fury and feisty Mammy Yokum - talk about two ends of the Heroine Spectrum!

I'm tired after recounting all that, and we're only halfway through the year! Watch this space for the concluding installment of this 2011 LOAC Year in Review…

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Sunday, Dec 25th, 2011

The Kind of Tree We Like…

We're taking the week off and will be back with a Year in Review. Happy Holidays and Good Reading to all!

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Wednesday, Dec 21st, 2011

No Man is an Ireland…

posted by Bruce Canwell

You know the old gag: "I just flew back from Ohio State University, and boy, are my arms tired…"
I made a commando run to Columbus, Ohio, arriving at 11PM Sunday, December 18th so I could hit the beaches bright and early and make the walk across campus to the Wexler Center.

There, shortly after 9AM, I was stepping inside the cozy confines of The Ohio State University's Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum for an intense day and a half of research work.

It was a pleasure to see and speak with old friends Susan Liberator and Marilyn Scott of the Library's staff, and to trade a smile and a wave during lunchtime with the very-busy Jenny Robb as she hustled from one appointment to the next. It was also something of a mini-LOAC summit, since the Imperial Grand Poobah himself, Dean Mullaney, was also on site, accompanied by Art Director Lorraine Turner. We were joined by Jared Gardner, who was so instrumental in putting together our upcoming-and-very-cool Cartoon Monarch, spotlighting the wonderful work and career of Otto Soglow. Jared was on hand, working on Skippy; Dean and Lorraine were looking at Sunday proofs and tear sheets on a yet-to-be-announced project.

Me? I was there to make my way through almost a dozen boxes from the Library's Milton Caniff collection, digging for gold to support of new series of Steve Canyon reprints.

Were we all successful? Oh yeah, I'd say so! Lorraine found a very cool strip none of us had ever seen before, titled Girls—Dean was laughing and shaking his head in about equal measure as he made his way through the material he had asked to see—Jared was digging deeply, seeking to solve a mystery of Skippy's earliest days—and yes, I managed to find several new tidbits we can use in future Canyon volumes.

I know, I know—Caniff's life and career have been thoroughly covered, in a nine hundred page biography and our own 2011 Caniff: A Visual Biography. It's easy to ask, "What else is there out there that we haven't seen?"
The answer is—a lot! The Library's Caniff Collection encompasses 696 cubic feet of storage space, and it contains everything from the sublime (wonderful artwork and photos) to the ephemeral (do you want to see every vote readers sent in while choosing the film Reed Kimberly would show "The Crag Hag" in order to best exemplify America? They're all in the Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum—votes cast in typewritten letters, in hand-written notes, in post-cards, in a crayon scrawl written across the bottom of Canyon dailies torn out of newspapers. We'll show you the tiniest cross-section of samples when we run the "Crag Hag" story in Steve Canyon Volume 2—and there will be plenty of other juicy tidbits featured in that and future volumes, as well.

Equally interesting to me were the things that are not germane to Canyon, but still of interest to any comics scholar. Joking notes from Bud Sickles to "Pappy" Caniff (in one missive, the latter is referred to as "Uncle Miltie," because Sickles also attached a newspaper clipping featuring an unflattering snapshot of a horse bearing that name!)—letters to Caniff from his old friend, Al Capp, and from Chester (Dick Tracy) Gould, congratulating his peer on making the leap from Terry to Canyon. Perhaps my favorite find was an hysterical letter from Ernie Bushmiller tinged with profanity and building to a scatological conclusion. I laughed out loud as I read it—who knew Nancy's guiding light knew those kinds of words?

While time spent at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum is a comics lover's equivalent of a trip to Disneyworld, it is tense and tiring work sifting through the treasures. I went eight straight hours on Monday the 19th, never pausing for lunch or anything but the shortest of breaks. I was making my way through box after box, each filled with more than two-dozen file folders, each file folder packed with scores of artifacts, seeking to find items of sufficient interest to capture for our Canyon series. Which previously-unseen photos were worthy of use? Was one esoteric piece of artwork better than another? Were there letters or other written documents that should be copied for inclusion in the books, or should I simply summarize from them and make use of their information while writing future text pieces? That's a lot of skullsweat and eyestrain, believe me!

Of course, when teamed with Dean and Lorraine, it's not all hard work and no play. We were reasonably well behaved in Jared's presence, but while he was tending to his professorial duties at the University, we cut a few capers to make Susan and the Library crew either laugh or shake their heads in bemusement (or sometimes both at the same time). We were even willing to stoop to prop comedy—move over, Carrot Top!—doing our best Maurice Chevalier impersonations, using Lorraine's beret for inspiration.

Sadly enough for Dean and me, Lorraine topped both of us!

Monday evening we went to Marcella's—an Italian restaurant located between the university and the Columbus downtown district—for fine eats and to talk of the sweet mysteries of life (at last we've found them). Lorraine especially had a smashing good time, sending a water glass crashing to the floor, where it shattered into a bazillion pieces. Who hasn't done the same, somewhere along the line?

Tuesday the 20th was another full day of work for Dean and Lorraine, but a half-day for me: I had an afternoon flight back home to New England, so as Jared, Dean, and Lorraine broke for a slightly-late lunch, I said my goodbyes and beat feet back across campus. My hotel stands in the shadow of the university's mammoth football stadium and the OSU ROTC center.

I returned there, went back to my room to collect my luggage, completed my late check-out, and caught a lift out to the Port Columbus Airport, where I began the seven-hour journey back home.

So: a great, invigorating, tiring, fascinating, funny, illuminating trip; I am once again indebted to Susan, Marilyn, and everyone else at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum for being welcoming, helpful, and incredibly good sports. And yes, I just flew back from Ohio State University, and boy, are my arms (and eyes, and back, and shoulders…) tired—but it was worth it!

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Monday, Dec 19th, 2011

Walt Kelly on Percy Crosby

We just discovered a copy of this letter today and shared it with Joan Crosby Tibbetts, who had never seen it before. We reproduce it with her permission. Walt Kelly's words speak for themselves…

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Wednesday, Dec 7th, 2011

Skippy, at long last

posted by Dean Mullaney

Last year when I was preparing to head up to Ohio State to research the Milton Caniff artbook with Lorraine Turner and Matt Tauber, and Lorraine and I were continuing on to Michigan State to research Otto Soglow's career, Jeet Heer suggested I get in touch with Jared Gardner, a full-fledged perfessor at OSU who had written some phenomenal essays on comics history, including one on Soglow's pre-Little King strip, the Ambassador.

Little did I know when we met Jared that he would end up writing the biographical essay for Cartoon Monarch, our Soglow book, and that less than a year later he would introduce me to Joan Crosby Tibbetts, Percy Crosby's daughter and the keeper of the Skippy flame. Turns out she and Jared were engaged in a continuing discussion about Jared writing a biography of Joan's famous father.

Well, one thing led to another and as you can tell from the above cover, we at LOAC are extremely proud to start work on the complete reprinting of Percy Crosby's Skippy. Jared and I are co-editing, Lorraine is designing (judging from the cover, we've got a lot to look forward to!), and Joan is providing advice, suggestions, and full access to her father's files and artwork.

Percy Crosby sketching Skippy as his wife and children look on.

Long-time comics fans know of Skippy and his creator mainly from Jerry Robinson's 1978 book. In that book, Jules Feiffer gave us the memorable quote: "Percy Crosby caught lightning in a bottle and learned how to draw with it." Milton Caniff once marveled, "Boy, there's nothing faster than watching Skippy run the way Crosby drew him." Crosby was also heralded as "the greatest apostle of motion in the field of art" by Edward Alden Jewell, art critic of the New York Times. His artwork has hung in the Louvre in Paris, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, and the Tate Gallery in London, among other venues, but it's his work as a cartoonist, as the creator of Skippy—the philosopher man-child— for which he's best known.

Created in 1923 in Life magazine, Skippy moved to the comics pages in 1925 and soon became a sensation, published in 28 countries and 14 languages. In 1931 it became the first comic strip to see its film version win an Academy Award. Crosby continued writing and drawing the feature until 1945.

The strip, sadly, is not well known today, but we see in Skippy the spiritual ancestor to Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes, among many other kid strips. Percy Crosby influenced cartoonists from Charles Schulz to Walt Kelly to Garry Trudeau, and perhaps more than any other cartoonist before him brought philosophy and politics to the American newspaper comic strip. In the end, it would be his outspoken political and philosophical beliefs that would place him increasingly outside the mainstream of 1940s American culture, ultimately leading to his exile from comics and his forced incarceration in a mental institution for the last sixteen years of his life. As a result of his tragic end, Crosby's remarkable contributions to American culture have been largely eclipsed, until now.

We'll release the first book—all dailies from 1925-1927—next July. Dailies and Sundays will be in separate books. To whet your appetite, we'll run some Skippy strips every week until the book is published. Check out the dailies above. I think you'll find something familiar in Skippy pining for the "girl in the pink'n'red dress" (shades of Charlie Brown's little red-haired girl), and in Skippy's go-cart flying over the hill (what—no Calvin, no Hobbes?!)

I find the strip irresistable.

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Tuesday, Dec 6th, 2011

Just a month away

Next month we celebrate Steve Canyon's 65th anniversary by releasing the first volume in our new series. Just a few more weeks, folks…

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Thursday, Dec 1st, 2011

Because you asked for it!

posted by Dean Mullaney

Even before the fourth volume of Rip Kirby (that completed Alex Raymond's brilliant work) hit the bookstores, we started receiving letters from readers who hoped that we'd continue with the incredible art by John Prentice, who picked up the pen and ink duties after Raymond's death and continued it for decades. Prentice received three Reuben Awards for the series, in 1966, 1967, and 1986.

It's not often we can precede the announcement of a book with "Because you asked for it!!!" (with the obligatory triple exclamation points, of course!!!), but in this case, we can. Our Rip Kirby series will keep going next summer with Volume Five. Fred Dickenson, who had been writing the strip with Raymond, keeps the continuity going for Prentice's exquisite art. I've created a new cover design for the Prentice years since the four Raymond covers were meant to be a finite set. For those who haven't seen much of Prentice's art, the cover and the photo below it, speak for themselves.

Access to these original King Features Syndicate proofs insure that every daily will look even better than when they were first published in newspapers worldwide. Volume Five contains more than three years of strips, every one from October 22, 1956 to December 5, 1959, and sees the return of Rip's arch enemy, the Mangler.

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Saturday, Nov 26th, 2011

To Praise DOONES, Not to BURY Him

posted by Bruce Canwell

Long before I established my toenail-hold in this business I was a comics fan, and to this day I still spend a portion of my hard-earned dough-re-mi money on comics and collections from other publishers. I thought I'd take a moment to offer an enthusiastic thumbs-up for a mammoth volume I recently finished reading.

40: A Doonesbury Retrospective is even bigger and weightier than our books—those who have complained in the past that LOAC books are too bulky will want to stay away from this monster compendium of G.B. Trudeau's wry strip of sociopolitical commentary.

They're the only ones to whom I would give that advice.

I began reading Doonesbury in the early 1970s, probably in high school, which is when I first had regular access to the strip through the school's subscription to the daily Boston Globe. I know by 1975 I had plunked down $6.95 for the first "big" collection of the strip, The Doonesbury Chronicles. I was an avid Trudeau reader for several years and continued to buy the "big" collections through 1993's The Portable Doonesbury. And then I stopped, for any number of reasons—the strip had grown increasingly political at a time when I was becoming increasingly apolitical, I was no longer reading the Globe on a steady basis, demands on my time grew for many reasons, and it became easy to bid farewell to the whacky Walden crew. Then, earlier this year, I got the opportunity to score 40: A Doonesbury Retrospective at a bargain price. The time seemed right to renew old acquaintances, and I'm mighty glad I did.

While it's not like 40: A Doonesbury Retrospective is devoid of political commentary, the folks behind this collection have (very wisely, I think) made a conscious decision to focus on the characters, and as a result readers get to appreciate Doonesbury as our generation's Gasoline Alley. It was great nostalgic fun for me to go back to those early strips and watch the Walden commune take shape around Mike Doonesbury, the perpetually stoned Zonker, right-wing simpleton/jock B.D., and leather-lunged activity Mark Slackmeyer—the arrival of runaway-housewife-turned-feminist kicked the strip in one direction—the fictionalized Hunter Thompson-refry, Duke, yanked the narrative onto an entirely different (and significantly more combustible!) path.

What amazed me while reading 40 was how much I enjoyed the exploits of all the new characters Trudeau had introduced in the more than fifteen years I had been away from his work. He's reared an entire second generation of characters: Mike's daughter, Alex; Joanie and Rick Redfern's son, Jeff; Zipper Harris, that next-generation Zonker; B.D. and Boopsie's daughter, Sam; even Duke ended up with a junior version of himself, Earl (yes, that makes him "Earl Duke"). These characters either carry on the aspects of their elders while still clearly being separate and distinct personalities (a considerable bit of characterizational legerdemain, that) or they serve as a sort of walking alternate universe, allowing us to explore what it might have been like if one of the core characters had made different choices and grown along different paths.

A further hearty bravo is extended to 40 for capturing so many touching, emotionally honest milestones from the strip's long history. The deaths of first Dick Davenport, then his wife, former Congresswoman Lacey D.—Joanie's graduation from law school—J.J. leaving Mike, and then later, single-parent Mike finding happiness with younger, still-edgy-but-more-settled Kim—Rick's dismissal from the Washington Post, leaving him cut adrift in the rapidly-changing 21st Century, scrabbling establish himself as a political blogger. Call me a softie, but it all hit me where I lived, as did Trudeau's multi-year examination of the situation for wounded veterans of Iraq/Afghanistan. It's courageous storytelling starting in April, 2004, when original cast member B.D. faces a startling loss. Watching the life changes that stem from that one searing moment made for compelling, affecting reading. B.D.'s unfolding story was allowed to intertwine with a pair of new characters, two other returning vets—Melissa, who was sexually assaulted by her own fellow soldiers, and Toggle, the techno-wiz who keeps the tunes flowing until one day ...

I see Trudeau putting a human face (if a fictional one) on the cost of these "wars on terror" and it's to the mass media's shame that he seems to be the only one who was doing it. The "major" outlets were seemingly concerned with "embedding" journalists and getting sexy night-vision camera shots than with relating the real story to the folks at home.

By the end of this massive compilation, all three of those veterans have reached a good place again, and yes, I admit it, I brushed away a tear at the conversation between Toggle and Mike on the last page, reprinting the June 6, 2010 Sunday page.

Go ahead—call me a softie.

40: A Doonesbury Retrospective isn't a Library of American Comics book, but we haven't shied away from recommending projects from other publishers that are worthy of your attention and I'm here to tell you, regardless of your political leanings (or lack of same), this is a book that repays the reading.

Unless, of course, you're one of those who don't like their books to weigh too much…

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Monday, Nov 21st, 2011

No Turkeys Here!

posted by Bruce Canwell

Thanksgiving doesn't fall on the same day each year, of course, but this year on November 24th, we celebrate the Pilgrims and the Indians breaking bread. This seems a good time, then, to check out which comics readers would find in their daily newspapers on that date in years past.

This time, we set the Wayback Machine for another Thanksgiving Thursday, this one November 24th, 1938. Here are some of the strips readers saw when they opened their daily newspapers seventy-three years ago ...

Turkey and stuffing were on no one's mind in far-off China, but a newly-affluent Connie and Big Stoop were having misadventures of their own, away from Terry and Pat, in Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates:

The situation took a turn for the worse when they quickly crashed their new go-buggy into the limousine of the crafty Baron de Plexus. Our four heroic lads would match wits and fists with the Baron (and that ground-breaking villainess, Sanjak) well into the first four months of 1939.

Things were a bit grimmer in the American heartland. There, in a major Midwestern metropolis (Chet Gould's, not Clark Kent's), Dick Tracy was fighting for his life. Strapped into an iron lung, the relentless manhunter had been blinded and nearly killed by an explosive poison gas booby-trap set by the villainous Karpse:

It would take another month to reach play out, but Karpse would come to no good end, while Tracy would recover both his vision and his health.

In different part of the selfsame heartland, Little Orphan Annie and Sandy are with another of their temporary families for Turkey Day. And it's a happy household indeed in 1938: the elderly Mrs. Alden's dastardly tormenter is in jail and Jack the Truck-Drivin' Man is ready to propose to Rose Chance:

By week's end, however, some not-so-nice guys stop in for some doughnuts…but are baked goods and a cup of java really what's on the mind of their leader—the international criminal mastermind named Axel!

Events in Dogpatch offered a bit of a lighter touch, as Al Capp pauses his main story-line at a melodramatic point (Luke Scragg has just sold Salomey the pig to her worst enemy - a butcher! - for the princely sum of four dollars) to provide a stand-alone strip focusing on Pappy's holiday plight:

Li'l Abner was no place for tragic turns of events, naturally, so Pappy's peripatetic progeny saved Salomey from - err-r-r - hamming it up in Friday's strip. And readers were only a few days away from another treat - Abner's encounter with "Bet-a-Million" Bashby!

Here at The Library of American Comics, we wish you and yours the happiest of Thanksgivings—with no auto accidents, iron lungs, possible kidnappings, or atomized turkeys to mar your holidays!

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Sunday, Nov 20th, 2011

Soundtrack Now Available

posted by Bruce Canwell

Some folks like to spend time figuring out the best music by which to read a story; my brain isn’t wired that way. To me, books are books and albums are a musical version of novels—putting the two together is like mixing strawberries and hamburgers. Each is great separately, but you wouldn’t want to eat a strawberry-covered hamburger!

(And yes, I know the popular conception of music has migrated away from albums in favor of single songs mixed together into playlists…but you’ll pardon me if I’m not that much of a hip-hop-happening guy!)

Li’l Abner Volume 4 is one of those rare cases, however, where I can suggest some music you may want to listen to as you read the 1941-1942 hijinx of Al Capp’s cornpone creations.

The early 1940s were a tremendous period of creativity for Capp and there are some great storylines to be found in Volume 4. In addition to the infamous Gone With the Wind parody pages, inside this book you’ll find Salomey (and her zoot snoot and drape shape) menaced by the malevolent J.P. Fangsby—Aunt Bessie, Moonbeam McSwine, and some curvaceous cuties menaced by a strange nocturnal curse—Mammy’s culinary exploits in both Manhattan and Hollywood—the extended hunt for “Cherry Blossom” that is an oblique take-off on Citizen Kane—and, as they say, much more.

Throughout 1941, Capp was also dropping titles of songs into his text and now, thanks to the magic of the Internet, you can go to the popular music download sites and find those songs for yourself. I went to the most popular of those sites in order to produce this mini-soundtrack I can recommend to you:

“Between 18th and 19th on Chestnut Street” is the address Mammy rushes to in order to save Li’l Abner, who is unknowingly being robbed of his “Type X” blood. It’s also a hit song by Charlie Barnet, available on his collection Swing Street Strut.

In Capp’s fertile mind, the Andrews Sisters’s “Rhumboogie” was perfect for the name of a remote country populated by headhunters. There are several versions of “Rhumboogie” available; I’m partial to the one on The Andrews Sisters: 50th Anniversary Collection.

And The Flying Avenger’s encounter with Amapola is one of Capp’s sexiest sequences. “Amapola” was a hit for Jimmy Dorsey that had an extended run at the top of the charts – it was getting major play while Capp was creating the comic strips and it was still being bought and getting airplay when the finished cartoons appeared in the newspaper, many weeks later. Jimmy’s version is available on The Dorsey Brothers, but you’ll find many other interesting renditions by artists such as Xavier Cugat (The Best of) and Glenn Miller (50 Finest). I’m partial to the Tex-Mex version recorded by the singing cowboy himself, Gene Autry; if you’re curious, you’ll find that on his collection, The Last Round-Up.

And just in case you’re not inclined to spend your hard-earned dollars on 1940s music (not when you can be buying 1940s comics instead!), the major download sites typically offer you a chance to sample a portion of the songs so you can get a flavor of the sounds that helped shape some of the funniest strips to grace the newspaper page in the last months before America went to War.

And while the comics in Li’l Abner Volume 4 are plenty funny on their own, you may find this extra “You Are There” flavor will make them seem even funnier!

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Monday, Nov 14th, 2011

Of Cabbages and Kings

When our books hit the stores (and virtual stores, as the case may be), it's the final stage in a process that begins a year or two earlier. Here at LOAC, we sit down for weekly meetings to go over our production schedule and to brainstorm new projects. We all have a list a mile long that contains more strips than we have time to anthologize. For those strips that DO make the cut, it all starts with researching and reading.

In most of our books, we start at the beginning and present chronological, complete sets. Little Orphan Annie is a good example. In some cases—for non-continuity strips which use similar themes over the decades, we feel that a "Best of…" format is ideal. Think of the forthcoming Little King collection. With some strips—like Bringing Up Father—we decided that a hybrid approach is more appropriate: not a complete chronology, but also not a "Best of." It's kinda like a "Best of" chronology. The first volume presented what has been called one of the Ten Best Strip Stories of All Time: "From Sea to Shining Sea," which began on January 1, 1939 and continued through July 1940.

When the Powers That Be at IDW (namely our hero, Ted Adams) told us that the initial BUF volume sold well enough to continue the series, that's when we got down to some serious eye strain. Bruce Canwell, who edits BUF, started reading dailies in the mid-1930s, while I started in the late 1920s; Lorraine Turner got the choice job of reading the Sundays. Once we each finished, we traded strips. What do we actually read from? The first thing we do is scour the Library's stacks and see what tearsheets and clipped strips we have on hand; then we look through our collection of syndicate proofs; and finally, to fill in the gaps, we borrow what we can from collectors and spend considerable time at various universities and institutions.

To make a long story short, we came up with two chronological sequences that we particularly liked. One begins in 1935 when Jiggs tries to lose all his money so he can move back to the old neighborhood, ends up buying a movie studio, while Maggie runs for Mayor, and the saga continues through the end of 1936. The second starts in 1937 as Maggie and Jiggs make plans to attend the Coronation of King George VI (depicted in the recent film, The King's Speech…the coronation, that is, not Maggie and Jiggs's visit), follows along as Jiggs goes broke, and concludes at the end of 1938 when… Wait a minute, I can't give away the ending!

Which sequence will be in BUF 2? It was a close call. The cover says it all.

The funny thing we realized is that unlike all of our other series in which we move forward chronologically, with BUF we're moving BACKWARDS. "Of Cabbages and Kings" ends where "From Sea to Shining Sea" begins. And if things continue to go well, the third book ("You Oughta Be In Pictures") will end where "Kings" starts.

To lesson in all this? To keep the strip in the correct reading order on your bookcase, place the first book published last, and the last book published first.

Make sense?

I hope not.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Sunday, Nov 13th, 2011

Grab the popcorn and find a comfortable chair…

On Friday, November 11, our very own Bruce Canwell sat down with Scott Katz of US Townhall in a freewheeling interview that runs almost three hours. According to the Townhall website, "highlights include what promises to be the definitive version of Alex Raymond's classic comic strip Flash Gordon as well as Milton Caniff's masterpiece Steve Canyon.  And what's this about a book featuring Chuck Jones' little-seen brief foray into the world of comic strips?  Listen in and find out."

During the chat, they discuss the current status of each of LOAC's major book series and when you can expect the next volumes to arrive in stores.  Since Bruce is also a long-time comic book fan, the interview take a few detours to reminisce about some of his favorites from his formative years.

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Friday, Nov 11th, 2011

Steve Canyon, December 25, 1948

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Thursday, Nov 10th, 2011

The Proof is in the…

The only thing more exciting than seeing the proof for a new book from the printer is receiving the actual book a month later. This week is proof-time for Steve Canyon. It arrived late yesterday; this morning I was proofing it overlooking the dock and palm trees (life can be tough sometimes) before heading into the office. As I've mentioned at other times, we still check everything by hand. Depending on which book it is, here at LOAC the proofing is done by me, Art Director Lorraine Turner, or Associate Editor Bruce Canwell. On the other coast, Justin Eisinger and Alonzo Simon proof their own copy at IDW headquarters. We'd like to think that between all of us, we catch mistakes before the books are printed. Usually. Fingers crossed and all that.

Time to grab that cup and finish my coffee.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Wednesday, Nov 9th, 2011

Bil Keane (1922-2011)

The sad news today from Arizona is that cartoonist Bil Keane, whose Family Circus has delighted us for fifty years, died of congestive heart failure. He was 89.

Keane debuted The Family Circus in February 1960 and drew endless inspiration from his real-life family. Those endlessly curious, often too clever children and their loving, long-suffering parents captured the essence of the typical American family.

All of us at the Library of American Comics and IDW Publishing join his family in celebrating Bil Keane's life.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Monday, Nov 7th, 2011

Those Midnight Munchies

We just sent the second Blondie book to the printer. It concludes our two-volume collection that reprints, for the very first time, the earliest Blondie comic strips. Our first volume detailed Blondie and Dagwood’s courtship and ended with their momentous wedding. The comics in this book pick up the story with the young couple on their madcap honeymoon, followed by their attempts to settle in to a middle class life of married bliss.

In these strips, Chic Young introduced many of the strip’s supporting players: next-door neighbors Tootsie and Herb Woodley, the attractive Miss Teasley, Dagwood’s boss Mr. Dithers…and most important of all… Blondie and Dagwood’s first child, Baby Dumpling (later named Alexander) and their ever-loving dog, Daisy.

Young also debuts the familiar set-pieces that became visual reference points in the strip: Dagwood in the bathtub, Dagwood taking a nap on the couch, Blondie and Dagwood sleeping together in their double bed, Dagwood running to catch the bus, Blondie and Dagwood sitting in opposing chairs, Dagwood reading the newspaper at the breakfast table, Dagwood talking to Herb over the backyard fence, Dagwood running into the mailman, Dagwood getting berated by Mr. Dithers…and most importantly, Dagwood making a sandwich in the middle of the night.

Here it is, folks, the first midnight raid on the refrigerator, from August 14, 1934.

Needless to say, there's a lot more to discover in this indispensable look at America’s favorite married couple.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Monday, Nov 7th, 2011

Stuff Happens

Here's one of those subjects no publisher likes to talk about, but every audience member wants to hear about…

There isn't a single publisher in existence who wants to be late delivering their books—yet inevitably, every publisher ends up shipping something after its promise-date. The reasons for being late are many and varied. I'll let other companies speak for themselves, but here are the two major reasons some Library of American Comics projects are delayed: [1] we run into unexpected difficulties finding key material, meaning we have to go to secondary sources to search out missing strips and [2] paraphrasing Sparky Schulz's far-famed beagle, "Good grief, we're only human!"

In short, sometimes Stuff Happens.

The most recent Stuff that Happened to me was the rare October nor'easter that struck the East Coast on Saturday the 29th. As late as the 11:00 PM local weather forecasts on the Friday before the storm, we were told to expect the snow to start falling around 8:00 PM Saturday—au contraire! Around here the pasty, heavy white flakes started falling just after 3:30 in the afternoon; by 4:30 PM the roads and sidewalks were white and greasy (a friend, driving home with her family around this time, got into a moderately serious car accident as another driver was traveling much too fast, skidded through a stop sign, into the intersection, and then zonked—whammo!—into her car. No major injuries, but both cars were totaled).

By 7:30 PM, electricity went out in my home…and didn't come back for about three days.

It was an interesting experience, but not one I'd care to repeat anytime soon. No heat, no hot water, no way to cook food, the only illumination coming from sunlight during the day, flashlights or my Coleman lantern at night. That was the situation inside - outside was even freakier.

When I stepped outside Sunday morning, it was like a bomb had gone off in the neighborhood. The thick snow had landed on tree branches that often had not finished shedding their leaves, adding pounds of extra weight. Add to that increasingly-high winds as the storm wound down, and it meant many trees simply couldn't stand the burden. Huge branches had crashed to earth - or smashed down onto power lines, either getting tangled in them or causing them to snap altogether. A thin white pine in my front yard had cracked in two roughly sixty percent of the way up its trunk; I could see the individual interior wood fibers at the point of the break, looking almost like sheaves of paper.

Taking to the streets revealed an even more chaotic situation. Whole malls and shopping centers—normally bustling on a Sunday—were without power, doors locked, parking lots empty. Traffic lights were dark, making certain intersections an adventure to navigate. In each instance, the few gas stations open for business had cars backed up for more than a quarter-mile, drivers waiting to fill not just their vehicles, but also containers they would use to fuel snow blowers or generators. The other places that appeared to be jam-packed were fast food outlets - the ones that were open had no available parking spots, with cars snaking around the block, impatiently waiting to reach the drive-thrus.

I stopped at a local supermarket. The interior of the building appeared dark, but its doors were open, cars were in the parking lot, and customers were trickling in and out. I entered and found minimal lighting, but the scanners and cash registers functioning. The frozen food and deli sections had been blocked off—no power meant establishments like this one would be taking a sizeable loss, since thawing frozen food would be a total loss. "Eerie" is not too strong a word to describe the scene…and I'm told this was one of the lucky supermarkets. Some reportedly could not power their check-out stations, but opened for business on a cash-only basis, with extra employees on hand to manually record the SKU numbers of purchases in the hope (likely a vain one) of maintaining inventory control.

All in all it was almost the way Sherwood Schwartz wrote it, fifty years ago: "No phone, no lights, no motor car/Not a single lux-ur-ee…"

And of course, for me, the storm and its aftermath meant I lost a whole batch of time during which I expected to be able to work on LOAC projects. Will any of our books ship late as a result of my storm-tossed adventure? This time we dodged the bullet, in part because I worked at warp-speed to try to catch up once my electricity was restored in the middle of the following week. (Well, I worked at warp-speed after I grabbed my first shave and hot shower in far too long!)

But in a small outfit like LOAC, sometimes we have to accept the limitations imposed on our staff that are beyond anyone's control, and hope that our loyal readers will understand that, sometimes, Stuff Happens.

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Thursday, Nov 3rd, 2011

The launch date is approaching…

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Tuesday, Nov 1st, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 36: The End!

Here's the thirty-sixth and final installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them. It's still an open case, folks! Here's your chance to match wits with Dick Tracy: we encourage you to write your own solutions in fifty words or less. Please send YOUR solution by November 20th to info@loacomics.com. Don't look for any part of that twenty-five grand—the Trib gave that away more than sixty years ago! Instead, we'll print our favorite solutions here by the end of November.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Monday, Oct 31st, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 35

Here's the thirty-fifth installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end! Don't miss the final chapter tomorrow!!!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Sunday, Oct 30th, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 34

Here's the thirty-fourth installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

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Saturday, Oct 29th, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 33

Here's the thirty-third installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Friday, Oct 28th, 2011

Size DOES Matter

If anyone had any doubts that our Flash Gordon/Jungle Jim series was going to be big, this picture of Lorraine Turner— the book's designer holding her handiwork—will dispel them. We just received our advance copy from the printer, which means it should be in stores in about four weeks. Time to break out the champagne!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Friday, Oct 28th, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 32

Here's the thirty-second installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Thursday, Oct 27th, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 31

Here's the thirty-first installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Wednesday, Oct 26th, 2011

LOAC interviewed at Comic Book Resources

Kurtis Findlay (co-editor of Chuck Jones: The Dream That Never Was) and I talk at length with Alex Deuben of Comic Book Resources about Chuck Jones, Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim, Milton Caniff, and much more. Read it here!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Wednesday, Oct 26th, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 30

Here's the thirtieth installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Tuesday, Oct 25th, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 29

Here's the twenty-ninth installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Monday, Oct 24th, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 28

Here's the twenty-eighth installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Sunday, Oct 23rd, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 27

Here's the twenty-seventh installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Saturday, Oct 22nd, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 26

Here's the twenty-sixth installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Friday, Oct 21st, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 25

Here's the twenty-fifth installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Thursday, Oct 20th, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 24

Here's the twenty-fourth installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Wednesday, Oct 19th, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 23

Here's the twenty-third installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Tuesday, Oct 18th, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 22

Here's the twenty-second installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Monday, Oct 17th, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 21

Here's the twenty-first installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Sunday, Oct 16th, 2011

"Macon" Something Of It

Friends know I've been a Doc Savage fan since I was about ten years old, when I stood amidst the paperback racks at Day's Variety and decided to take a sixty-cent flyer on Bantam's fifty-fifth Doc reprint, The Golden Peril. That was no small gamble for my youthful self—after all, sixty cents bought four comic books back in those days! —but it turned out to be an excellent bet, since that particular adventure not only featured all of Doc's five intrepid aides, it also took them back to the country of Hidalgo and on to the hidden Valley of the Vanished for the first time since The Man of Bronze, the inaugural installment of the series.

It was, as we like to say today, a great jumping-on point, and I was along for the full ride: the ten-year-old in me remained sold on the bronze man and his friends through Bantam's ninety-six single-novel reprints, their fifteen "Doc double" collections, and their final thirteen multi-story "Omnibus" releases. The reprinting all 182 Doc Savage supersagas spanned four decades, from the 1960s to the 1990s, and I still think kindly of Bantam Books for seeing the project through to completion. Would any major publisher in the 21st Century show such dedication?

We'll likely never know the answer to that question, though a smaller publisher is busy once again reprinting Doc Savage, as well as the pulp exploits of The Shadow, The Avenger, and The Whisperer. For the past five years Anthony Tollin's Sanctum Books imprint has regularly released two, sometimes three, of Doc's exploits in "quality paperback-sized" editions that feature the pulps' original two-column format, as well as original interior illustrations by the likes of Paul Orban and the fantastic Edd Cartier; for the past five years, the ten-year-old in me has regularly seized control of my wallet.

Yes, once again I am buying Doc Savage reprints—it's worth supporting Sanctum Books as they keep the hero-pulp legacy alive, and even if I rarely find time to re-read one of the novels—"Someday," I always promise myself, "someday…"—I always find the "extras" in each volume of great interest.

Yes, like The Library of American Comics, Sanctum Books includes text features in each of their books. (They also occasionally run radio scripts from the title character's various broadcast incarnations, or pieces on their translations into comics format, or non-series short stories the authors placed in other outlets, but for today, my focus is on Sanctum's non-fiction text features.) Pulp historian Will Murray does the honors, and his work reflects his years of detailed research into the genesis and evolution of the hero pulps, as well as his unique position as executor of the estate of Lester Dent, the primary author of the Doc Savage series.

Imagine my surprise, while reading Will's July 2011 "Intermission" article in the forty-ninth Sanctum Doc Savage paperback, at realizing his work and mine had crossed paths!

That July release contained reprints of The Terror in the Navy and Waves of Death. Terror, Will informed us in his piece, was written in December, 1935 (though originally published sixteen months later, in April of '37). The story deals with a mysterious force that threatens to wreck America's naval forces, and Will points out that Lester Dent based this plot on the then-famous Honda Point accident of 1923, when seven American destroyers ran aground. Will gives an informative summary of the event, "the largest peacetime naval disaster in U.S. history," then goes on to describe three famous military air incidents spanning the years 1923 through 1935, during the period when America's military was making use of lighter-than-air dirigibles. Reading about the first two, the Shenandoah and the Akron, was intriguing enough, but I really sat up and took notice when I reached Will's description of the third wreck, the airship Macon. That was the disaster the Associated Press assigned their hotshot young artist, Noel Sickles, to illustrate for release across the news wire! We reprinted the image on page twenty-eight of our Scorchy Smith & The Art of Noel Sickles, and the artist himself remained proud of that particular piece, saying:

[The A.P. piece] I think most memorable was when the dirigible Macon went down in a storm in the Pacific Ocean. The word came in and I had two hours to do the drawing. A storm had forced it into the ocean and the impact had broken it in two. I had to figure out where it would break and what sort of rescue ships would be looming over the horizon. I picked cruisers. Interestingly enough, this did prove to be the right choice. The picture was the first drawing ever transmitted over wirephoto to papers around the country. At first the wirephoto people didn't want to send it, because it wasn't a picture, but it was sent and published on Page One of most newspapers.

The Murray article provides additional information about what forced Macon down on February 12, 1935; he goes on to say, "To this day, both the Akron and the Macon hold the record for the largest helium-filled dirigibles ever constructed. Only the equally ill-fated, hydrogen-filled Hindenburg dwarfed them." He also notes that "reverberations from the Macon disaster were still echoing when Lester Dent penned The Terror in the Navy." Could it be that Dent saw the Sickles depiction of the crashed and sinking Macon? We will never know for sure, but it's fun to conjecture…

I recommend Will's piece to anyone with an interest in the final voyages of the Macon, her sister ship, the Akron, or the earlier Shenandoah‚—and of course, I recommend the Sanctum Books hero-pulp reprints if, like me, you have an irrepressible ten-year-old inside you who would enjoy a little indulging!

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Sunday, Oct 16th, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 20

Here's the twentieth installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Saturday, Oct 15th, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 19

Here's the nineteenth installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Friday, Oct 14th, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 18

Here's the eighteenth installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Thursday, Oct 13th, 2011

A Big Book for a Little King

Otto Soglow wrote and drew The Little King for more than forty years. In preparation for the upcoming release of our Otto Soglow book, we had to read upwards of 2,000 Little King Sunday pages in order to choose which strips we felt were the most representative of his minimalistic genius. Think about it: we had to read more than 2,000 Sunday pages. Sometimes I have to kick myself in the pants: Does anyone really have a better job than this?

Sheesh!

The book, though, is more than just The Little King. It also presents every installment of The Ambassador, the strip Soglow created for King Features as a stand-in for the King until such time as his contract with The New Yorker (where Soglow created his diminuative monarch) ended. Soglow's career, of course, began before The Little King. As Jared Gardner notes in his lengthy introduction, Soglow was a man whose origins and political sensibilities were always with the working man on the street—and even the angry mob—but whose career brought him into the loving embrace of the most powerful men and corporations in the country, including most importantly William Randolph Hearst. Out of this tension is born everything we love about this cartoon monarch.

Here's some examples of what the book has to offer:

A 1933 ad, one of a series for Standard Oil.

An book illustration from 1930's Through the Alimentary Canal.

A King Features promo sheet for the strip.

A 1942 ad for Fleischmann's Yeast.

An early Little King strip from the New Yorker days.

A 1951 Sunday page.

Above: A 1958 Sunday—Soglow was still fresh and funny after doing the strip for twenty-four years.

Below: samples from 1962 and 1963 that show Soglow as a true master of the form.

And on that note…adieu.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Thursday, Oct 13th, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 17

Here's the seventeenth installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Wednesday, Oct 12th, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 16

Here's the sixteenth installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Tuesday, Oct 11th, 2011

Author! Author! (in the future, perhaps?!)

Bruce Canwell's been keeping you up to date on the great team of writers who contribute to our books. He also told you about the recent birth announcements of a Baby Heer and a Baby Findlay. Not to be outdone, over in Illinois on September 2nd, TWO -- count 'em, TWO -- more babies decided to say hello to this world:

Please join us and their parents Keri and Jeff (Dick Tracy) Kersten in welcoming Norah Grace Kersten and Halas Parker Kersten.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Tuesday, Oct 11th, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 15

Here's the fifteenth installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Monday, Oct 10th, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 14

Here's the fourteenth installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Sunday, Oct 9th, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 13

Here's the thirteenth installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Saturday, Oct 8th, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 12

Here's the twelfth installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Friday, Oct 7th, 2011

Author! Author! (again!)

Like most publishers of classic newspaper comics strips, we here at LOAC run short Introductions to many of our books. Sometimes they are informed observations penned by talented contemporaries—Jim Steranko's brilliant intro to Scorchy Smith & The Art of Noel Sickles stands as a shining example. Other times they are personal reminiscences from those who knew or loved the talented person in question, such as Mark Chiarello's heartfelt tribute to Alex Toth in Genius, Isolated, which earned high praise from Toth's children.

In addition to these introductions, Library of American Comics volumes typically feature long-form essays that seek to place the strip in question into biographical and historical context. Last time I inhabited this space, I tipped my cap to Jeff Kersten and Max Allan Collins, Kurtis Findlay, and Jeet Heer for producing the informative essays that help LOAC remain among the leaders of our field. But more than those four fine gents have contributed to our success, so this time around I'll continue to proceed alphabetically through this clutch of kudos for LOAC's wordsmiths…

Trina Robbins (Miss Fury) - Who better to provide a biographical overview of the woman cartoonist who created her own female superhero than Trina, who co-founded both the underground anthology Wimmen's Comix and the Friends of Lulu organization? Trina's career also includes a Wonder Woman one-shot (produced with respected artist Colleen Doran) focusing on the issue of spousal abuse—such erudite tomes as Women and the Comics, A Century of Women Cartoonists, and The Great Women Cartoonists—the further comic-book adventures of ground-breaking TV lady gumshoe Honey West—and other credits too numerous to mention in this short space. Trina has contributed to past Miss Fury reprintings, but in our case she served as both editor and writer, giving her the opportunity to not only share her insights into the life and career of Tarpé Mills, but also her available pages from Mills's never-published Albino Jo graphic novel.

Trina and Dean go way back. A 30-year-old blast from the past: the Eclipse Comics panel at an early 1980s NY Comic Con. Left to right: Trina Robbins, Marshall Rogers, Dean Mullaney, and P. Craig Russell. Off-camera on the left are Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty.

Maggie Thompson (Archie) - The story of Archie and his parent publisher is unique in comics history, a tale that spans from the pulps to comic books to the comic strip (and, later, beyond into television, music, and other storytelling and merchandizing outlets). Maggie Thompson is more than just the guiding light of the Comics Buyer's Guide—she is an important voice in the industry who possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of all three of the worlds that helped spawn Riverdale and let it grow roots until it became an enduring part of Americana. Maggie's work helped many new readers become conversant with "Archie's secret origin," and helped our Archie volume earn the coveted Eisner Award at this year's San Diego Comic-Con.

A page from the forthcoming Archie's Sunday Best, a compilation of selected Sundays by Bob Montana from the late 1940s and early 1950s. Look for it in March.

Brian Walker (Rip Kirby, Bringing Up Father, Blondie) - Comics may literally be encoded in Brian's DNA, since he's the son of fabled cartoonist Mort Walker, creator of Beetle Bailey and other memorable strips. Brian has followed in his father's footsteps, helping to continue Beetle and Hi & Lois in the 21st Century, while also producing literally dozens of books. 2010's popular Doonesbury & The Art of G.B. Trudeau is still earning praise, while perhaps Brian's most indispensible release is The Comics: The Complete Collection (a compendium of the previous two-volume set, The Comics Before 1945 and The Comics After 1945). Brian also founded The Museum of Cartoon Art and has served as curator for scores of exhibitions devoted to comics and cartooning, including a recent showing focused on Flash Gordon. Clearly, Brian takes a back seat to no one in terms of enthusiasm for the comics artform.

Dagwood and Blondie visit the Chicago World's Fair!

A roll call like this wouldn't be complete without mentioning Berkeley Breathed and his entertaining "commentary tracks" for our Bloom County reprints…and oh yes, I've been known to write a feature article or two for the line. I'm influenced at least in part by the great New Yorker essayists of my youth (can you call yourself a baseball fan without having read Roger Angell's Summer Game and Late Innings?), and I hope it's apparent that I try hard to entertain as well as inform on every project I tackle. It's a constant challenge, striving to equal the quality of material produced by this talented line-up of writers—but we all strive to produce text worthy of the creators and strips we're covering!

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Friday, Oct 7th, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 11

Here's the eleventh installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Thursday, Oct 6th, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 10

Here's the tenth installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Wednesday, Oct 5th, 2011

Author! Author!

There are no dummies here at LOAC Central (though I suppose some might argue that point, ho-ho). We know it's the immense talents of cartoonists such as Alex Raymond, Milton Caniff, Cliff Sterrett, and Alex Toth and the iconic series like Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon, Little Orphan Annie, and Blondie that attract people to Library of American Comics releases. Still 'n' all, we're proud of the introductory material we produce on a regular basis. While almost every publisher involved in the strip-reprint business offers some sort of text feature in the front or the back of their products, we consistently hear from diverse sources that our historical/biographical articles tend to go above and beyond the industry's baseline, adding real value and lending our books a distinctive identity.

We obviously enjoy hearing such praise, though on that score each individual reader comes to his or her own conclusion. What we do know is: the quality of our essays is a reflection of the quality of our writers. Here, then, is the first in a two-part salute to the talented instructors at the LOAC College of Comic Strip Knowledge—in alphabetical order, no less!—with a sprinkling of fun facts for good measure ...

Max Allan Collins (Dick Tracy) - Max has been offering his keen insights into Tracy's sprawling cast of characters and morally ambivalent world since the outset, pointing out how no one depicted weather better than Chester Gould and cautioning us that Chet paced his stories with readers of the daily newspaper in mind. Who better to provide such observations, since Max took over writing Dick Tracy from Gould, enjoying a run of more than fifteen years on the series. Writing is a family affair in the Collins household, since Max and his wife collaborate on a series of mystery novels under the nom de plume Barbara Allan.

Kurtis Findlay (Chuck Jones: The Dream That Never Was) - Kurtis is the newest member of LOAC's brigade of wordsmiths. A Chuck Jones fan extraordinaire, he found one passing reference to Jones's obscure short-lived comic strip, Crawford, and grew it into a jumbo-sized book that will delight comics mavens and animation buffs alike. I learned a tremendous amount about Chuck Jones from Kurtis's Dream essay, and this is my first chance to public thank him for his fine work - and to congratulate his wife and him on their brand-new (as of September 19th) baby boy—Milo Crawford Findlay!

Kurtis uncovered so much material that the book has swelled from 228 to 288 pages. Even with all that extra space, these two items didn't make the final cut. Some Chuck Jones extras for y'all.

Jeet Heer (Little Orphan Annie, Polly & Her Pals) - As you may remember from one of our earlier entries in this space, Jeet also welcomed a new addition (daughter Bella Elinor) into his family earlier this spring. Jeet sets the gold standard for comics scholarship—his work much in demand and appearing in not just LOAC's books, but in other strip releases from Drawn & Quarterly and Fantagraphics as well—and he is unquestionably the world's foremost authority on Harold Gray and Little Orphan Annie. Did you catch him on CBS's Sunday Morning TV program last year, in the wake of the announcement of Annie's cancellation in the nation's newspapers?

Jeff Kersten (Dick Tracy) - Since Volume 7 of the LOAC Dick Tracy, Jeff has been augmenting Max Allan Collins's essays with separate entries of his own that serve up a wealth of historical/biographical information about Chet Gould and his sharp-eyed sleuth. Jeff has long-standing connections to the Gould family, since he helped found the Chester Gould/Dick Tracy Museum and publishes the limited-edition Sunday Project that reprints Tracy Sunday pages in full color. On more than one occasion since Jeff joined our Dick Tracy mix, Chet's daughter, Jean Gould O'Connell, has contacted Dean to tell him how happy she is that her father's beliefs regarding storytelling, religion, politics, crime-fighting, and the business of comics are being accurately documented, sometimes for the very first time. There is no greater joy for Dean, Lorraine, and I than to satisfy the families and descendents of the fine cartoonists of yesteryear, and it pleases us no end that Jean offers Jeff her vote of confidence for the work he is turning in on Tracy.

Here's a great example of of what Jeff and Chet's daughter Jean add to series: Chester Gould's thoughts in his own words.

Believe it or not, we've only reached the halfway point of the LOAC writer roster! I'll be back soon with a tip of the John Steed-like bowler in the direction of our remaining purveyors of auctorial acumen.

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Wednesday, Oct 5th, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 9

Here's the ninth installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Tuesday, Oct 4th, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 8

Here's the eighth installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Monday, Oct 3rd, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 7

Here's the seventh installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! We're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Sunday, Oct 2nd, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Part 6

Here's the sixth installment of "The Black Bag Mystery" by Chester Gould! The first five appeared yesterday; we're keeping all previous installments uploaded so you can refer back to them to help solve the mystery at the end!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Saturday, Oct 1st, 2011

The Black Bag Mystery Parts 1-5

This month marks Dick Tracy's 80th anniversary! Chester Gould began the story of his intrepid policeman on October 4, 1931 and established him as the foremost comics detective—often copied and parodied, but never equalled.

The strip was so popular that in late 1948 the Chicago Tribune's publisher, Colonel Robert R. McCormick, asked Gould to create a serialized mystery case for Dick Tracy to investigate that could be used to boost the paper's circulation. Gould came up with "The Black Bag Mystery," in which readers were encouraged to submit solutions for cash. The Colonel staked the promotion with $25,000 in prizes. Gould wrote and penciled the strips and the syndicate hired another artist to ink and color.

The contest ran for thirty-six consecutive color weekday strips in January and February 1949—the only Tracy "dailies" ever to appear in color. It was a great success, netting the Trib 50,000 new subscribers and Chester Gould a brand new black Cadillac as a "thank you" from his boss.

The complete color strips and full details of the story are in The Complete Dick Tracy volume 12, which will be on sale this month. We're very grateful to Jean Gould O'Connell, Chet's daughter, for loaning us her father's personal scrapbook of these strips so we could scan them.

The syndicate hoped to duplicate the promotion in newspapers from other cities and so never published the solution to the mystery. It's still an open case, folks! Here's your chance to match wits with Dick Tracy: we'll run one strip per day every day this month right here! To kick things off, we'll start you with the first five today!

Check back every day to get the latest clue. After the final strip appears on November 1st, we encourage you to write your own solutions in fifty words or less. Please send YOUR solution by November 20th. Don't look for any part of that twenty-five grand—the Trib gave that away more than sixty years ago! Instead, we'll print our favorite solutions here by the end of November.

Have fun!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Tuesday, Sep 27th, 2011

Ooh-la-la

We recently received the second volume of the French edition of the Complete Milton Caniff Terry and the Pirates published by BdArtist(e) in Paris. While we were in France during the summer, we also had the pleasure of meeting Nicolas Forsans, the editor of the series, as well as the publishers (and art gallery owners) Jean-Baptiste Barbier and Antoine Mathon. It was well worth taking the metro to Montmartre to meet them and to attend the gallery's opening of a new show by the phenomenal artist Floc'h.

The iconic entry to the Montmartre metro station.

Laughing with editor Nicolas Forsans.

In front of BdArtist(e) Gallerie with Jean-Baptiste Barbier and Nicolas

Each volume in the French edition includes a delightful homage section in which artists pay their respects to Milton Caniff and his classic creations. Here are just four of these amazing drawings (if you want to see the rest, you'll have to buy the books!):

Serge Clerc

Françoise Avril

Charles Berberian

Floc'h

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Wednesday, Sep 14th, 2011

From Am to Ming, with a detour to the Emperor of Acme

The seventh volume of Little Orphan Annie has just hit stores. It brings us into the fifteenth year of the strip and introduces two of Harold Gray's most famous stories, each on different ends of the spectrum. In the cover feature, we meet the supernatural Mr. Am, who claims to be millions of years old and can bring people back from the dead.

The last story in the book is perhaps the most human, down-to-earth drama Gray ever wrote. It begins the saga of Rose Chance, her ne'er do well husband Ace, the truck-drivin' Jack who's in love with Rose, and Shanghai Peg, a man of mystery. The tale is Gray's longest to date and continues in volume eight. But for now, pick up LOA #7—you won't be disappointed.

• • • • •

Meanwhile, over on Mongo…it took us a little longer than we hoped to put the finishing touches on the first volume of the definitive Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim by Alex Raymond and Don Moore. But it's now at the printer, scheduled for an early November on sale date. Take a look at this Sunday: I think you'll agree it's worth the wait!

• • • • •

Returning squarely back to Earth—or perhaps the version created by the Emperor of Acme, Chuck Jones—my co-editor of the upcoming book Chuck Jones: The Dream That Never Was was interviewed on the Westfield Comics site, so check it out. The book is slated to be in stores late November.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Wednesday, Sep 7th, 2011

Autumnal Musings

Random thoughts offered up while taking a deep early-September breath…

From the "Go Westfield, Young Man" Department: We're all mighty thrilled with our upcoming Chuck Jones: The Dream That Never Was, and if you've seen the previews in this space (archived in the "Blog" section of this site) or Kurtis Findlay's site, you're doubtless thrilled, too. Add the folks at Westfield Comics to the "thrilled" list—they're preparing a feature about the book right now. Westfield's content editor, the estimable Roger Ash, is a self-described "huge Chuck Jones fan," and if you've read his coverage on some of our past releases such as Terry, Scorchy Smith, and Bringing Up Father, you're well aware that he knows how to conduct a great interview and put together a snappy hunk o' reading.

We'll let you know when Westfield's Dream That Never Was piece goes live. Meanwhile, check out Westfield, one of the many places LOAC's own Beau Smith hangs his auctorial shingle. Tell 'im I sent you!

* * * * *

From the "Seamheads Unite" Department: It's no secret I'm a lifelong Red Sox supporter, and I've been to Fenway Park for at least one game a month each season since 2001. Unless the injury bugaboo hits big-time, there seems little doubt this year's edition of the Olde Towne Team will be playing in the October postseason, and of course I hope they go deep into the playoffs and on to the World Series. Still, I must admit, I've had a sinking feeling all season long that the scary-good Texas Rangers may end up repeating as American League champions.

Yours truly during one loooong 2006 rain delay. I'm pointing to the red seat high up in the bleachers marking the spot where Red Sox legend Ted Williams hit the longest home run ever at Fenway Park. A fascinating man, Ted—Leigh Montville's Ted Williams and David Halberstam's The Teammates convinced me of the many personality traits "The Kid" shared with Alex Toth, and those parallels shaped a portion of my thinking as I wrote Genius, Isolated text.

* * * * *

 From the "Using Your Restorative Powers for Good" Department: Closer to home, I've been observing with interest various discussions/debates over whether hardcover reprint volumes should feature color restoration or fill their pages with scans of the originally-printed comics. What follows is strictly my opinion, arrived at based both on my work here at LOAC and from shelling out hard-earned dough-re-mi for many reprint series from our friendly competition (I have extensive runs of both Marvel Masterworks and DC Archives on my bookshelves as well as all the major and several of the secondary comic strip reprint volumes, plus a number of black-&-white reprint projects such as the current Creepy and Eerie Archives).

Simply put: I vote for restored color, every time.

My reasoning is two-fold. First, there's nothing sacred about as-originally-printed coloring and there never was. Too many comics back in the day were sloppily colored, or occasionally suffered from off-register printing problems, or simple snafus somewhere in the coloring process (which was much different in the pre-digital age than it is today, remember). Do I want to pay premium prices to see those glaring errors repeated in books that should be the definitive presentation of these classic works? No—no, I do not.

Second, since many of the works in question are decades old—and in several cases, as you know so well, we're talking material that is sometimes more than seventy-five years old—the condition of the source material being scanned "as is" can be questionable at best. A fifty-year-old newspaper section or comic book is not the same thing as that newspaper or comic when it was freshly minted and selling at the neighborhood newsstand or drug store. Further (yes, I admit this is a selfish issue), my constantly-tired eyes quickly get even more fatigued trying to extract the visual/textual information I've paid good money to acquire out of the muddy and decayed pages repro'ed in "scanned as-is" publications.

I'm a great believer in "different strokes for different folks," and I also acknowledge that a great number of factors go into the look of any book, meaning it's certainly possible for a "restored" volume to miss the mark, leaving it to some future publisher to present the "definitive" version of a given work. All I'm saying is that my preference is for restored material versus straight-scanned material, and if every archival edition produced by every publisher had to be all one way or all the other I'd opt for restoration, every day and twice on Sunday.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

* * * * *

From the "Spirit of Independence" Department: The bankruptcy and liquidation of Borders was certainly not welcome news for any lover of books and periodicals (and to a lesser extent, video and music). My town's Borders was located very close to my home, so it was easy for me to take a half-hour or so each Sunday and swing by to browse the magazine stands and the New Arrivals sections.

Despite that convenience, my preference has always been to frequent and support independent bookshops; as the years have passed I've been saddened to see one independent after another pulled down by the various market forces at play. Those doughty independent stores that continue to enrich their communities deserve all the recognition—and business!—they can get. If you have a particular favorite home-grown bookstore, please drop me a note at info@loacomics.com with store's name and address. If we get enough responses, I'll do a follow-up feature—if nothing else, it could serve as a handy directory of good places to visit if you're traveling for pleasure or for business, since roaming the stacks of a good independent bookstore is a mighty relaxing way to spend an afternoon!

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Thursday, Sep 1st, 2011

Coming soon…

The lazy, hazy, crazy days of Summer are just about over. As we stumbled into the Library this fine September morning, the cappuccino machine is making like a steam plant. This has been a good week for acquisitions. The early morning light has created delightful highlights on the stack of strips waiting to be scanned. I had hoped that Darby O'Gill would have taken charge of the Little People last night and done the scanning, but alas…they, too slept away the wee hours. So I guess it's up to us to start scanning these treasures so they can be assembled into books and brought to you in early 2012. As they say, it's all coming soon…

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Wednesday, Aug 31st, 2011

Keeping Your Head Above Water

While the media focussed its Hurricane Irene coverage on the coastal areas of the Northeast, Vermont—land of covered bridges, the country's most independent Senator (Bernie Sanders), the home of our greatest journalist of the 20th Century (George Seldes), and White River's Center for Cartoon Studies and Schulz Library—got whacked with severe rain and flooding.

CCS's books were saved thanks to the heroic efforts of staff, cartoonists, and alumni, but the building that housed the library itself was severly damaged, leaving the Schulz Library in need of a new home. CCS's Jen Vaughn gives the details at The Beat. We urge our friends and fans to help support this important comics institution.

Looking at the photos of the book rescue and clean-up reminds me of a time—twenty-seven years ago—when the small town of Guerneville, California, where I—and Eclipse Comics—lived and worked, succumbed to a devastating flood that ravaged the entire town and destroyed everyone's homes and personal belongings. We also lost the company's entire inventory of books and film negatives. Comics folk stick together, though, and just like the volunteers working through the night in Vermont last week, we gladly welcomed members of the northern California comics community who showed up in work clothes and waders. Here's twenty-seven-year-later shout out of thanks to Tom Yeates, Lela Dowling, Ken Macklin, and everyone else—especially Mark Evanier, who kept the deadlines from being missed—who helped save Eclipse that fateful February in 1984.

Back to the future, let's all rally around the fine folks at the Center for Cartoon Studies!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Sunday, Aug 21st, 2011

The High Renaissance of Classic Comics Reprinting

Back in the 1980s and early '90s, those of us who were involved in reprinting classic newspaper strips thought we had entered the "Golden Age" of such collections. After all, that wave of reprint collections brought many classics such as Krazy Kat, Terry and the Pirates, and Pogo back into print for the very first time. All of us—me at Eclipse, Fantagraphics, Kitchen Sink, and NBM—took advantage of the healthy Direct Market comics stores pipeline to produce a plethora of titles. But cycles play their course and times change. That "Golden Age" came to an end with the subsequent comic book bust.

So here we are at the beginnings of the 21st Century. What's happening now makes that previous "Golden Age" seem like a false start. There's no doubt that we are truly in the best period of classic comics preservation ever. As Tom DeHaven notes in an article in the current online edition of The Comics Journal, we're in a true Renaissance in that endeavor. "It’s as if a hive decision was arrived at among publishers," he writes, "to produce, once and for all, a comprehensive national comics library in print." DeHaven offers a fantastic overview of the field, concentrating on something we spend a tremendous amount of time researching: the introductory essays that place the comics in their proper context. It's a don't miss read.

Meanwhile, Genius, Isolated—the first book in our three-volume biography of Alex Toth—is featured in the Arts & Leisure section of today's New York Times. The online version is available here. Dana Jennings writes, "what’s most shocking is that the book’s cover shrieks Matisse—not vintage comics artist." I'm not sure what Alex would think of his image from "Taps" being compared to Matisse, but I'd like to think he'd be pleased. Bravo for Alex, I say!

Over at Scoop, this week's reviews include our latest five-pounder: Caniff: A Visual Biography. They write that we have "produced yet another spectacular, essential book for the shelves or coffee tables of enthusiasts of comics at their best."

So it's been a good week overall…a nice pause before the next deadline looms.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Thursday, Aug 18th, 2011

Auld Lang Syne

As Van Morrison has been known to say: "Take me back. Take me way, way, way back…"

I took a few days off from Library of American Comics business in order to return to the state of my birth, a hectic agenda in front of me as I drove up the highway. Some of my planned activities were very good indeed, such as spending an evening at my brother's home and the next day gathering with most of my oldest, closest friends…but I definitely set myself a brisk pace.

One planned stop was in my boyhood town of residence. I drove past the noted liberal arts college that resides in my former hometown, then parked and made a point of walking through the small mall on the town's main street, a mall populated by local, independent businesses rather than impersonal chain stores. It was like stepping back decades in time: the flower shop—the candy store—the bakery—and especially the repertory cinema were all still there, looking almost exactly as they did while I lived in town. I sat on the wooden bench outside the cinema, recalling the many foreign films (The Tree of Wooden Clogs and Kurosawa's Ran, among others), cult favorites (everything from The Producers to The Stunt Man), and classic movies (almost all the major Hitchcocks, Maltese Falcon, Korda's Thief of Bagdad…) I saw on the big screen thanks to this doughty little motion picture house.

Suffused in the golden glow of nostalgia, I stepped back onto the main street, walked around the corner…and promptly had the slats knocked out from beneath me.

I had planned to visit the local newsstand, which in many ways was the center of my universe while growing up. The awning still proclaimed DAY'S NEWS, and as I walked up to the entrance I contemplated spending a few minutes browsing, maybe even buying a magazine or two for old time's sake.

Instead it was dark inside and the front door bore a simple piece of paper thanking the loyal clientele as it also that the doors had closed for the final time on July 1, 2011.

I dumbly stared through the windows, looking at the loose fixturing lumped into piles on the floor. I stepped back, looking up at the familiar awning, then back through the windows at a very different reality, struggling to process what I was seeing.

A woman came walking up the sidewalk and I did something I almost never do—I pestered a stranger, asking if the newsstand was really, truly closed. "Yes, and it's very sad," she said, "but when the big bookstores are having trouble selling books, how can anyone make a living selling newspapers and magazines?" It turned out she was a librarian at the town's college, and we had a pleasant-if-wistful conversation. I gave her one of my cards and told her I likely wouldn't be doing the work I do today if it weren't for Day's News.

There was more than hyperbole behind that statement. In the pre-comic-store days of my youth there were four outlets in my hometown where one bought comics: a LaVerdiere's Super Drug (the place, as Steve Englehart wrote in Captain America #156, "that never takes its old comics off sale"), a mom-&-pop grocery store, a local branch of a statewide bookstore chain, and Day's News, which sported two—count ‘em, two—comics spinners and kept the Warren and Marvel magazines shelved immediately inside the door. Over time I bought literally thousands of comics there, and I thumbed through a lot of others I didn't buy.

More, the newsstand helped me become a better-rounded reader. Eventually I was buying The Sporting News there every week, Billboard or Cashbox when a story caught my eye, and eventually the daily Boston Globe. I plucked my first Conan and Doc Savage books from the paperback shelves that lined the back wall; I procured my first digest-sized science fiction magazines there (I now have over three decades of Analog and F&SF issues in my home).

I was befriended by the original owner of Day's News, Pete Ouelette. Pete sold the newsstand to other persons after I had graduated high school and was living in a different town; he passed away before 1990. Nowadays I recognize the ways his business dominated his life—he had one part-time employee to pick up the last three hours of operation Monday through Friday as well as the Sunday shift, though other than that he was in the store, working the till, rotating the stock, dealing with the distributors, sweeping the floors and washing the windows. No easy row to hoe. Yet for a number of years starting at age seven—yes, in the days before helicopter parenting, kids like me were allowed to walk or ride their bikes around town by ourselves—I pushed my quarters and nickels and pennies up onto the counter in order to claim my weekly comics, and I thought Pete Ouelette had an absolutely splendid job.

I've gone on at greater length than I intended when I started writing this piece—and I understand the wired, hustling, bustling 21st Century world is long removed from the period when I was growing up. But we should remember our debts to the persons and places that shaped our lives, because those debts are never fully paid.

So while Pete Ouelette and Day's News may have given up their place on main street, they'll always have their place in my heart.

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Tuesday, Aug 16th, 2011

Welcome to Our World!

Please join us in welcoming Bella Elinor Heer, the latest citizen of Canada and the world. She joined us on Wednesday, April 20th at 1:22 pm, weighing six pounds, three ounces.

The proud parents are our friends, comics historian and writer Jeet Heer and Robin Ganev. In this photo, the lovely dress Bella's wearing is a gift from Françoise Mouly and art spiegelman.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Wednesday, Aug 10th, 2011

Like You've Never Seen It Before!

I initially created the Library of American Comics in 2007 to publish my favorite comic strip of all time—Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates—in a definitive hardcover archival edition, with the uncropped dailies and the Sundays in color. Our six-volume series won the Eisner Award and reviewers have kindly stated that we set the standard for all future archival collections.

As everyone knows, Milton Caniff quit Terry in 1946 in order to create Steve Canyon, a strip which he owned completely. While valiant efforts have been made by others to collect the complete Canyon, none of them were complete. Equally important, each used the cropped dailies and reproduced the Sundays in black-and-white.

We're going to set the record straight by presenting Milton Caniff's biggest-selling strip in the definitive edition—complete uncropped dailies and Sundays in color, using Caniff's personal files of syndicate proofs (and in the few cases where proofs aren't available, his tearsheets). We're producing the series in a hardcover set to match Terry and the Pirates. As with Terry, Bruce Canwell is writing the historical essays, while I handle the edits and design. Each volume will contain two complete years. Everyone who enjoyed Terry won't want to miss this sequel—in some ways, Terry volume seven—in which the horizons are truly unlimited. The first volume will be on sale January 16, 2012.

Here are a few examples of the dailies as presented in previous collections—and what you'll see in our new series. I think you'll agree that the uncropped dailies best display Caniff's compositional talents. This really is Canyon like you've never seen it before!

Cropped version

Library of American Comics complete version

Cropped version

Library of American Comics complete version

Cropped version

Library of American Comics complete version

And if that's not enough to make you reserve your copy today, here are two 1947 Sundays, reproduced from Caniff's personal files of syndicate proofs.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Saturday, Aug 6th, 2011

The Hall of Fame

Included in the new Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide are pages honoring each of the 2011 inductees in The Overstreet Hall of Fame presented by Geppi's Entertainment Museum. I'm truly humbled to be among this year's inductees, along with Jack Davis, Martin Goodman, Marie Severin, Water Simonson, and Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson.

The official press release states, "The Overstreet Hall of Fame was conceived to single out individuals who have made great contributions to the comic book arts. This includes writers, artists, editors, publishers and others who have plied their craft in insightful and meaningful ways."

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Friday, Aug 5th, 2011

Horizons Unlimited!

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Wednesday, Aug 3rd, 2011

Coming January 2012!

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Monday, Aug 1st, 2011

"Nothing Short of Wonderful…"

Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth continues to garner rave reviews. Here are three more we'd like to share. The first, from Barnes & Noble Review by Paul Di Filippo. The second, in the Los Angeles Review of Books, by Howard Chaykin. The third, by Jeff Vaughn in Fandom Advisory Network.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Wednesday, Jul 27th, 2011

The Distinctive Taste of Champagne

Our Champagne Edition releases are bubbling up all sorts of interesting results.

The first of these oversized releases—Polly and Her Pals, Volume 1—is clearly the biggest, brightest reprint showcase ever to contain the antics of the Perkins clan. Jeet Heer and the crack Library of American Comics research team dug deeper than anyone has previously dug and the result was Jeet's lengthy biographical essay, presenting the most comprehensive look ever at Polly and the strip's creator, cartoonist Cliff Sterrett. Jeet's text presents readers with more information about Sterrett—his boyhood, interests, family, friendships, and background—than has ever been available before. The book's introduction, by artistic luminary P. Craig Russell, is the cherry atop the sundae.

The combination of Sterrett's brilliant Sunday pages, Jeet's prose, and Craig's insightful intro helped Polly and Her Pals earn two Eisner Award nominations this year…and our next Champagne Edition release looks to be equally special.

We're deep into the preparation of our inaugural Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim release, running Jim as the "topper" to Flash, just as King Features designed them to appear when the syndicate launched both in January 1934. The two strips have never been reprinted together in this manner for the span of their Raymond-era run, and they also benefit from the 12" x 16" Champagne size and the detailed color restoration work LOAC production personnel are currently doing.

In addition, we have once again succeeded in uncovering new, heretofore unreported information about the men behind the imagery. I've written seven thousand words for Flash/Jim Vol. 1, including the first-ever detailed biography of Don Moore, who provided the text that accompanied Alex Raymond's often-breathtaking visuals.

My features don't answer all the questions, as you'll see when you read them. We have, however, reached out to the pulp-fan community and been fortunate to receive invaluable research assistance from historian John Locke. Together, John and I pieced together a portrait that includes a U.S. Marshall in Iowa; a boyhood trip to London; the Sells-Floto Circus; a rebellion in the quaint little town of Cooperstown, New York; the befriending of Navy SEALS; and unfortunately, a tragic suicide. If a mix like that doesn't whet your appetite, you might want to check your pulse…

The first in our four-volume Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim series will be on sale this fall. Like Polly and Her Pals, it offers that distinctive taste of Champagne to LOAC readers.

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Tuesday, Jul 26th, 2011

Where there's a Will…

As usual at the Will Eisner Awards, there was intense competition in the "Best Archival Comic Strip Collection" category; in fact, we were even competing against ourselves—both Bob Montana's Archie and Cliff Sterrett's Polly and Her Pals earned nominations. As you can tell by the above cover, Archie took home the honors. It's the third win in four years for the Library of American Comics, and we appreciate the continued support from you, our loyal readers.

With the busy San Diego Comicon over, it's back to our drawing boards and computers. Deadlines loom ahead!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Tuesday, Jul 19th, 2011

San Diego Comicon

It's that time of year again so we're off to San Diego and four days of non-stop action. Whoo-boy, hold on to your hats.

I'll be at the IDW booth (2643) most of the time, so stop by and say hello. We'll have advance copies of our latest artbook: CANIFF. I also have a busy schedule of panels. Join Chester Brown and me on the Little Orphan Annie panel, 5:30-6:30pm, room 8. I'll also be on the IDW Special Projects and Imprints panel (11:00am-noon, room 24 ABC) talking about some of our upcoming books (Flash Gordon, Chuck Jones: The Dream That Never Was, and more!).

I'm also privileged to participate in two panels very dear and important to me.

On Friday, I will help pay tribute to the beloved Gene Colan (noon-1:00pm, room 24ABC), joining Marv Wolfman, Roy Thomas, Glen David Gold, Andrew Farago, and Mark Evanier. Gene and I first worked together way back in 1979 when he pencilled (and Tom Palmer inked) Steve Gerber's Stewart the Rat graphic novel.

On Saturday I have the pleasure to get together with Jenny Robb, Gary Groth, Trina Robbins, and Andrew Farago to commemorate our great friend, Bill Blackbeard (11:30am-12:30pm, room 24ABC).

I'll also be at the Eisner Awards among friends, including the ever lovely Diana Schutz, and Ted Adams and the IDW gang. LOAC's s nominated for three awards: Polly and Her Pals and Archie are pitted against each other in the Best Archival Comic Strip category, and Lorraine Turner and yours truly are nominated for Best Publication Design for Polly.

See you there, folks!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Friday, Jul 8th, 2011

Cat Fights Now in Color

Our new Miss Fury: Sensational Sundays release represents not only a benchmark in The Library of American Comics's history, but proof of why this is the golden age of comic strip reprints.

Back in 2007, when Dean and I were launching LOAC, we kicked around a number of titles we'd like to reprint, and Miss Fury was on that list. The first female costumed hero created by a female cartoonist? That seemed worth re-introducing to modern-day audiences. Personally, I was intrigued by Tarpé Mills's story, and charmed by the work I had already seen—earlier that year, a company had released black-&-white reprinting of the comic book reprints of the divine Miss F., informing us that "each panel has been slightly altered to fingerprint this [2007] edition."

A page from the 2007 reprinting of Miss Fury# 3, formatted for comic books in the 1940s, then further "fingerprinted" for the 2007 collection.

Now, four years later, here we are, with Miss Fury almost always in full "living color" (as the major TV networks used to love bragging during my boyhood), just as she appeared in the newspapers of the 1940s. No messy fingerprints, no re-edited versions…the pure strip—with all its adventure, gentle kinkiness, and high fashion intact—just the way Tarpé Mills created it.

The same page as it originally appeared in the newspapers—you'll find it on page 15 of our Miss Fury: Sensational Sundays.

That LOAC and its friendly competitors are able to release such material, and that you continue to enthusiastically support it, helps prove that together, we're forging that strip reprint Golden Age I mentioned earlier.

Here's hoping you enjoy Miss Fury as much as I did!

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Tuesday, Jul 5th, 2011

Remembering Lew Sayre Schwartz

There are tears in my eyes as I begin this, a notice I would wish never to write.

Lew Sayre Schwartz has passed away at age eighty-four.

I read the headline; it took me several moments to realize the loud, sorrowful cry filling the room was my own. As I type this sentence, I am three hours away from a week-long trip abroad, and I had a long list of things to do before driving to the airport. A key item on my list was to call Lew and arrange a time when we could next get together.

We had spoken in May and I was rushing against a deadline, and Lew said he needed one of our Rip Kirby volumes, so I told him I would get that for him, then come out for a visit as soon as I got the book and delivered the piece I was writing.

I have the book and I met the deadline, but it hurts me so, so much to know I'm too late for the visit.

* * * * *

Lew with Batton Lash at the San Diego Comicon

Lew found us through the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at Ohio State. He had acquired our first Terry and the Pirates releases and contacted Jenny Robb at the Cartoon Library, asking her if she had contact information for us. Jenny passed his message along to Dean and after a few exchanges of e-mails and phone calls, in the process learning that Lew resided in a town slightly more than an hour's drive from where I live, Dean and I got together to make our first trip to Lew's.

He and his wife Barbara were welcoming and gracious, the perfect hosts in every way. Lew showed us the adaptation of Moby Dick he had created with Dick Giordano, and was generous in praising our efforts on Terry, and delighted to hear about our then-upcoming Scorchy Smith and The Art of Noel Sickles. He shared with us his own collection of Sickles material, accumulated through the years, and he loaned us a copy of his 1981 film tribute to Milton Caniff, Reflections of an Armchair Marco Polo, which is must-viewing for any Caniff devotee. It had Dean and me babbling excitedly to one another after we had each had the opportunity to view it. More than a year later, while writing the final essay for Terry Volume 6, the closing narration from Reflections, which Lew had written for Walter Cronkite to deliver, seemed the perfect coda. After he saw the book in early 2009, Lew never failed to tell me how much enjoyment he took in having the final word, as it were, in our series. It was my great pleasure to give it to him.

After that initial visit, I phoned Lew often and visited his and Barbara's home close to a half-dozen times, breaking bread with them on two occasions. Whenever I walked through their door I was treated with kindness and I learned a great deal, as Lew told stories from his days at King Features and his later work in film. He passed along anecdotes from his face-to-face encounters with the Caniffs, Raymonds, and Sickleses of the comic strip firmament; he showed me the works he had collected by the likes of Roy Crane. I would bring him our latest releases, and he was always unfailing in his praise of our work. During another visit, either in fall of 2009 or springtime of 2010, Lew surprised me with a gift of his own—a copy of DC's hardcover Batman Annuals reprints, which included stories he had drawn in his days as the first of Bob Kane's ghost artists. A connection to Batman is another thread Lew and I shared, since I wrote a handful of Bat-stories in the late 1990s. He was always proud of the fact no less a talent than Eddie Campbell publicly praised his Batman work, and it is fitting that Eddie produced the industry's tribute to Lew, which can be found here.

Lew Sayre Schwartz was a fine artist and writer, an award-winning filmmaker, and an enthusiastic ambassador for the comics. But first and foremost, I think of Lew Sayre Schwartz as the warm and funny and thoroughly delightful man I have been proud to call my friend.

And now I feel the tears coming again, so before my view of the screen becomes a total blur, I'll say, "Safe passage, Lew—I know Bud and Pappy and Roy are mighty glad to see you again."

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Friday, Jul 1st, 2011

Chuck Jones: The Dream That Never Was

We all harbor a secret wish that we could find a previously unseen project by one of the greatest figures in animation history.

Well, wish no more—celebrating the 2012 centennial of Chuck Jones's birth, we at the Library of American Comics will unveil Chuck Jones: The Dream That Never Was.

The Academy Award-winning director of "Duck Amuck,"  "What's Opera, Doc," "How The Grinch Stole Christmas," and other timeless classics, created dozens of cartoon characters throughout his decades-long career: Pepé Le Pew, Marvin the Martian, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote...and Crawford, an accident prone, nine-year-old boy whose daily routine includes surviving his own boyhood.

Chuck Jones: The Dream That Never Was follows the twenty-seven year journey it took Jones to bring "Crawford" to the public, from conception to storyboard to newspaper strip. This incredible volume is loaded with never-before-seen sketches, drawings, storyboards and production notes, and the six-month run of the Crawford newspaper comic strip from 1978. Accompanying the artwork is a biography of Chuck Jones's career in the sixties and seventies and how it influenced the creation of Chuck's only foray into the world of comic strips.

The book will reproduce twenty-six pages of rare storyboards, such as these!

Produced with the full coöperation of the Chuck Jones family, the book was conceived by Kurtis Finday, who says, "My first surprise when I started researching the Crawford comic strip was how little people knew about it. My second surprise was the treasure trove of Chuck Jones art we would find. Crawford just kept popping up in places I didn't expect, making the history of this little-known character incredibly rich." The book is edited by Findlay and Dean Mullaney, and designed by Lorraine Turner.

Here are several of Chuck Jones's sketches:

The original artwork for two of his daily strips:

And one of his Sunday color guides for the engravers:

And these are just a handful of samples of what's in the book. Chuck Jones: The Dream That Never Was is a dream come true in that almost all the art is being reproduced from Chuck Jones's originals! It is a gold mine of previously unknown artwork that is a must for all fans of animation and comics. This hardcover archival edition will be released in November.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Thursday, Jun 23rd, 2011

Can Never Get Enough

Canifff: A Visual Biography will be on sale in about a month. To hold you over, here are a few more goodies we uncovered. The Dragon Lady color piece is an online extra that didn't make it in the printed book. This is one of the specialty drawings that Caniff had printed one hundred or so at a time. He would then watercolor them for fans who requested drawings.

Here's a party we all wish we could time-travel to: a 1948 comic strip costume ball.

Here's a Sunday page that's not only a classic, but shows how Caniff created the half-page format. He drew the Sundays in tabloid format, then had the panels photostatted and pasted on a horizontal board. Then, either he or one of his assistants would fill in the art to the left and right. The paste-up lines on this original artwork have darkened over the years, giving us a clearer view of the process.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Saturday, Jun 18th, 2011

Utilitarian? Maybe. Hooded? No Longer!” (part three of three)

The Hooded Utilitarian website is gathering votes to name the top ten favorite comics of all time. I've narrowed the focus of their request for ten-best lists to this concept:

Which works would I select as the top representatives of the artform, works that resonate with seasoned readers within the medium yet can also serve "hook" a comics neophyte?

Feel free to use our archives to see the first seven selections on my list, which I'm rolling out alphabetically by creator—or, if you're the devil-may-care type, simply dive in to see my final three choices…

8) Hadashi no Gen, by Keiji Nakazawa

Better known here in America as Barefoot Gen, this "cartoon story of Hiroshima" portrays Japanese life before, during, and after the atomic bombing of that city, which helped end the Second World War. Nakazawa lived through that event as a seven-year-old boy, and his anti-war message still rings true today, while Japan's contemporary nuclear trouble in the wake of earthquake and tsunami destruction, remind us that though circumstances differ, history's mistakes Are endlessly repeated by those who fail to learn from them.

9) Maus, by Art Spiegelman

What can I say about Spiegelman's masterwork that has not been better said before? Like Gen, Maus is an account of the harrowing nature of war (this time, the Nazi pogroms of WW II); it is also the story of the often-strained relationship between a father and his son. It's a powerful work, one that has subsequently been taught in high school and university curricula and won numerous awards, most prestigious among them the Pulitzer Prize.

It seems impossible to fathom a "Best Comics" list of any sort that does not include Maus on it.

10) Calvin & Hobbes, 1985 - 1995, by Bill Watterston  

Newspapers had shrunk the comic strips to postage-stamp size, and the common complaint was that there was no room left for sufficient lettering to tell a nuanced story, or to provide artwork that was much more advanced than stick figures.

Then Bill Watterson gave us Calvin and Hobbes and showed us all that the daily comic strip was still breathing, though it took an uncommon talent like his to sustain it.

The storytelling in Calvin is so deftly assured, the characters so believable and endearing, the situations so inspired, it is impossible for me to conceive of the person who does not love Calvin and Hobbes. What I'm now hoping is that enough voters will remember this outstanding strip when they make their selections ...

If you haven't already visited The Hooded Utilitarian, you'll find full details about their Top Ten project here.

It'll be interesting to see the contents of the final list, won't it? As the old saying goes: time will tell…

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Wednesday, Jun 15th, 2011

R.I.P., Rip

We're both thrilled and saddened that Rip Kirby Volume 4 will be on sale soon. Thrilled because…well, who isn't thrilled to see more than two-and-a-half years of Alex Raymond art! Saddened because it's the final volume collecting Raymond's post-war modernist classic. In the course of producing the series, we borrowed photos from the daughter of Ray Burns, Raymond's assistant. We didn't have room for them all in the printed series so offer a couple here as an online bonus—two staged publicity shots of Raymond and Burns listening to the baseball game on the radio.

Raymond's tragic death in 1956 left his final story unfinished. It was completed by John Prentice, who continued the strip for decades to come. Here's a sample of Prentice's work from October 1956.

And because we're especially proud of our sequential cover designs, here they are—all four together, starting with the titular character all by his lonesome—then joined by one new character per cover.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Saturday, Jun 11th, 2011

Utilitarian? Maybe. Hooded? No Longer! (part two of three)

The Hooded Utilitarian website is gathering votes to name the top ten favorite comics of all time. I've narrowed the focus of their request for ten-best lists to this concept:

Which works would I select as the top representatives of the artform, works that resonate with seasoned readers within the medium yet can also serve "hook" a comics neophyte?

Feel free to plunge headlong into the middle four choices on my "alphabetical-by-creator list…"

4) The Dreamer, by Will Eisner

If Eisner gets his deserved spot on the H.U. list, it will likely be for his most popular creation, The Spirit, or his ground-breaking first graphic novel, A Contract with God. I yield to no one in my admiration for both, and I admit The Dreamer is a dark horse (as opposed to a Dark Horse) candidate for inclusion. Still, I view it as an underappreciated part of Eisner's body of work, one deserving of more attention. Fiction tinged with autobiography, The Dreamer is, as Eisner said in his foreword, "an examination of hope and ambition. The events take place during a time when cartoonists found themselves on fallow ground, the dawn of the modern comic book industry during the mid-1930s." By extension, this story is our story, and who better to tell it than Eisner?

5) Tintin in Tibet, by Hergé

Of all the various comics-based movies, the one that genuinely interests me is the upcoming Tintin motion picture. Though more popular in Europe than Stateside, Hergé and his intrepid boy reporter have a broad-based appeal that puts them on my Top list.

Of the many delightful Tintin exploits, I selected In Tibet because it features Tintin propelling himself, Snowy, and Captain Haddock to the most remote place on earth on the most noble of quests: to aid a friend in trouble. Along the way there are hardships imposed by the environment, a touch of Eastern mysticism, and even a Yeti. Like Barks, Hergé's work has kept its appeal across the generations; may the movie point a new audience to his work!

6) The Dark Knight Returns, by Frank Miller with Klaus Janson and Lynn Varley

Superheroes got me reading comics (The Fantastic Four still hold a special place in my heart), Dean and I used to letterhack in the pages of the same 1970s Marvel Comics, and I've even written some superhero comics; some of 'em, like The Gauntlet, (with artist Lee Weeks) were even published.

 The Dark Knight Returns is hardly a perfect superhero comic, but it is perhaps Frank Miller's most fully-realized work. The extensive coverage it received during its initial publication is pointed to as a key milestone in changing the media's portrayal of the art form from "biff-pow-bam" to "comics have grown up." Its sensibilities have touched every major Batman project to follow, in every medium—comics, animation, film.

All of that is well and good, but I'll offer up Dark Knight Returns for another reason, one I've yet to see bandied about in all the discussion it has generated - endings are the toughest thing to get right, and Miller has misfired in the denouement of more than one of his stories. Yet in Dark Knight Returns, Miller gets the ending Exactly Right, both within the confines of his story and under the umbrella of the overarching, decades-spanning Batman mythos. It's practically impossible to envision a better ending for Bruce Wayne than Miller provides here. No small achievement, that.

7) From Hell, by Alan Moore/Eddie Campbell

Everyone has a favorite Alan Moore-penned tale, and it would have been easy to select Swamp Thing or Watchmen or V for Vendetta or any of another half-dozen works for my contributions to the H.U. balloting. I selected From Hell in part because it asks its audience to be smart in their reading, in part because it's been so assiduously researched and developed, in part because Eddie Campbell's work is one of comics' special treasures. Once one has read From Hell, does one need to read any other tale of Jack the Ripper?

If you haven't already visited The Hooded Utilitarian, you'll find full details about their Top Ten project here.

Next installment: my final three picks.

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Wednesday, Jun 8th, 2011

Hmmm, these guys look familiar

Al Williamson enjoyed using friends and fellow artists as models for specific characters in X-9: Secret Agent Corrigan. But nowhere in the strip does the in-joke get better than in this sequence from September 1974. Corrigan is, of course, Al. Enrique is writer Archie Goodwin, Al's co-conspirator on the strip. The guys were having fun with this one!

This story, as well as many others, will be in X-9: Secret Agent Corrigan volume 3, to be released later this year.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Saturday, Jun 4th, 2011

Utilitarian? Maybe. Hooded? No Longer!

Rob Martin refers to The Hooded Utilitarian as, "…a website devoted to cultural criticism with an emphasis on comics." Right now, H.U. is in the process of gathering lists which will turn into votes which will turn into an early-August countdown of the top vote-getters in H.U.'s effort to name the top ten favorite comics of all time. The invitation to vote puts it this way (emphasis mine):

The specific question of the poll is this: What are the ten comics works you consider your favorites, the best, or the most significant? …Your list may include any newspaper strips, comic-book series, graphic novels, manga features, web comics, editorial cartoons, and single-panel magazine cartoons. These works can be from any country of origin. Please do not include an entry that has yet to be published.

Now, those are a pretty wide-open set of criteria; that is perhaps a good thing for this type of effort, which wants to be as inclusive as possible. In compiling my list, I narrowed the focus a bit, arriving at this concept:

Which works would I select as the top representatives of the artform, works that resonate with seasoned readers within the medium yet can also serve "hook" a comics neophyte?

I'll take the rest of this message and my next two to show you my list and the thinking behind each selection. Since Rob isn't asking for the list to be ranked, I'm rolling out my selections alphabetically by creator. May I have the envelopes, please…?

1) The single-panel magazine cartoons of Charles Addams (The New Yorker)

He's creepy, he's spooky, he's positively ooky—but Chas. Addams gave us far more than The Addams Family, though of course they are, of themselves, quite a deliciously wicked creative accomplishment. His spot cartoons were sometimes bittersweet (two unicorns, stranded on a rock, the ocean waves lapping ever higher as Noah's Ark sails away), sometimes wistful (the lonely lighthouse keeper who finds a valentine washed up on shore), yet consistently entertaining. Here's a typically nefarious Addams cartoon…

2) "Back to the Klondike," featuring Uncle $crooge, by Carl Barks (from Four Color # 456)

Will the Thelma & Louise effect strike again? Barks told so many fine stories, it will be interesting to see if his votes become so diluted across his oeuvre that he ends up omitted from the final H.U. list. I hope that turns out to be not the case, because certainly The Duck Man has charmed generations of readers with his well-wrought, thoroughly-researched tales.

I selected "Back to the Klondike" because its Alaska gold rush setting shows Barks's attention to historical detail and also offers real character growth, plus an ill-fated love gone wrong, hinting that $crooge is a deeper, more complex personality than we're used to seeing within Disney stable.

3) Terry and the Pirates, 1934 - 1946, by Milton Caniff (distributed by the Chicago Tribune New York Daily News Syndicate)

Accuse me of tooting the LOAC horn if you must, but who can dispute that Caniff's sprawling saga meets the criteria I used to compile my list? Many a seasoned comics reader agrees that Terry represents the pinnacle of daily adventure strips; Dean and I both know persons with no ties to the medium who've started reading the exploits of Terry Lee and his many cohorts, look up long enough to remark, "Saa-a-ay…his is pretty good!", then eagerly dive back in for more. Terry is a glorious achievement, and it will be a grave disappointment—not necessarily a surprise, but a disappointment—if it fails to make the H.U. list.

If you haven't already visited The Hooded Utilitarian, you'll find full details about their Top Ten project here.

Next installment: my next four picks.

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Wednesday, Jun 1st, 2011

Out of the Box

After thirty-four years in the publishing business, there's still no greater thrill than opening that first box from the printer containing advance copies of new books. Here's what our friendly FedEx delivery guy brought us today: Miss Fury and Li'l Abner 3. Both will be in stores by the end of the month.

Excuse me for now—I've got some fun reading to do!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Monday, May 30th, 2011

A Memorial Day Observance

In honor of Memorial Day and all that it stands for, we offer Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates Sunday from October 17, 1943, popularly known as "The Pilot's Creed," that was read into the Congressional Record the following day. This is Caniff's hand-watercolored guide for the engravers.

posted by Dean Mullaney

posted by Bruce Canwell

posted by Lorraine Turner

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Saturday, May 21st, 2011

STILL Talkin' Toth

Bruce Canwell sat down with Alex Dueben at Comic Book Resources for a fascinating in-depth discussion about Alex Toth and our process of researching and assembling Genius, Isolated, as well as the next two books in the set.

Meanwhile, over at Scoop, both X9: Secret Agent Corrigan and Genius, Isolated have received great reviews.

Happy reading!

But before you go, many of you have probably never seen Alex Toth's "Battle Flag of the Foreign Legion" from 1950's Danger Trail #3. It's one of the rarest and most expensive early '50s DCs. We print the complete story in Genius, Isolated (© DC Comics Inc, used with permission, thank you very much!). Here's a sample page that gives you an idea of how modern and sophisticated Alex's design was that early in his career. Remember, this was 1950!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Thursday, May 19th, 2011

Steve Canyon…on Slide and Screen

When the Steve Canyon TV show starring Dean Fredericks hit the airwaves in 1958, Caniff's agent Toni Mendez got busy. She lined up scores of licensees, producing everything from lunch boxes to jet helmets to puzzles. As part of our research for the artbook—Caniff…A Visual Biography—we uncovered some fascinating art connected with the Canyon Tru-Vue slides. Tru-Vue was manufactured by the same company that produced the better-known View-Master slides. Each "slide" contained seven pairs of stereoscopic images that were slid in a hand-held viewer, a modern version of the stereoscopic photographs that were produced at the turn of the 19th century.

Above is an example of the pencil rough for one of the Canyon slides. Below is the inked version.

Harry Guyton, Milton and Esther Caniff's nephew, and John Ellis have been diligently overseeing the digital transfers of the TV episodes so we can all enjoy the show in the comfort of our homes. Check out the official Steve Canyon website to read about—and order—the DVDs. And look for Caniff…A Visual Biography in July.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Friday, May 13th, 2011

The Nation's Capital Loves Annie

In a full-page article in the print (and online) version of the Washington Times on May 6th, reviewer Michael Taube opined that LOAC's “Complete Little Orphan Annie series is one of the most impressive comic-strip collections ever produced."

Harold Gray's forty-plus years writing and drawing the strip has long engendered strong praise from across the political landscape—from rave reviews such as this in the decidedly conservative Washington Times to huzzahs from libertarians to wildly enthusiastic essays by liberals such as Art Spiegelman and me. Politics be damned, Harold Gray was a phenomenal and compelling storyteller.

In Volume Seven, to be released in August, real politics exist side by side with the fantastic. Gray offers the story of Ginger the flower lady which is a thinly-disguised rant about the Roosevelt Administration, followed by the introduction of the apparently immortal Mr. Am. It just doesn't get much better than this!

The politics of the strip are covered by Jeet Heer in his introductory essay, and as a bonus, we look at Gray's work on the much-neglected Little Joe.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Wednesday, May 11th, 2011

In the pre-digital world…

Some of you may be old enough to remember the pre-Photoshop days when we actually used paste-ups, rubber cement, waxers, rubylith film, and Graumbacher opaquing paints! (Dates me, doesn't it?!).

It's been brought to our attention that in Bloom County Volume Four, the "Meet Deathtongue" Sunday page from December 7, 1986 (which we also used on the back cover) was missing a few words in the last two lines of the final panel. One reader speculated that we exercised "crude censorship" in deleting a reference to the singer Lionel Richie.

Well, I like a conspiracy theory as well as anyone, but in this case, the explanation for the missing words in the "Deathtongue" Sunday is pretty mundane. When Berkeley packed up the original art for us to print the book, the paste-up lettering simply fell off. Neither he nor we noticed it. No censorship, no conspiracy, just old rubber cement!

Sheesh—and you thought there was a deep dark secret! Thanks to the reader who pointed it out.

Here's the Sunday with the lost lettering re-created in all its original glory.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Friday, May 6th, 2011

They Don't Wear White in Foxholes

As Lucy Shelton Caswell writes in her Introduction to our forthcoming art book—CANIFF: "Milton Caniff came from a family of pack rats and he was married to one for more than fifty years. As a result, his personal and business papers are unusually complete and intact."

It's from these comprehensive files at the library that Lucy was instrumental in establishing at The Ohio State University that we've culled an incredible array of Caniff's art, from his childhood through the 1980s. It's an unprecedented resource to study the career of a major cartoonist. It also presents a challenge—which of the cool artwork and memorabilia will make the cut! It's a "problem" I wish we had every day.

This is another way of saying that we're running a little late on deivering the book to the printer. No too late—just a few weeks—but for you Amazon-release-date watchers, be patient. It'll be printed and in your hands in July instead of June.

To hold you over, here are three more goodies that have never been reprinted:

1. The original art to one of the travel headers Caniff illustrated and lettered as part of his staff job on the Columbus Dispatch in the late '20s and early '30s.

2. The original art to one of the many illustrations he made to accompany serialized stories while working at the Associated Press in the early '30s.

3. A syndicate promo piece that introduces Taffy Tucker, everyone's favorite nurse in Terry and the Pirates.

And if THAT doesn't leave you salivating for more, I give up!

posted by Dean Mullaney

P.S. For you baseball fans, please join me in wishing Willie Mays a happy birthday today! Say Hey!!!

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Thursday, May 5th, 2011

It's the Golden Age…

I'd like to think that we're playing a large part in making this the Golden Age of Comic Strip Reprints, but we're certainly not alone. I recently thrilled to the first volume of John Cullen Murphy's Big Ben Bolt published by our pal Charles Pelto at Classic Comics Press. If you're not familiar with the strip, I urge you to take a look. In the next few months, Charles has plans to begin José Luis Salinas's Cisco Kid, which rivals Alex's Raymond's Rip Kirby as the best drawn strip of the '50s. My mouth's watering already!

Another book that's available now is an absolutely stunning Robert Fawcett art book from another old pal of ours—Manuel Auad. It's not comics, but if you like art—especially mid-Century illustration work—Fawcett is THE MAN. This book—along with LOAC's own Scorchy Smith and the Art of Noel Sickles—belongs on the shelves of all serious art fans.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

We Just Got Back from Bahstawn!

That was the cry when my friends and I were still wet behind the ears and returning to our homes in rural New England after making the three-hour drive home following a weekend in Boston. We typically found driving into the city was no big problem - but for whatever reason, driving out of town often confounded us. Somehow, we didn't mind making a few wrong turns before getting untracked, because invariably we'd had such a good time we weren't eager for our adventures to end.

Many of my friends have remained in the state of our births, but fifteen years ago I moved into the greater Boston area. Though I've never had cause to regret that change of venue, at times I do wish that many of my closest friends lived closer than a hundred miles away.

When three of those friends announced they were coming to The Hub of the Universe on April 30th and May 1st for the Boston Comiccon, there was no doubt I'd be there, too. For the first time since October at NYCC, I found myself on a convention floor.

The Boston show wasn't as big or as loud or as crowded as New York, but there was still plenty of activity. Dealers aplenty were hawking Golden, Silver, and Bronze Age comics, plus all sorts of paperback and hardcover collections(I saw Terrys and Annies and Bloom Countys displayed on several tables). There was no shortage of costumed fans (kudos to the guy in a barbarian-style loincloth and the gal who wore a Power Girl outfit - it's no small achievement to be able to sell costumes like that!). And the lineup of professional guests was first rate - there were more Big Names on hand than I had time to visit (I tried to look up Mark Chiarello twice; alas, he was away from his table each time.)

Still, it was a thrill to at last meet Gahan Wilson. I've followed Mr. Wilson's career since his days with The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and I've read all his prose fiction, as well. He was more than generous with his time, telling me how a boyhood visit to Chester Gould's home helped him decide he wanted a career as a cartoonist. And what a delight to meet Stephanie Buscema! The granddaughter of the late, great John Buscema, she is carving her own niche in the comics business. I encountered John at a 1999 show in White Plains and was in the DC Comics offices the same day as John's brother, Sal, a few years before that. Meeting Stephanie allowed me to score a trifecta when it comes to speaking with The Drawing Buscemas.

It was a delight to spend a few minutes with Joe Kubert. Since he gave us a terrific interview about Alex Toth in support of our Genius series, I was pleased to be able to tell him Genius, Isolated is now on sale. I also had a wonderful visit with Howard Chaykin and I admit it—I fanboyed out, asking for an autograph in my copy of his sassy and spritied 1986 graphic album, Time2: The Epiphany. And Darwyn Cooke is not just a tremendous talent, he's one helluva nice guy who roots for exactly the right NBA team (we're both big Boston Celtics fans). I had great fun talking both comics and Celtics Pride with him.

I'm not just idly dropping names - those three talented gentlemen all agreed to let me interview them in the weeks ahead to support upcoming text pieces I'll be writing. Keep watching future LOAC volumes and when you see their quotes appear, you'll know the way it all began.

Best of all for me, the fun did not end each day as the convention wound down. That meant it was time for my friends and I to leave the Hynes Convention Center, and head off for a tasty meal, and enjoy plenty of good conversation. Coming home from the city is now commonplace for me, but as I said goodbye to my friends, I wondered if they'd get home ready to say, "I just got back from Bahstawn…"

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Sunday, May 1st, 2011

Sometimes Size DOES Matter

Polly and Her Pals, our first release in the massive 12" x 16" Champagne Edition size, has—as we noted—garnered two Eisner nominations this year.

Our second series in that oversized format will premiere in September. Although Flash Gordon has been previously reprinted, this—finally—is the first meticulously restored edition that prints the strip in a large size, and in Alex Raymond's original format that includes the Jungle Jim topper! Look for the complete Alex Raymond Flash/Jim in four deluxe volumes.

The books are designed by LOAC's own Lorraine Turner, two-time Emmy winner (and now Eisner nominee—for Polly and Her Pals), with historical essays by Bruce Canwell—LOAC's Man About Town, and edits by Yours Truly.

We'll have more details about the series in coming months.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Wednesday, Apr 27th, 2011

T Minus 0: It's Toth Time

Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth goes on sale today. Two years in the making, we're mighty proud of our efforts. Bruce Canwell and I recently sat down for a stimulating interview with Dan Nadel over at the Comics Journal.

Dan also offers the first review of the book, calling it "an astounding achievement. Through thoroughly researched text and a gob-smackingly great selection of visuals, Mullaney and Canwell have done what the best biographers should: Both illuminate their subjects life and decisively show what, precisely, made him worthy of their (and our) attention…

"This book is, for me, a game-changer: The first (literally) expansive visual biography of a classic comic book artist that manages to show and tell just what made the man and the work…

"As a fellow historian, I’m still, weeks later, in awe of it. Anyone with an interest in the medium should own and study this book. It’s one of those."

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Tuesday, Apr 26th, 2011

Bill Blackbeard—our friend and mentor

When I created the Library of American Comics in 2007, our first release carried the following heartfelt words:

Dedicated to Bill Blackbeard,
who almost singlehandedly rescued
the American newspaper comic
strip from oblivion

Bill Blackbeard, who died recently at age 84, did all that and mentored at least two generations of comics historians and archivists. It's safe to say that without him, today's readers would not be able to enjoy the complete Terry and the Pirates, Krazy Kat, Flash Gordon, Bringing Up Father, and dozens upon dozens of other series that make today the Golden Age of Comic Strip Reprints.

We owe it all to Bill.

photo by R.C. Harvey

Bill's and Martin Sheridan's Smithsonian Book of Newspaper Comics and Bill's line of Hyperion strip reprints introduced many of us to the classics for the first time. I met him 25 years ago when he gave me my start in reprinting newspaper strips, first with Jiggs is Back by George McManus, and then beginning the complete Krazy & Ignatz. Spending hours upon hours with Bill over the years was better than 100 years of "media studies" at any university. He just about knew it all, and what he didn't know was located somewhere on the over-burdened shelves at his house, which doubled as The San Francisco Academy of Comic Art.

He was a gentle friend and a generous mentor. And while we'll all miss him, he lives on in each and every one of us who knew him, and in the books you read that we produce.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Wednesday, Apr 20th, 2011

Talkin' Toth—and Toths Talkin' Back

April 27, 2011 marks the official on-sale date for Genius, Isolated, the first volume in our massive three-book examination of the life and career of the great Alex Toth.  We know this book has been eagerly awaited by Toth's fans, many of whom are some of the most popular and prestigious names in comics, animation, and motion pictures. We hope, as our readers make their way through the thirty thousand words of biography and twenty complete comics stories—many of them printed from the original art—contained in this 325-page, 9.5" x 13" tome, they will recognize it as a true labor of love, and will feel it has been worth the wait.

Certainly we were encouraged by the reactions to the book expressed by Alex's four children. They received a pre-publication edition for their review and approval and what they had to say was an affirmation that we had successfully achieved our goals.

Three generations of Toths. Alex in 1970 with (from left to right) his mother,
daughters Dana and Carrie, and (in front) Eric and Damon.

Eric Toth read his copy of the book while traveling (in China, if memory serves). "The work looks great," he sent via his Blackberry from halfway around the world. "This is very exciting. Thanks for all of your hard work."

Eric's sister, Carrie Morash, was in her home when she wrote to us, saying, "I couldn't go very far without feeling emotional and missing my dad while reading your book. From the preface, which was thoughtful and kind, to the introduction by Mark Chiarello, I think my dad is being given a very fair biography. I loved the story of Mark's where he asked my dad for a drawing—the words and description of how dad responded were so him—"OK, pest..." A picture popped in my head of him sitting there and saying those words with one eyebrow raised as he often did. And, the quote of his—"See kiddo it's simple"—is all dad. Endearing. Heartwarming to me. The art work was a joy to read and view. So much has been gathered—it's hard to comment on all that went through my head as I read the story of my father. I don't think that I will ever stop discovering new things about him and his life now."

Like his brother, youngest son Damon also had to pass along his thoughts to Dean while on the run. "I want to thank you and Bruce for such a wonderful job you did on Genius, Isolated. I enjoyed reading every page and learned a great deal about dad. I look so forward to Genius, Illustrated and Genius, Animated."

Alex's first child, Dana Palmer, had this to say in two separate e-mails: "As I sit here in tears with a lump in my throat - this, this is a beautiful body of work. The layout/graphics/scans - done so impeccably. What a tribute. This was my father—Alex Toth. Wow. It sort of hit me in a new way during this process, and this book will be my bible when it comes to his legacy. My father would have loved this. I wish he were here to read it, and it makes me miss him even more. I wished I'd known some of the things discovered in this body of work. It explains a lot."

This is, in some ways, The Year of Toth. Several publications dedicated to the work of this unique talent are being released during 2011, but Genius, Isolated is the only project undertaken with the approval of and in cöoperation with Alex's estate, and the only project returning money to that estate. We went into this project enthusiastic about presenting Alex's life story and artwork to modern audiences, but the relationship we've built with Dana, Carrie, Eric, and Damon over the past two years has made the Genius series even more special.

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Monday, Apr 18th, 2011

April is Magyar Month

We have enough ongoing news and information about The Library of American Comics to prevent us from using this space to recommend noteworthy items from other genres…but Dean's letting me make an exception this time (mostly because he's in sync with every word that follows). I'll still bring it around at the end and connect it to LOAC, because, as a friend of mine likes to say, "It all comes back to comics."

Beginning April 19th, The Ernie Kovacs Collection goes on sale nationwide. This is glad news for humor fans in general and Kovacsphiles in particular. I am not big on the "pre-order" concept, yet I've had my copy of this six-disc DVD set pre-ordered since the end of March, which is an indication of how excited I am at the prospect of renewing my acquaintance with some of my favorite comedic characters and seeing some new-to-me Ernie material.

Ernie Kovacs (1919-1962) was a pioneer of television comedy, a genial Hungarian who combined a classicist's tastes with a street-level sense of humor. Ernie saw the fledgling television medium of the 1950s as a playground of infinite possibilities. To the best of my knowledge, Kovacs invented the music video - admittedly, he did it with classical music, setting an urban street scene to Bartok, an exaggerated poker game to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, and creating other quirky combinations, but there is no doubt he was incorporating music with video imagery a quarter-century before the debut of MTV.

Ernie was a master of the blackout sketch (also often set against a musical backdrop, most famously a German rendition of Mack the Knife). His lineup of recurring characters? Can't be beat. Wolfgang von Saurbraten, German disc chockey ("Brushen de getoofens mit Schnitzeldent") - the "old country" Hungarian, Miklos Molnar - kiddie show hosts Auntie Gruesome and Uncle Buddy - French arteest Pierre Ragout - tipsy magician Matzoh Heppelwhite - and flamboyant poet Percy Dovetonsils, whose classic Ode to Stanley's Pussycat includes such inspired lines as:

That pussy's personality

Slowly began to change

He hissed and arched his back so much

He looked like a camel with mange

Even Ernie's end-credits were interspersed with terrific gags. "Bless me, Tom Swift, is this your electric fiancé?" - "Sure, it's easy for you, Bernice, because you're a girl ... but for Doberman pinchers, it's a sometimes thing."

Ernie's desire to push the envelope and explore the boundaries of TV's capabilities meant he had a hard time finding a permanent home: his programs started locally in Philadelphia, then bounced to NBC, CBS, the DuMont Network, and ABC. He starred in daytime series, nighttime series, late-night comedy, and even hosted the Take a Good Look quiz show.

Incredibly, he did some of his best work while his personal life was haunted by emptiness and uncertainty. In 1953 his first wife kidnapped their two daughters, Elizabeth and Kippie, successfully hiding them from their father for over two years. Ernie spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on private detectives and traced seemingly as many false leads. "To tell you the truth, I sit here crying for hours sometimes," he confessed during one print interview from this period.

Photos of young Kippie and Elizabeth Kovacs, distributed to the wire services during the two years they were the kidnap victims of their mother.

In the book Kovacsland, Kippie discussed with biographer Diana Rico the 1955 day her father and grandfather tracked the girls and their wayward mother to a dingy house in central Florida:

I wanted to go with him, because I was living a life of misery, a total nightmare ... [Finally] I got in the car with him and he turned and said, "I see you still suck your thumb." So I said, "I see you still smoke cigars." And right away, it was right.

If the poignancy of Ernie's personal life and the hints of Ernie's genius aren't enough to sway you, here are four connections between Ernie and the world of comics, with three of them tied directly to The Library of American Comics:

1. Ernie made a handful of appearances in the early Mad magazine. Wally Wood illustrated the Kovacs take-off on Ripley's Believe It or Not titled Strangely Believe It, which featured items such as: "The strangest SCIENTIFIC PHENOMENON of all time was recorded on May 18, 1956, when Elizabeth Donohue Forsney was born in a commercial airliner while traveling over Grand Canyon, Colorado ... A telegram was immediately dispatched to Elizabeth's mother, who had missed the plane in Denver." Will Elder provided the artwork for Ernie's madcap board game, "Gringo!" (later brought to both the TV screen and long-playing vinyl album as "Droongo!").

2. Ernie's second wife was Edie Adams, the blonde bombshell famous for bringing Daisy Mae Scragg to life on stage in the 1950s Broadway production of Al Capp's popular Li'l Abner. Edie also appeared on several of Ernie's TV broadcasts and is sure to be well represented in the new DVD set.

3. Another member of Ernie's band of TV players was the ravishing Jolene Brand, who later played the role of Anna Maria in several episodes of the late-'50s TV adaptation of Zorro. The first Zorro comics based on the TV series were, of course, drawn by Alex Toth ...

4. …And Alex, like Ernie, was of Hungarian extraction.

In fact, with both The Ernie Kovacs Collection and our own Genius, Isolated being released so closely together, it seems fitting to declare April as Magyar Month, featuring hours of Hungarian-created comics biography/artwork and TV hijinx!

See? It really does all come back to comics…

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Wednesday, Apr 6th, 2011

Three More Eisner Nominations!

The Eisner Award nominations have been announced. In the first three years since we created the Library of American Comics, we received six nominations and took home the award twice.

This year, we up it by one, with three nominations. The massive Polly and Her Pals has two: one for Best Archival Collection—Comic Strips. and one for Best Publication Design.

Also nominated in the Best Archival Collection category is our tribute to Bob Montana's early Archie newspaper strips.

It's gratifying to see the incredible cartooning of Cliff Sterrett and Bob Montana continue to be recognized. Next year will be the 100th anniversary of "Polly and Her Pals." What better way to celebrate the strip!

Thanks to the Eisner judges for recognizing our efforts! Vote early and vote often!!!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Sunday, Apr 3rd, 2011

Ehhh—Crawford's Up, Doc!

In case you missed Dean's announcement in his interview at Previewsworld.com, Crawford is a one-shot due for release later in 2011, a book I'm especially thrilled to have in our lineup. If you're asking, "What is it, a Crawford?", a better question would be, "Whose brainchild is Crawford?" Because the answer to that is, "Chuck Jones," and if you're like me, that's sure to make you smile.

Though in my twenties I grew to enjoy Floyd Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse and Carl Barks's Donald Duck and Uncle $crooge, as a boy I pooh-poohed all things Disney - I was strictly a Looney Tunes kinda guy. Not for me The Wonderful World of Disney with its airings Herbie the Love Bug, Professor Ludwig von Drake, and Charlie, the Ding-a-ling Lynx. I was all about The Bugs Bunny Show and the Warner Brothers characters, led by the wascawwy wabbit himself. It was guaranteed laughs whenever Bugs appeared in shorts like "Long-Haired Hare," "Duck! Rabbit! Duck!", "Beanstalk Bunny," or "Bully for Bugs." As I grew older and began reading the material on hand in the 1970s about Warners animation, I learned all the cartoons named were directed by the same talented individual, one Charles M. "Chuck" Jones.

 Jones's earliest work as a director was considered "cute" and slow-moving by his peers at the studio; his pacing quickly improved, but in his artwork there was always a rounded, curvy cuteness to the line. Long before manga and anime entrenched itself on American shores, Chuck Jones was drawing big-eyed kid characters in everything from his aborted Road Runner TV pilot to Cindy Lou Who from 1966's How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

The trademark Jones cuteness is on display in Crawford, as well - and that's hardly a bad thing. Jones filters his stories through a kid's perspective, which includes flights of both whimsy and fancy while running an emotional gamut that will resonate to everyone who grew up as the neighborhood maverick, running against the herd.

Dean's co-editor on Crawford is Kurtis Findlay, who conceived the project and has been researching this "Unknown Chuck Jones" project for the past couple of years. We're working with Marian Jones, Chuck's widow, on the project, and all art is © the Chuck Jones Estate. We'll have more on Crawford for you as its publication date draws near. In the meantime, why do I have a sudden urge to watch "The Rabbit of Seville" again ... ?

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Wednesday, Mar 30th, 2011

"Preserving American literature, humor, and history"

I sat down with the folks at Previews recently to talk about newspaper strips, preservation, and LOAC's philosophy about both…plus a few other sidelines that you might find interesting. Check it out at Previewsworld.com.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Wednesday, Mar 23rd, 2011

The Caniff View of the LOAC Lineup

In writing about classic comics, I'm always on the lookout for connections—how the events of the day influenced strips (and vice versa), how a cartoonist's personal life made its way into storylines or inspired certain characters. And of course, how the life of one cartoonist crossed paths with others in various social or professional ways.

That made me look at the list of talent represented by the Library of American Comics line of books and consider the list of connections between them that we have documented since Terry and the Pirates Volume 1 went on sale in the summer of 2007. Because Terry was our first release, because this summer we'll release our big artbook, Caniff, and because Milton—"Mee-yul-tun," as his wife, Bunny, used to pronounce his name—was always a social, "clubby" sort, I considered Caniff as we have reprinted him, through the 1946 end of Terry. I wrote his name in the center of a piece of paper, grouped the names of our other artists around him, then started making connections between them.

Here is the picture I drew:

Yes, the details are not perfect—Gray, Capp, Gould, and Jack Kent were all also NCS members, for example, and the post-Terry Caniff has syndicate relationships with other cartoonists that aren't depicted here—but this struck me as an interesting and useful set of groupings. The version above is also cleaner than my original; here I've used simple letters to replace the detailed notes I scribbled next to the arrows and boxes I sketched in amidst my cloud of names. This list describes those connections:

A: Young "Texas" Jack Kent appeared in the Li'l Abner "Advice fo' Chillun" Sunday gag-panel feature, as shown on page 130 of our Li'l Abner, Volume 2.

B: The two artists swapped occasional letters (with Toth the more eager of the two correspondents), as we'll discuss in Genius, Illustrated, the companion volume to Genius, Isolated, which will be on sale in a matter of weeks. 

C: Kent's King Aroo and Mills's Miss Fury were both Bell Syndicate strips.

D: The guiding lights behind Little Orphan Annie and Dick Tracy were correspondents, sometimes gossipy ones, as revealed starting on page 11 of Little Orphan Annie, Volume 5: "The One-Way Road to Justice."

E:  Blondie, Bringing Up Father, Family Circus, Polly & Her Pals, Secret Agent Corrigan, Flash Gordon, Jungle Jim, and Rip Kirby were all Hearst strips released under the King Features Syndicate banner.

F: Raymond and Williamson were both lauded for their work on Flash Gordon.

Do you see other connections among this group of artists? Drop a line to info@loacomics.com and let us know how you'd revise this picture of the LOAC lineup of talent. It will also be intriguing to watch how the picture grows and changes as we add new releases, including ...

Whoops—out of time! Keep watching this space for future announcements!

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Sunday, Mar 20th, 2011

Fast and FURY-ous!

I grew up in a small New England town with a five-days-a-week newspaper, meaning my first exposure to comics was surely that paper's stable of strips: Peanuts, Juliet Jones, The Phantom, Beetle Bailey, and Red Eye. To a seven-year-old, the newspaper comics were just there, part of the fabric of daily living. What caught my youthful eye was comic books, often seen at the local barber shops, with a few of them even coming into my possession when my parents had a few extra coins to divert my way, or when a lengthy car ride was coming up and they knew a couple comics would keep me quiet for the duration, there in the back seat of the station wagon.

Two of the earliest comics to come my way were issues #163 and 165 of Marvel's Strange Tales, containing chapters of Steranko's high-octane "Nick Fury vs. The Yellow Claw" story-cycle. I was not exactly sure who these characters were or what was going on, but I knew it was exciting. Those two comics made me a lifelong Steranko fan, and decades later, the great Marvel Bankruptcy/Implosion of 1998 scuttled my chances of continuing in Steranko's footprints (I still have stats of Lee Weeks's pencils from my plot for what was supposed to be our opening Nick Fury salvo).

Thirteen years later, I'm resigned to the likelihood I'll never get a shot at writing Nick Fury…but over the space of just a few months, I've been involved with shepherding two other Furys back into print, both of them well worth your attention.

You'll find that rare wartime adventure comic, Jon Fury, featured in our very-soon-to-be-released Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth.

Jon Fury was created especially for Toth's camp newspaper during his military service in Tokyo, and was produced for reproduction on an Army "multigraph" machine, which was hand-cranked in order to generate press runs. Since it was designed to reproduce text, Jon Fury presented a number of production challenges for Private First Class Toth.

Like Toth's original run of Jon Fury, our reprinting is presented in its authentic inked version and, as with everything in Genius: Isolated, has been approved by and presented in coöperation with the Toth family. Reading Alex's first ongoing effort at producing plot, script, and art is one of the highlights of the book.

Before Alex Toth began producing Jon Fury, New York cartoonist Tarpé Mills was telling tales of Marla Drake, the costumed adventurer known as Miss Fury.

Mills's series debuted in 1941 and struck a unique chord, especially compared to the testosterone-filled adventure strips created by Tarpé's male peers. Miss Fury is a mix of action and romance, Nazis and science fiction, fashion and gangsters.

Trina Robbins, the acknowledged authority on all things Miss Fury, is your guide to this, the most extensive collection of this strip ever assembled, including the only surviving pages of Tarpé Mills's final comics work—a 1980s graphic novel!

Things eventually work out for the best. Though my Nick Fury work never got published, it's been fun and informative to be involved with the production of both Jon Fury and Miss Fury…and hey, two out of three ain't bad.

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Monday, Mar 14th, 2011

Caniff Rarities

As we're organizing material for the forthcoming visual biography entitled CANIFF, we'd like to share some choice items that reside in Milton Caniff's personal collection at The Ohio State University.

Talk about historical artifcats, here the proud cartoonist telegrams his wife: he's got a strip of his own!

In addition to the weekly Male Cale strip that Caniff created for the military newspapers during the Second World War, he also provided insignias for dozens upon dozens of American fighting forces units. Here's one of his comps, circa 1944:

Never one to miss out on an opportunity for publicity, here we see Caniff drawing the va-va-voom girl, Jayne Mansfield, who was then starring in the film "The Girl Can't Help It." Mansfield's co-star was the nebbishy Tom Ewell, who, the year before, had co-starred in "The Seven-Year Itch" with Marilyn Monroe.

More Caniff rarities to come, so stay tuned…

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Monday, Mar 7th, 2011

The Flowering of Talent

I've been spending time of late in Dogpatch, preparing material for Li'l Abner Volume 3, where 1939 and 1940 bring us what I consider to be the first truly great storylines of Al Capp's comedic masterwork. Does that mean the stories that came before, say, The Grapes of Wrath parody are somehow second-stringers?

Hardly. That first Gat Garson continuity in April '36 or the Sunday trip into Africa two years later, with Sir Cecil Cesspool leading an expedition to the land of the Mukoy ("eht dnal fo eht Mukoy," in their primitive tongue) can provide a lift on almost any down day. Funny is funny, after all.

A cartoonist's earliest efforts are seeds planted in the fertile soil of the nation's newspapers, sprouting into more daring and audacious future material, and ultimately being harvested into collected editions. Part of the fun of working on (and reading) Library of American Comics material is watching Al Capp's talent and confidence grow from the straightforward "City Mouse/Country Mouse" content of Abner's earliest visit to New York to Fearless Fosdick's increasingly-sophisticated strip-within-a-strip or the layered spoofery of Abner's first trip to Lower Slobbovia in 1946. Long before superhero "universes" were de rigueur, creators like Al Capp were building complex, self-contained worlds of their own, four panels at a time, day by day by day.

Al Capp loved to introduce catchphrases into Li'l Abner. Here he uses the return of that Dogpatch Don Juan,
Adam Lazonga, to try out "Yo' big fat sloppy beast!!"

Nor, of course, is Capp the only talent we've seen bloom as we look across LOAC's editions. Neither Poppy Joe nor The Skull cracks anyone's top ten list of great Terry and the Pirates villains but they serve an important purpose, allowing the youthful Caniff to determine what worked and what didn't, to refine his level of melodrama, to fine-tune the mixture of comedy to adventure. By the end of his first year on the job Caniff has Pat Ryan embroiled in his romance with Normandie Drake in the dailies, while introducing the wonderful Captain Blaze to give the increasingly-sophisticated Dragon Lady a run for her money in his Sunday sequences. The rest, to borrow the cliché, is history.

Eighteen months after debuting Terry, Milton Caniff amped up the strip's romance and menace with the introduction
of both Burma and the nefarious Captain Judas.

And later this year, when our first Flash Gordon/Jungle Jim volume debuts, it will be great fun to contrast the efforts of the fledgling Alex Raymond to the work of the fully-polished professional who launched Rip Kirby in 1946.

Compare the composition and figure work on display in these two examples
from Alex Raymond's Jungle Jim and Rip Kirby.

It can be argued that the explosion of modern media and the intense competition for the public's entertainment dollar has raised the median talent line in the marketplace and lifted the overall level of craftsmanship on display. Yet reading series like Li'l Abner, Terry, Flash Gordon, Jungle Jim, and Rip Kirby in collected editions shows us that we lost something when the heyday of comic strips disappeared, while reminding us that the material being plucked from that long ago garden of newspapers stands the test of time and repays reading, so many decades after its initial publication.

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Tuesday, Mar 1st, 2011

Will the Real Archie Goodwin Please Stand Up

"What's the real Archie Goodwin really like?" is the title of a fascinating behind-the-scenes essay by Anne T. Murphy, Archie's widow, in the second volume of X-9: Secret Agent Corrigan by Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson that will be on sale soon.

Anne writes, "Every comics family hears questions like these from fans and interviewers alike, yet new fallacies constantly spring up and get spread online. We know the facts, but are rarely asked; and when asked, if our facts don’t fit the preconception, we’re tuned out and the fan defaults to his own mental image."

Anne sets the record straight about Archie's early career: "Following his studies at the School of Visual Arts, Archie worked at Redbook as a junior graphic artist in a large art department, spent two years as an Army draftee, and returned to paste-ups and layouts at Redbook. Contrary to wikipedia and other self-appointed experts, he was never chief editor of Redbook [Lembiek], and didn’t start his cartooning career there, never joined the Harvey Comics staff in 1962—he was stuck in Virginia on an Army post—and never edited in the sense of selecting or editing content at Redbook…. Fans unable to fit Redbook into his later career created this grandiose resume.

Redbook, however, is very important and does matter: it was a learning ground for everything about how professional magazines are put together, and this—not anything learned in comics—equipped him to be editor-in-chief of the Warren magazines. Archie and I met at Redbook, where we both had day jobs. He wrote at night—often two full free-lance stories on the nights I attended NYU graduate school classes—and had just sold a prose story written as a New School assignment to Ellery Queen Magazine…"

There's more, of course. Lots more. But you don't think we're going to print it all here, do you? We've got to leave some surprises for the book.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Friday, Feb 18th, 2011

Talkin' Toth: Part Four

Alex Toth was the master craftsman of comics. He was outspoken, gifted, studious, prolific, and uncompromising. He drew a lot and he said a lot—more than we can comfortably fit into our upcoming three books devoted to this great artist. But we can share some of that additional material with you in this space, so—here is our latest in a series of Talkin' Toth:

ALEX ON SWORDFIGHTING ON THE ZORRO TV SHOW from a 1958 letter -
This week's TV Guide—Guy Williams Catalano tells of his dad teaching him the art of foil and saber from Guy's seventh summer. What hokey tripe…he's a clumsy ox afoot…and admitted to our editor that he'd fenced not a stroke prior to Freddie Cavens' first lesson at the Disney lot gym… [Fred Cavens was Errol Flynn’s old fencing master at Warner Brothers.]

Britt Lomond (Monastario) was always the better blade…

The above, Guy and Britt, costumed, will fence in person at Disneyland this weekend…restaging their TV duels for the hot dog crowd.

* * * * *

Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth will be on sale in early April.

A page from "Zorro's Secret Passage" (© 2011 Zorro Productions Inc.)

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Wednesday, Feb 16th, 2011

Polly is Everyone's Pal

The rave reviews continue coming in for our first volume of Cliff Sterrett's Polly and Her Pals. It's also the first book in our gigantic "champagne edition" size—a glorious 12" x 16" that allows the art to truly shine, and caused J. Caleb Mozzocco at newsarama to note that it's "a perfect coffee table book—not one that you would put on your coffee table...but one big enough to be used as a coffee table."

You also gotta like a review that begins, "This extraordinary volume...", and that's exactly how Johanna Draper Carlson's review starts on Comics Worth Reading.

Greg Barbrick at blogcritics calls it "the most gorgeous book I've ever seen." Not to be outdone, Scott Katz at ustownhall.com writes, "Reading Polly and Her Pals gives one the same thrill that an archeologist must feel as he or she dusts off an antiquity: the thrill of discovery—the sense of origin—the knowledge that one is witnessing the birth of new artistic techniques rather than the tenth generation knockoffs of those techniques."

One of the most rewarding reviews comes from Gordon Flagg at Booklist, who writes, "The early years of newspaper comics produced a handful of widely acknowledged masterworks, such as Little Nemo and Krazy Kat; this impressive [Polly and Her Pals] collection makes a convincing case that Sterrett's creation should be added to that honor roll."

THIS is why we do what we do, why we spent 12-14 hours a day, seven days a week researching and restoring classic newspaper strips—so the unique visions of such incredible cartoonists as Cliff Sterrett and Jack Kent can be rescued from obscurity and preserved in long-lasting archival editions.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Sunday, Feb 13th, 2011

Sunday Funnies Are Like a Box of Chocolates…

…At least, they are on February 14th. To mark Valentine's Day, 2011, The Library of American Comics offers you this Whitman's Sampler of classic comics from Sunday, February 14th, 1937:

Is it possible Sunday funnies are better than a box of chocolates? Just as sweet - with zero calories!

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Friday, Feb 4th, 2011

Harrowing Heroines

I've put a lot of Alex Toth talk into this space recently—and there'll be more of that chatter to come, you can be sure. Many have told us they're eager to see Genius, Isolated, and I like to think their patience will be rewarded. Meanwhile, we have two other books featuring two very different female lead characters that will repay your time and attention.

The year got off to a fine start with the release of Little Orphan Annie Volume 6. One of our staunch supporters works as the Trade Book Coordinator for Maine's Colby College Bookstore (Sopranos fans might remember the first season episode in which Tony and his daughter Meadow visited the Colby campus). In his blog, our friend described Annie as, "a sprawling Depression-era fable about a kid with nothing but spunk, grit, determination, and a great dog. These beautiful volumes belong on the shelves of anyone who takes ‘graphic novels' (I still call 'em comics) seriously." Who am I to argue with an assessment like that?

Our sixth volume features the quasi-mystical Punjab and the story of Eli Eon and the miracle substance Eonite, a story treasured by Annie fans everywhere. My sentimental favorite in this book, however, is the "Annie in Hollywood" segment featuring the return of Pee Wee the Elephant. Some complain that Harold Gray didn't draw convincing dogs, but he sure knew how to depict an elephant! I am utterly charmed and utterly convinced every time Pee Wee steps into a scene.

Little Orphan Annie is unique in the LOAC stable: we started with the rarely-seen original strips from the 1924 debut of the series, then moved in chronological order through the early 1930s strips that were collected by other publishers in decades past. Now we once again move into largely-unreprinted territory, so those Annieologists who have been feeling déjà vu should enjoy the fresh material at the end of Volume 6, and will want to join us again later this year for the debut of The Asp in Volume 7!

• • • • •

While Orphan Annie is arguable comics' premier kid headliner, there's no doubt the star of our coming springtime release is all grown up...

We're pleased to add Miss Fury to the Library of American Comics lineup—her provocative exploits were released by the Bell Syndicate and carried by newspapers nationwide for a dozen years during the 1940s and '50s. Miss Fury's unique place in comics history was cemented by her creator, Tarpé Mills. There were other women cartoonists, but only Mills was interested in mixing it up with the boys in the realm of costumed adventure. Her work blended derring-do with a dash of fashion, and melodrama with a modicum of romance. Oh yes, there's a certain kink factor as well—Miss Fury's world comes complete with its share of whips, lingerie, bondage (of a sort), and spike heels.

The book has turned out to be an all-woman project. It's being assembled by the one and only Trina Robbins, who is of course a cartoonist, a comics historian, and an expert on the subject of Mills and her panther-suited star. The Sunday restoration and overall design is handled by LOAC's own, two-time Emmy winner  Lorraine Turner. Similar to our 2009 Bringing Up Father release, Trina is selecting prime cuts from the Miss Fury archives for your reading pleasure.

Meanwhile, over at comicsbeat.com, Heidi MacDonald gave Miss Fury a shout-out the other day, and printed four other Sundays you won't want to miss.

As I read and compare/contrast Annie from the 1930s and Miss Fury from the 1940s, I'm reminded that, here in the 21st Century, these crackling good stories help keep us all young at heart.

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Tuesday, Feb 1st, 2011

Bloom County Goes Digital!

In addition to keeping the entire set of the Bloom County Library on your bookshelves, you Berkeley Breathed fans can also take the strips with you when you're traveling…if you have an iPad. IDW has signed an exclusive digital distribution deal with Apple for the Eisner Award-winning Bloom County, and Darwyn Cooke's Eisner Award-winning The Hunter, as well as The Outfit, the second book in his series, and other titles.

We've been thinking a lot about how our classic comics can possibly translate to new digital formats. I'm all about readability. Jeff Webber is IDW's e-publishing guru. I talked to him about how his design team took the book format and ran with it. "It really translates nicely to the iPad screen," Jeff told me. "Our design team modified the digital format to present the strips on single screens while retaining the overall graphic integrity of the print series. We wanted to make sure this didn't come off as shoveling a print book into a digital format." The app features full screen strips covering the first year of Bloom County, from December 1980 through December 1981, along with an introduction by Berkley Breathed and comments about individual strips.

"Apple was excited to see that we've brought this classic material to the iPad," Jeff added. Bloom County Library Vol. 1 was selected by Apple for "New and Noteworthy" in the iPad App Store, and is in the top 10 books.

Bloom County: The Complete Library Volume One is now available from the App Store for $7.99. Click here to download.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Friday, Jan 28th, 2011

It's Always Lovelier the Second Time Around

Every day we receive emails from fans who want to know when we're going to release new editions of our books that are currently out-of-print. We don't blame anyone for not wanting to shell out $150-200 for a book on the secondary market. So, rest easy, friends. In March, all of our sold-out books will be available again.

They are: Terry and the Pirates 2-6 (Volume one has already been reprinted), Dick Tracy 8, Rip Kirby 1, Bloom County 2 and 3, Archie 1, and Bringing Up Father.

In his introduction to the second volume of Terry and the Pirates, Pete Hamill—one of our favorite writers, author of North River; Downtown: My Manhattan; and the memoir, A Drinking Life—had this to say about the greatest of all adventure strips:

"Here, in this sequence of daily strips and Sunday pages from the first day of January 1937 to the last day of 1938, we see Milton Caniff emerging as one of the most gifted writers of narrative in the American 20th century. Week by week, his drawing takes on a growing power, at once bold and subtle, a display of draftsmanship that was seldom seen before in the comic strip form. But it was as a writer that Caniff excelled.

"We see more clearly now that he was engaged in writing and drawing a picaresque novel, as full of adventures as Don Quixote, Tom Jones or Huckleberry Finn. There is no single plot to be unraveled, no Maltese falcon to be revealed, no butler who confesses to a detective in a crowded drawing room that yes, he did it. In Terry and the Pirates, one sequence gathers momentum, the heroes are trapped, or imprisoned, or face overwhelming odds, and ends with a culminating eruption of action and release. When all is apparently resolved, they move on to another adventure. Day by day, the reader is often left tottering on the serial-writer's cliff, anxious to learn what happens next."

'Nuff said.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Monday, Jan 24th, 2011

Gutsy Broads, Unite

I have worked as a designer for most of my life. You learn a lot about people this way. Sometimes you work with high-maintenance clients with whom you roll your eyes and try to give them the logo or billboard or brochure that is in their little minds. I am the hands that create what they are envisioning.

It has its moments, though. I enjoy meeting interesting people and I have lots of great stories to tell my children and grandchildren. As I wake up each morning, I approach my computer with a sense of adventure...which comic will I be working on today? Will it bring a smile or will it cause me to interrupt Dean and say, "Oh, my gosh, get over here, you have to see this!"?

Today is one of those days. I'm now working on the restoration of Miss Fury and am becoming more acquainted with Tarpé Mills's style. She loves to show a lot of skin, and the babes are always in furs and hats that look fresh off the runways of Paris. Her art is drawn very traditionally—no surprises, no ah-ha moments. But her storytelling is drawing me in more and more. What a gutsy storyteller: women pulled through car windows by their hair, Nazi swastikas branded to their foreheads...young children being told if they don't stop whimpering they'll get their heads bashed in.

No wonder she passed herself off as a male artist...in those days people would run if they knew these stories came from a woman. I wonder now if my mom ever read these strips or ones like them. Did she pump her fist and say, "YES," as the female villain was knocked down a few pegs, or is this just wishful thinking on my part? I hope she did. I hope that, after the dishes were done and all eight of us kids were tucked in bed, she poured herself a cup a tea and sat with a newspaper and read about women in fancy duds attending fancy parties.

As I work each day bringing life back to this strip, I think of that generation and how this was a huge part of their entertainment. I hope by bringing this strip to the audience of today, they will appreciate what it must have been like to anxiously wait every day for the paper to arrive. This is my pleasure and this is the story I tell to my children: slow down and learn from the craftsmen—and women—of yesterday. Slowly turn the pages and when you come across something that makes you stop and take notice, share it with a friend.

* * * * *

This full-color collection featuring the best Miss Fury strips from the 1940s will be on sale in April, edited by and with a biographic introduction by the one-and-only Trina Robbins.

posted by Lorraine Turner

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Sunday, Jan 16th, 2011

Silence Is Golden

As I have stated before, I am new to the comic industry—but am very well aquainted with visual communication. Throughout my journey, I have been by surrounded by some of the finest teachers—some from this century and some from long ago. Yesterday, as I was browsing through the aisles in my local Borders (yes there is still one in Key West), I came across a small section entitled Graphic Novels. I picked up a few books and was quite honestly disappointed. I kept looking at one after another and they all said the same thing to me...noise.

Although the expertise used in rendering the work may have been quite superb, the overall content was crashing as if an orchestra's cymbal player had run amuk, instead of waiting for his cue. Louder is not better, and without the subtleties of a soft melody, the music is just a dull tone. Perhaps I am becoming spoiled working daily restoring strips by artists such as Cliff Sterrett, Milton Caniff, Al Capp, Alex Raymond, and Alex Toth. As I placed the graphic novels at Borders back upon their shelves, I was struck by the fact that their covers looked no different then their "inners." It was as if that special piece of work that used to adorn the outer covering was now all-encompassing.

I walked along the rows of other books and kept wondering why I had found this so disturbing; I guess I was still processing what I had just uncovered. I think storytelling can be muddied by over-embellishment, leaving your eye no place to rest. Many contemporary comics artists are doing a fine job of giving the reader absolutely beautiful work, but are they all beginning to look alike? This is what they need to ask themselves. I wish they would get out of the studio and wander down the aisles of the bookshops and see the work as it lines up like uniformed soldiers along the shelves—all standing at attention wearing identical attire, saying pick me, pick me—I'm really different, just give me a look!

I do not give this thought as a collector or even a person who has been in the publishing industry. I give you my thoughts as one who enjoys a good story, who likes to blend my mind within the pages and let it carry me away. I may not be an expert in this world of graphic novels, but I do know one thing. Artists of today should take time to pause, pick up a collection of any of the masters listed above, and study it. And if they are quiet and really look with intent, perhaps they will discover the secret that was known to the artists who walked before them—to learn to say more with less. Learn the art of silence.

posted by Lorraine Turner

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Thursday, Jan 13th, 2011

Talkin' Toth: Part Three

Alex Toth was the master craftsman of comics. He was outspoken, gifted, studious, prolific, and uncompromising. He drew a lot and he said a lot - more than we can comfortably fit into our upcoming three books devoted to this great artist. But we can share some of that additional material with you in this space, so - here is our latest in a series of Talkin' Toth:

ALEX ON ANIMATION, EXCERPTED FROM A 1981 LETTER -
I wonder why it is that the best of any artform is found at its very beginnings? Before the worst of organized commercialism throttles it of its originality, joy, freshness - Disney, the Fleischers, Harman-Ising, Chuck Jones/Friz Freling/Bob Clampett's WB Studios, Tex Avery, etc.—all refined and expanded the animation form (Hanna+Barbera at MGM, too)—true! WW II crimped most of 'em—I guess TV did the rest—the '50s left only Disney doing features, thriving to the '60s -

Bakshi's outrageous excursions, rotoscopy and all—banality, sheer shock, noise, insult and injury—still manage to pump fresh blood into the medium—where he goes from here is an unknown—but he'll always provoke interest—and box office!

I'm admiring of Winsor McCay's solo films (Lusitania/Flying House in particular—beautiful straight-ahead animation, self-taught, original, so well-drawn)—as I am of his Nemo Sunday page artistry—

And corny or not, I get a kick out of Fleischer's Out of the Inkwell live/cartoon combination films—as, too, Gulliver and Mr. Bugs/Hoppity Goes to Town—especially the rotoscope work! Still held charm and warmth—old-fashioned virtues, worthy…

A Koko the Clown model sheet from the Fleischer Studios

Despite exiting animation and its care-killing TV schedules, I love its storytelling medium (as I do adventure strips)—its ability to give life to any story form (and/or personal statements)—surprisingly, during our current space-film craze, it was overlooked as an alternative to $30-$40 million dollar live-action epics - but its many forms were tapped as SP/FX inserts in those films—All I've heard is that Canada's film board talents are at work on a Heavy Metal animation feature—a mix of fantasy/sci-fi, etc., and styles of art based on original strip art—Am curious to see the results…

* * * * *

Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth will be on sale in March.

A new interview about the book with editor Dean Mullaney is on the Westfield Comics blog.

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Sunday, Jan 9th, 2011

Talkin' Toth: Part Two

Alex Toth was the master craftsman of comics. He was outspoken, gifted, studious, prolific, and uncompromising. He drew a lot and he said a lot—more than we can comfortably fit into our upcoming three books devoted to this great artist. But we can share some of that additional material with you in this space, so—here is our latest in a series of Talkin' Toth:

A Ludwig Hohlwein advertising poster from the 1920s for Leibniz-Keks biscuits.

FROM A 1981 LETTER - TOTH ON PAINTS AND FINISHES:

I've had my ups/downs, love/hate bits with acrylics—and, at present, am keen on the wonders of opaque tempera—forgiving as it is of brushes, very workable, paint-over capacity, nice texture when working, paints don't dry out/up in cakes (always semi-moist), etc.—I find school-grade brands as acceptable as the higher-priced "Liquitex."

Am collecting old books on the subject and re-reading my old tomes on its use by my hero illustrators/painters back in the old days of the '40s, etc.… I'm just doing an occasional small rough, no big deal finished paintings, as it's all I can do to meet b&w deadlines, the stuff that pays the rent! But I'm daydreaming painting, all the while—my question about tempera is, how and with what does one fix a painting - as the stuff does chip, dust, rub off, etc.—crack, too, I suppose… Do regular spray fixes, varnishes, etc. do the job? Acrylic clear varnish brushed on? I've got a C.C. Beck Captain Tootsie poster paint piece that I'm spooked to touch with a fix until I know I won't screw it up using the wrong stuff!

* * * * *

Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth will be on sale in March.

Thanks to our (and Alex's) good pal Bill Peckmann for letting us scan some pages, including the above, from his rare 1920s collection of Ludvig Hohlwein's art. Hohlwein was THE great German poster artist in the modern school and had a huge influence on Alex's use of negative space and composition in general.

Meanwhile, over at SCOOP, Jeff Vaughn expressed his anticipation for the first book:

"With Scorchy Smith and the Art of Noel Sickles, IDW Publishing's Library of American Comics imprint redefined the standards for art retrospective books. Now it looks like they're out to do it again with Genius, Isolated: The Life And Art Of Alex Toth by Dean Mullaney and Bruce Canwell."

Aw, shucks. We just love talkin' Toth.

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Tuesday, Jan 4th, 2011

2010: The LOAC Year in Review (part two)

Welcome back to our curtain call for 2010. While the weather outside is frightful (a blizzard is pounding New England as I type), in this feature it's so delightful, with summer in full swing as we look at…

JULY

LOAC was in attendance at the San Diego Comic-Con and was humbled (but mightily pleased) to receive the Eisner Award for "Best Archival Project—Newspaper Strips" for Bloom County, Volume One.  Bloom prevailed over another LOAC project, Bringing Up Father: From Sea to Shining Sea, which I edited—but a win for one is a win for all, so I was cheering Bloom wildly through my tears.

LOAC Assembled celebrates the 2010 Eisner win: Dean Mullaney, Lorraine Turner, Berkeley Breathed, and Bloom County editor Scott Dunbier, displaying the award. Alas, I was back East, on monitor duty.

Hardly willing to rest on our laurels, as the month waned, our collection of Bob Montana's Archie dailies hit the shelves.

AUGUST

We caught our collective breath in August, even as the rest of the world caught up to us, just a bit. It was highly gratifying to have noted reviewer Charles de Lint praise our inaugural volume of King Aroo in the pages of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction; scroll to the bottom of his "Books to Look For" column and there they are. The San Diego Tribune also gave LOAC front page coverage as an outgrowth of Comic-Con.

SEPTEMBER

Things were popping on several front in LOAC-land during this month. Here's the rundown:

Beau Smith joined the LOAC family circus as our very own Director of Marketing. One of Beau's missions is to increase LOAC's visibility in school libraries and university bookstores.

Bill Griffith dropped a mention of King Aroo into the September 10th installment of his own strip, the immortal Zippy. Thanks, Bill!

Dean appeared as Chris Marshall's guest on a Collected Comics Library podcast. Through the magic of the Internet, you can listen to the entire program.

X-9: Secret Agent Corrigan Volume 1 went on sale.

Then, if that wasn't enough, things really got busy in…

OCTOBER

How to follow up the release of our first collection of Blondie, running from Blondie Boopadoop's very first strip to the wedding (and subsequent disinheritance) of Dagwood Bumstead?

Dean and I swooped in on the New York Comic Con (NYCC) for three days, from October 8 - 10.

Move over, Laurel & Hardy! The LOAC editorial braintrust were on hand to hawk their wares and steer hopeful artists to the IDW portfolio reviews at NYCC.

Our feet grew heavy, standing on a thinly-carpeted concrete floor for nine hours each day, but our spirits were light as we talked to hundreds of fans about comics in general and classic comic strips in particular.

And when the fans weren't visiting with us, we were chatting with the pros. Melissa Singer of Tor Books shared her childhood memories of the great comic strips. James Robinson, Ken Steacy, Glenn Whitmore, Andrew Farago of San Francisco's Cartoon Art Museum, David Armstrong, Ryder Windham, and the one-and-only Don McGregor were some of our other visitors. Dean and I both took time to break away long enough to exchange pleasantries with the ever-amazing Jim Steranko. I was also lucky enough to catch Joe Kubert for a chat, and to meet irrepressible Nicky Brown (you can read her words of wisdom at her blog. My most devilish fun: stepping in amidst some of the IDW staff early Sunday morning to introduce myself to Darwyn Cooke after he arrived carrying a distinctive green briefcase bearing the shamrock logo of the NBA's most storied franchise. "Celtics, bay-bee!" was all I had to say to earn a grin from Darwyn.

Dean and I showed off several of the wonders we've accumulated as we prepare our Alex Toth biography, but few knew that we were also grabbing moments throughout the weekend to have serious discussions about the growth of the project, and the ultimate shape it might take…

Bloom County was one of the most popular items at NYCC—more than one fan was disappointed to learn Berkeley Breathed would not be at the show—but in the wake of the convention, Bloom Volume 3 went on sale.

Across the Atlantic, Bdartist(e) was releasing its French edition of Terry and the Pirates, Volume 1.

Finally, not to be outdone by Dean's September podcast, near the end of the month I was delighted to appear as a guest on Scott Katz's Internet radio program at US Townhall. Yes, Virginia, you can still listen to the interview.

NOVEMBER

Berkeley Breathed joined the interview Parade with a Q&A conducted by Mike Russell at Ain't It Cool.

 Meanwhile, we took a second trip to Dogpatch to learn the origin of Sadie Hawkins Day in Li'l Abner Volume 2:

For days, Dean and I tossed e-mails back and forth using the language of the Mukoy! Yeh, ti desuma su…

Around Thanksgiving, Dean and Lorraine embarked on a junket that included visits with Beau and Beth Smith, as well as the hard-working caretakers of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at The Ohio State University and Randy Scott at Michigan State University, plus Dana Palmer (Alex Toth's eldest daughter) and Eric Toth (Alex's eldest son).

Beau Smith displays his Svengali-like charm over women, to Dean's bemusement.

DECEMBER

The Great LOAC Road Trip paved the way for a pair of major announcements on our website. The visit to OSU was in preparation of 2011's Caniff, a visual biography of the creator of Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon.

With the endorsement of the Toth family, we also gave readers bad news and good news. The bad news: our original late-2010 solicitation for Genius, Isolated: The Life & Art of Alex Toth was pushed back to the first quarter of 2011. The good news: because we have gathered so much excellent material, the Toth project has expanded to fill three books! Genius, Isolated will be part one of our retrospective on Toth, to be concluded in the follow-up volume, Genius, Illustrated. A third book (plus slipcase for the entire set) will follow, with Genius, Animated focusing on Toth's brilliant career in TV cartoons.

Not only did we release information about some of our 2011 plans—yes, only some. We need to save a few tidbits for the new year, after all!—we stuffed readers' Christmas stockings with a fine pair of new releases: the third, penultimate volume in our reprinting of Alex Raymond's Rip Kirby…

…And the wonderful, must-be-seen-to-be-believed oversize Polly and Her Pals, Volume 1. My heart skips a beat every time I take down a copy of this beautiful collection and start turning the pages. Author Paul Di Filippo calls it: "A monumental object of comic strip bookmaking glory. Phenomenal!" Over at Newsarama, J. Caleb Mozzocco cracked us up in his review of Polly when he dubbed it, "…a perfect coffee table book—not one that you would put on your coffee table...but one big enough to be used as a coffee table."

And that's the way it was—fourteen books, a Free Comic Book Day special, appearances at major conventions on both coasts, a passel of interviews, a truckload of work—and several truckloads of fun.

If you enjoyed this website and the LOAC line of books in 2010, keep watching. We think you'll like what lies ahead in 2011!

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Saturday, Jan 1st, 2011

2010: The LOAC Year in Review

While hardly an original idea, the thought of doing a "Year in Review" feature for this space struck me as time and effort well spent. After all, during the past twelve months Dean, Lorraine, Beau, and I have been busier than Santa's elves, ably abetted by Jeet Heer, Joseph Ketels, Brian Walker, and a long list of graphic artists, collectors, and writers who make such important contributions to our line of books.

As we greet the New Year, here's a look back over our collective shoulder at 2010, LOAC style:

JANUARY

The year began with a project near and dear to all our hearts: King Aroo, Volume 1.

It was a great pleasure to bring this gentle, long-overlooked classic back into print, and to help shine the spotlight on the King's talented creator, Jack Kent. We look forward to offering more Myopean Misadventures in 2011!

FEBRUARY & MARCH

Dean's joke is that we were "Closed for Repairs" during these two months, when in reality we were girding our loins for all sorts of activity in ...

APRIL

We opened this month with a pair of aces and a pair of deuces. As the baseball season began anew (who dreamed it would result in a championship for the San Francisco Giants?), we emphasized the diversity of our line by releasing our second volumes of both Rip Kirby and Bloom County (the latter debuted at number four on the New York Times Best Seller list).

Not only did we serve up thick slices of Berkeley Breathed's increasingly-topical absurdist comedy and Alex Raymond's 1950s New York detective chic, we also launched this very website; Dean's "Welcome to the Digital Library!" posting is dated April 9th. Before the month ended, we were able to announce in this space Eisner nominations for both Bloom Volume One and Bringing Up Father: From Sea to Shining Sea, as well as listing our initial plans for Genius, Isolated: The Life & Art of Alex Toth.

Last, though hardly least, we launched another series in April: our reprinting of Al Capp's satirical masterpiece, Li'l Abner. For the first time, full-color Sundays were included along with the dailies.

There was a ripple of controversy surrounding our Abner reprint program as a segment of the readership expressed the wish for a series containing only Sunday pages, since they own the dailies in the earlier Kitchen Sink Press series. I'm sympathetic to that perspective - I have all twenty-seven KSP volumes on my bookshelves - and there was internal discussion about how to best reprint Abner. I campaigned long and loudly that we needed to re-publish the dailies with the Sundays; Capp's work is too important and too dang good not to be preserved for 21st Century audiences in comprehensive LOAC editions. We hope our inaugural Li'l Abner releases have changed the minds of any dissenters, but if not ... I still feel we made the right decision.

MAY

The first of May was Free Comic Book Day, and LOAC participated with a flipbook featuring our current and upcoming projects.

Our website worked in tandem with the FCBD sampler in announcing our plans for the Williamson/Goodwin Secret Agent Corrigan, as well as Polly & Her Pals in our oversize "champagne edition" format. In bookstores and on-line, we brought Little Orphan Annie into the mid-1930s with Volume Five of her series, featuring a variety of nasties including Charles C. Chizzler, Phil O. Bluster, and the Ghost Gang.

JUNE

We arrived at the halfway point of 2010 with one of our most popular series reaching its tenth edition, as Dick Tracy squared off against the likes of Itchy, Gargles, and Influence.

The Influence saga remains one of my favorite Tracy storylines, as Gould does a fabulous job emphasizing the sadistic creepiness of the villain's mind-control powers.

On a lighter note, Bil Keane brought another ring to the Family Circus as a new baby was added to the mix.

All that and we're only halfway through the year! Watch this space for the concluding installment of this 2010 LOAC Year in Review…

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Friday, Dec 31st, 2010

The Greatest New Year's Eve Sunday of All!

It doesn't get any better than this spectacular Sunday by George McManus and Zeke Zekley from December 31, 1939. Ahhh, back at a time when artists spent days—sometimes weeks—on a single Sunday comic strip, with no thought of posterity or future book collections such as those we are now producing. Masterworks such as this were created to read but once in an ephemeral newspaper on a relaxing Sunday morning. Incredible but true.

Happy New York to one and all!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Tuesday, Dec 28th, 2010

Talkin' Toth: Part One

Alex Toth was the master craftsman of comics. He was outspoken, gifted, studious, prolific, and uncompromising. He drew a lot and he said a lot. Much of it will appear in our upcoming three books devoted to this great artist, and some we just couldn't comfortably fit. Over the next month, we will share some of that material with you in this space, so—here is the first in a series of "Talkin' Toth."

The splash page from "I Struck it Rich," from Personal Love #11, published in September 1951 by Eastern Color.

TOTH REFLECTS ON HIS ROMANCE WORK IN A 1978 LETTER

As I recall, the whole scheme of these comics was to attract the pre-pubescent, if not adolescent, girl readership—those who were too old to read funny animal and hero comics, but still too young to read True Confessions-type "slicks"—so, the writers cut to the middle line, giving just enough, but not too much, story—load it with emotional scenes girls could relate to, and serve it up with credible artwork!

It worked very well, and for a good many years!

It affected my approach to every story I was to illustrate thereon—regardless of type—kinship was established with the writer, his motive, his copy, his delivery of dialogue, and his sequential breakdown of scenes to tell the story! I have had high regard for good writers, always! It's the hack writer, of low talent, sensitivity, who has come under my fire, of whose work I'd reject, out of hand, returning scripts to befuddled editors who'd never heard of such goings-on before—thus, my reputation as a renegade grew—I'd had the privilege of working from good, sane scripts—and it spoilt me for the hack tripe of other writers, often puffed-up sorts who'd howl to editors about my changes or comments, never acknowledging the obvious reason for them: that their work was mediocre, minus a factor of ten!

* * * * *

Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth will be on sale in March.

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Saturday, Dec 25th, 2010

Season's Greetings to All

An assortment of holiday strips from various books in the Library of American Comics…with our best wishes to all for the holiday season and the new year.

posted by Dean Mullaney  Bruce Canwell    Lorraine Turner

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Wednesday, Dec 22nd, 2010

As Rouge Would say:

Though comics are one of the bare handful of born-in-America artforms, their appeal crosses all political and geographical borders. Submitted as proof of this hypothesis—as if proof be needed!…one of the first European editions of a Library of American Comics book. In October, 2010, Nicholas Forsans, Jean-Baptiste Barbier, Antonie Mathon, and their fine co-workers at Bdartist(e) released a lovely translated-into-the-French version of Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates, Volume 1. Here's a look at their familiar-yet-different front dustjacket for the book:

More than two decades after Caniff's passing and with almost sixty-five years gone by since he abandoned post-War China in favor of Horizons, Unlimited, Bdartist(e)'s release stands as testament to Milt's unmatched talent and the timeless appeal of Terry Lee and his vivid, unforgettable supporting cast.

Their book follows our own Terry Volume 1 closely, but not exactly. Howard Chaykin's introduction and my essay were retained; Dean's preface was not. Like us, Bdartist(e) chose to provide a ribbon bookmark, but Randy Scott's Index to Volume 1 has been replaced by eight pages of "Hommages:" interpretations of Terry in both color and black-&-white by Continental artists that served as a preview of a December 2010 exhibition on display at the publisher's gallery, located at 55 rue Condorcet in Paris.

Aside from the text on the front endpapers, the daily reprinted on the back flap of the dustjacket, and the "Character Key to Our Cover" feature, the entire book has been translated into French, all the strips re-lettered. This means our European friends are deprived of Frank Engli's beautiful lettering, but the work of Maximilien Chailleux is crisp and clean, and certainly it must be no easy task to place translated text within space defined for the "mother tongue." Well done, M'sieur Chailleux!

As I browsed Terry et les Pirates, I speculated on the considerable challenge one faces in translating Caniff's dialogue into another language. As the series unfolds, many of Milton's characters use an increasingly snappy and sometime esoteric American slang, and several of his secondary players routinely fracture the King's English as a reminder of their Asian or European origins (think of Singh-Singh's love of "Pappermeents," or Rouge, using one of her many aliases while confirming what Flippo Corkin has just wryly observed: "Preencess Rojo does have the prett-ee feegure!"). Is it possible to capture even the majority of the insouciance and humor contained in Milton's scripting? Michel Pagel, who adapted the text in tome 1, will surely handle that considerable task with professionalism, skill, and care.

Alas, I'll be a poor judge of his efforts—four years of school-years German left me ill-equipped to tackle a French translation!

The first page of my Terry Volume 1 essay: Did I really say all that?

Believe it or not, this is not the first time my work has been translated for European audiences. I own copies of both the French and German editions of Lee Weeks's and my graphic novel, Batman: The Gauntlet. (There's reportedly also a Spanish edition I've been unable to find - so if anyone knows where I can get a copy of Robin: Dia Un, I'd be greatly indebted ... )

Cover to the French edition of Gauntlet, which also featured a James Robinson/Lee Weeks
short story reprinted from Legends of the Dark Knight #100)

On this side of the Atlantic, each week we're bombarded with e-mails from readers requesting second printings of the LOAC Terry and the Pirates, since many volumes of the initial run are sold out, with copies commanding high prices on the secondary market ($200-300 for Volume Five!). While we have not yet completed our plans—there are scheduling, printing, and economic factors that have to be weighed and balanced—we will be offering second printings of Terry as we look to keep Milton Caniff's original masterpiece in print during the second decade of the 21st Century. Watch this space for notification when the presses start rolling.

Meanwhile (with a lot of help from Google-Translate): Un grand merci à Bdartist(e) de me donner une copie de leur merveilleuse Terry et les pirates, tome 1! Mes félicitations pour produire un beau livre!

You'll find the Amazon-France listing for Bdartist(e)'s Terry tome 1 here: http://www.amazon.fr/Terry-Pirates-T01-Milton-Caniff/dp/2919243004/ref=pd_sim_b_89 ...

... While the page on Bdartist(e)'s website devoted to Terry - complete with French press coverage - is located here: http://www.bdartiste.com/dotclear2/index.php?q=Terry+et+les+Pirates.

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Saturday, Dec 18th, 2010

Master of the Motherload in Michigan

I've known Randy Scott and been familiar with Michigan State University's Comic Art Collection since the late 1970s. I recently found a carbon copy (remember those?) of the letter I sent him in 1978 that accompanied a copy of Sabre by Don McGregor and Paul Gulacy, the inaugural book from my publishing company, Eclipse Comics. Sabre was the first graphic novel ever published for the comics specialty market, and at a time when graphic novels and comics were considered trash by most universities, I thought it pretty impressive that at least one Big Time College Library would collect what I published!

MSU then became the home for the complete files of Eclipse Comics, from beginning to end. It's turned out to be a useful resource. For example, when Blake Bell was writing his excellent book on Steve Ditko, I was able to offer him nearly 100 pages of original research we did at Eclipse in the 1980s, including notes from an interview with Ditko's brother.

Randy and I were also early members of APA-I. What's that, you ask? Basically, a bunch of comics nuts producing indexes to different series, writers, and artists. Three other early APA-I members went on to form the Grand Comics Database.

Recent arrivals not yet catalogued

So here we are, thirty years later -- Randy is STILL the comics maven at Michigan State University, while I'm preserving and restoring classic comics as founder of The Library of American Comics. Many of our releases boast indexes by...you guessed it, Randy Scott.

Randy shows Lorraine Turner and me some of the hard-to-find European comics he's brought home from a recent buying trip..

Stacks of fun!

Randy and fellow librarians on campus use his office for their weekly jazz improvs.

Some uncatalogued tearsheets from the King Features collection.

On our recent research trip to East Lansing, the home of MSU's Special Collections Library, Lorraine Turner and I barely scratched the surface of the several hundred thousand (yes, several hundred thousand!) comics, graphic novels, and books about comics in the stacks. We were concentrating our research on—among other subjects—Alex Raymond's syndicate proofs for Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim; the cartoonists Otto Soglow, creator of The Little King; Frank Robbins, creator of Johnny Hazard; and Jimmy Hatlo, of They'll Do It Every Time and Little Iodine fame...

...and to look through my old Eclipse files relating to Alex Toth. Our forthcoming book—Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth—will be richer because the Eclipse files containing correspondence and stats of original artwork have been preserved and catalogued at Michigan State University.

Here's Alex's note to me expressing uncertainly over who drew this page originally published by Standard Comics. In the 1980s at Eclipse, I reprinted six issues worth of Standard stories in a series entitled Seduction of the Innocent. Alex's comment that "you won't have to pay any of us old crocks" refers to my policy of paying reprint rates to artists or their heirs, regardless of the fact that the comics were in the public domain. It's a policy I maintain today: Alex's family is sharing in royalties on our Genius books. It's a policy we encourage other publishers to adopt.

* * * * *

So here's a "Hear, Hear" for my old pal Randy Scott, Comic Art Bibliographer, Indexing Guru, and (with his wife Lynn) the best host north of Columbus, Ohio, and south of Cadillac, Michigan.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Wednesday, Dec 15th, 2010

Caniff…a Visual Biography

Two days ago, I wrote that there's no greater thrill than when the first box arrives from the printer with the latest book. A close second is discovering rare artwork or photographs and uncovering new biographical information about a cartoonist. In the case of Polly and Her Pals by Cliff Sterrett, our extensive research culminated in an 8,000-word introduction by Jeet Heer that alters the generally accepted view of Sterrett's life.

On our recent foray to The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at The Ohio State University (how's that for a mouthful o' monicker?!), we were primarily looking through the extensive Milton Caniff archives for original artwork and rarely seen items. If you want Caniff, you go to Ohio State; the justly-famous cartoon library was formed on the basis of Caniff depositing his lifetime of artwork and files to his dear alma mater (class of 1930).

We're working on the first-ever Milton Caniff artbook, to be published next June. "First ever?" you may ask, with a tinge of doubt. It seems impossible that in a career as well-documented as Milton Caniff's, there has not been a coffee table artbook dedicated to his work. But there hasn't. There's our definitive six-volume Terry and the Pirates, editions of Steve Canyon, Male Call, and Dickie Dare, and R.C. Harvey's phonebook-sized biography—but no artbook.

Original logo color comps for "Buckeye Boys Ranch."

Throughout his life, Caniff provided artwork for his college fraternity's magazine.

We think of this new project—simply titled Caniff—as not merely an artbook, but a visual biography that will include many examples of original artworks, promotional pieces, background material, and photographs. Some will be familiar to readers (such the "Pilot's Creed" Terry Sunday that was read into the Congressional Record), but presented in a new version (Caniff's original watercolor of that famous page, which I saw for the first time on this trip!). Other graphics have never or rarely been collected or reprinted.

And that's why we were in Columbus, Ohio—to find undiscovered and unreprinted gems by the most influential cartoonist of all time. And find them we did...with a little help from our friends. Last week Lorraine Turner told you about Matt Tauber donning the white gloves in the research room.

Matt Tauber looking through Caniff original artwork

This week, we meet one of the unsung heroes in the field of comics research—OSU's own Susan Liberator, the Keeper of the White Gloves, the Guardian of the Great Works. Along with Lucy Caswell, Jenny Robb, and Marilyn Scott, the indefatigable Susan has been a tremendous help in all of our research at the Cartoon Library—wading through the Noel Sickles papers, the Shel Dorf, Toni Mendez, and Harold Bell collections, and the wide-ranging Caniff archives. Our much-lauded Scorchy Smith and the Art of Noel Sickles, as well as Bruce Canwell's introductions to the Eisner Award-winning Terry series, would have been much poorer without her assistance. And so, a tip of the archivist's hat to Susan Liberator.

Who said librarian's don't smile?

As we were cataloguing artwork, in walked Jared Gardner, Associate Professor of English at Ohio State, who was looking up something for the history of comics course he teaches. We're big fans of Jared's writings about comics on guttergeek and elsewhere; it was a pleasure to meet him and talk a bit about comics criticism, Otto Soglow, and how his 21st-century students respond to such 1920s strips as The Gumps. Here we are admiring the original artwork for one of Caniff's early drawings for the Columbus Dispatch.

In the months ahead, we'll share additional rarities from Caniff, like this one from Harry Guyton, Milton Caniff's nephew: an original watercolor from the 1940s that Caniff did on a standard number 10 envelope. The "bunny" is Milton's wife, Esther, and the great dane is Capt. Blaze, named after the red-headed rascal in Terry and the Pirates.

For now, though, I've got a date with the Dragon Lady…

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Monday, Dec 13th, 2010

I'm Positive, it's Polly!

After all these years of editing and publishing books, there's still no greater thrill than when the first box arrives from the printer with the latest book hot off the presses. Last week, the massive Polly and Her Pals arrived on our doorstep. When I say "massive," I'm not kidding. It's the first Library release in the "champagne edition" size of 12" wide by 16" high.

On newsarama, J. Caleb Mozzocco calls Polly "a perfect coffee table book—not one that you would put on your coffee table...but one big enough to be used as a coffee table."

Douglas Wolk at Comics Alliance was briefer in his assessment: "Don't Ask! Just Buy It!"

art spiegelman writes, "Polly and Her Pals is a glorious composition of melodious, well-crafted, hot-jazz lines for newsprint; panel after panel of graphic design with the clarity, wit, and grace of a Bix Beiderbecke cornet solo. Visually, it is a happy synthesis of Art Deco, Futurism, Surrealism, Dada, and Pure Cartoon. Your eyes can dance to it."

We're incredibly proud that Cliff Sterrett finally gets his due and that we can all experience his amazing and singular cartooning vision.

Polly and Her Pals volume 1: 1913-1927 is in stores and available online now.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Friday, Dec 10th, 2010

Unexpected Treasure

Recently I had the privilege of doing research at the wonderful Cartoon Art Library at The Ohio State University. I have always loved history; it was my best subject in school…after recess and gym. I am a graphic artist and designer, but my hobby is genealogy, and I've become a pretty good researcher.

I say pretty good, because I am not and never will be a sleuth like some of my ancestry.com geeks (sorry, I mean "friends") who are far ahead of me in this field. But I have to tell you, the thought of leaving 88-degree temperatures and my home facing teal water for the double-sweatered university research room with sterile white tables and SILENCE…well, let's just say I had some mental adjusting to do. But I was anxious to begin the journey, and Dean had sweetened the deal with a promised Michigan family Thanksgiving. So naturally I was all ears.

I am a novice at comic history and here I was accompanying Dean, the bloodhound, on his mission. He instinctively knows what he's looking for and where to look. I was just following his lead and pulling out any tidbit I thought we could use in one of our upcoming archival books. I swear, he's like a hawk...nothing escapes his perception. Is he even human? I digress...

Prior to our trip, we had made contact with a wonderful young man named Matt Tauber, who lived in the area and offered his help. Matt has a wonderful blog on Milton Caniff. He arrived early and was waiting as we walked into the library. Thank goodness…someone who actually goes by non-Key West time (in Key West, an hour late is the same as being on time). Dean and I liked him immediately.

He wore a million-dollar smile, emitted non-stop energy and a positive attitude that made the day sing. That's the best way  to describe it...like great harmony. The memory of this day was like listening to a great melody. As I was shuffling through the files, wearing my Ohio State University-issued white cotton gloves, I became aware of a dynamic in the room that became a sort of revelation.

Dean kept stopping, turning, and showing Matt precious gems—obscure articles, original art, letters, memos, pencil sketches, and the mementos of family and friends of the many artists and writers who comprised a historic comics generation that has since passed. Matt would become totally enthralled and the two of them would exchange silent looks of pure joy and understanding.

That's when it hit me. This was it—this was the reason for the endless hours, the long brainstorming sessions, the meetings, the interviews, the letter writing...all of it. For this...that pure joy. I thought we had embarked on this expedition to uncover facts and art that were useful in telling a story. This was and IS the story. By collecting all this art and information and placing it in a book, we can give others that smile when they see it for the first time and own it for themselves.

As we continue to uncover more of these little jewels, we can pass them along, too. And it will be there for this generation and for all generations. Joy...pure joy. And here I was fretting over the weather, silly me. I was part of an expedition. Some go to the Arctics...I went to Paradise.

posted by Lorraine Turner

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Monday, Dec 6th, 2010

ALEX TOTH: Genius, Genius, Genius

Alex Toth is revered as one of the greatest of all comics artists. Others laud his pioneering work in animation, including his groundbreaking designs for Space Ghost and The Herculoids. His work influenced countless professionals in both fields. His biography and talents proved too big to be contained in a single volume. Therefore, we're releasing the much-anticipated Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth in March 2011 as the first in a three-book set that will be the definitive statement on the restless genius and timeless legacy of Alex Toth.

Created by the Eisner Award-winning team of Dean Mullaney and Bruce Canwell—who produced the ground-breaking Scorchy Smith and the Art of Noel Sickles—Genius, Isolated is a lavishly illustrated book that includes the first biography of this giant figure. The book has been compiled with complete access to the family archives, and with the full cooperation of Toth's children.

Alex Toth in a playful mood in 2005 with Dana (his eldest daughter) and Eric (his eldest son).

Associate Art Director Lorraine Turner and I met with Dana and Eric last week to discuss the expansive plans for the three-book set. To say that we're all excited with the larger scope of the project is an understatement!

In addition to art and photographs from the family, Toth fans and friends throughout the world have loaned original artwork reproduced in the entire series. Included are many examples of Alex's art, from complete stories to rare pages, as well as —incredibly—a previously unknown, unfinished, and unpublished penciled story from the early 1950s! The tome covers his earliest stories at DC in the 1940s, his defining work at Standard and his incomparable Zorro comics in the 1950s, and a special section collects—for the first time—the complete Jon Fury pages that Toth produced while in the army, a section that alone is worth the price of admission.

Alex Toth was more than a unique and influential artist. He was a keenly insightful philosopher about comics, cartooning, and animation—with opinions on how they are created as opposed to how he felt they should be created. He wasn't shy about expressing those thoughts, whether in sometimes-scathing personal letters, essays for publication, or letters to the editor. To flesh out the complete story of his life and art, Mullaney and Canwell have spent more than a year conducting wide-ranging interviews with dozens of Toth's peers, friends, and family members. With a special introduction by Mark Chiarello, Genius, Isolated is the beginning of a comics biography everyone will be talking about for years to come.

Genius, Isolated details his life story and work through the early 1960s, when he began his sensational move into animated cartoons. The second book in the series, Genius, Illustrated, picks up the story as Toth becomes one of the leading character designers in television animation—continues through his renewed career in comics with Warren, DC, and his creator-owned properties of the 1970s and beyond—and includes an examination of the artist's poignant final years.

The third book, Genius, Animated, is a wide-ranging art book reproducing hundreds of Toth's model sheets and storyboards for such successful cartoons as Space Ghost and Dino Boy, Jonny Quest, Space Angel, Super Friends, The Fantastic Four, Hot Wheels, Thundarr, and Shazzan...and also includes many full-color presentation pieces designed to sell new series to the networks.

A slipcase for the three-book set will be available with the third book.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Saturday, Dec 4th, 2010

Hunting(ton) Season

The fact that hunting season opened in the Middle West had nothing to do with why we were in Huntington, West Virginia last week. What could have drawn us nearly 1,200 miles away from the delightlfuly warm temperatures of Key West? Nothing less than a Library of American Comics confab with our marketing and sales guru, Beau Smith. Those who know Beau are aware of the fact that he rarely leaves his home town (the electronic shackles on his ankles may have something to do with it—only kidding!). Oh, he'll travel up to Mid-Ohio Con each year, but that's about as far afield as he likes to go.

Luckily for us, Huntington was a convenient first stop on our trip. Beau's been doing a great job expanding our sales to libraries and universities. Here, he and Associate Art Director (and marketing whiz herself) Lorraine Turner exchange ideas about spreading the word in the halls of academia.

For as many books as Beau and I have worked together on in the past twenty-five years, we still get a thrill opening that first box from the printer to see the latest release.

Beau also gave us a fun tour of the town, which included the stadium of the Marshall football team (his alma mater, and the subject of the movie, "We Are Marshall"). Before we hit the road, Beau's better half, Beth, joined us for a cracklin' good breakfast. And then we were off to our next stop: Columbus, Ohio. More about that in our next entry.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Wednesday, Dec 1st, 2010

Treasure Hunting in the Stacks

We're very deep in the library's stacks researching upcoming books and will be coming up for air soon. Keep posted to see what amazing goodies we've uncovered.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Sunday, Nov 21st, 2010

Overlapping strips

In working on the layout for The Complete Dick Tracy volume 11, I searched for a specific daily—July 10, 1948—to place in the page design. The search results came up with the requested Tracy daily, but also a Rip Kirby daily and an Archie daily from the same date.

I guess it should have dawned on me earlier because with more than thirty books published as part of the Library of American Comics, we're starting to see overlapping dates from strip to strip. We tend to look at each series as a distinct collection, but great cartoonists such as Chester Gould, Bob Montana, and Alex Raymond didn't work in a vacuum—their strips often appeared alongside one other's.

So in the interest of imaging what it would have been like to read a daily comics page at the time, here are three dailies from July 10, 1948.

And for more fun, imagine the thrill of reading Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates, Al Capp's Li'l Abner, and Harold Gray's Little Orphan Annie all on the same day?! Here are those strips from May 21, 1937.

Enjoy!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Monday, Nov 8th, 2010

Berkeley Breathed Talks!

With the release of Bloom County Vol. 3, Berkeley Breathed answered every question thrown at him by Ain't It Cool's Mike Russell in a fascinating look into the warped mind of Opus's creator.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/47326

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Friday, Nov 5th, 2010

Mike Esposito: In His Own Words - Part Three

Mike Esposito, the comic book artist and inker whose career spanned a half-century, has passed away at age eighty-three. In his memory, The Library of American Comics concludes our printing of the excerpted transcript of my interview with Mr. Esposito, who spoke with me in 2009 for our forthcoming Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth.

We begin this final installment with a discussion of work Alex did in the early 1950s for Esposito and his artistic partner and lifelong friend, Ross Andru, while they were publishing comics under the company name, "Mikeross Publications":

LOAC: OK, I've seen Joe Yank, but let me ask you about one of your books that I haven't seen, a book called 3D Love.

ME: Oh yeah, we published that.

LOAC: And I heard that Alex did ...

ME: Yeah, yeah. He did two great covers!

LOAC: All of Toth's romance stuff is so fantastic. I spoke with John Romita about Toth - and you know how much romance work he did - and Romita said, "I learned how to do all the romance stuff just by looking at how Toth did it."

ME: Yeah, John was up at DC, Johnny was starting up there, he was very young. In fact, Ross and I wanted Johnny to come to us when we were doing romance, and when we were doing Wonder Woman. We wanted him to do the heads for us, and the figure of Wonder Woman only. But he didn't want to do it, he didn't want to get involved with the character, he wanted to do stuff where he'd draw the whole thing himself. And that worked for him - he's done very well!

LOAC: Oh, yeah! And he's such a nice guy, too ...

ME: Oh, sure! We're very close, still, he and I. We speak once or twice a week. He lives not too far from me.

LOAC: You know, I think we've covered all the topics I had on my list. Thanks very much for your time. I still have a batch of people to talk to, but if somebody else tells me something and I want to run it past you, would it be all right to give you a quick call ... ?

ME: Oh, of course! Now, what is this going into?

LOAC: Well, here's a name you may remember - Dean Mullaney, who used to publish Eclipse Comics back in the '80s and '90s ...

ME: Yeah, yeah, Eclipse, I remember.

LOAC: These days Dean and I are producing hardcover collections of strip reprints. We've got all of Caniff's Terry and the Pirates back into print, and we're doing Dick Tracy. Last year we did a collection of Noel Sickles's Scorchy Smith ...  

ME: Oh, great!

LOAC: That's up for an Eisner Award this year ...

ME: Really?

LOAC: So we decided this Toth biography would be a great follow-up to the Sickles.

ME: Well, I wish you guys lots of luck. I think I'm gonna go now - my phone is still running, but my voice is leaving!

LOAC: I understand how that goes! Thanks very much for your time - I appreciate it.

ME: All right, pal. 'Bye now.

Rest in peace, Mr. Esposito.

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Thursday, Nov 4th, 2010

Mike Esposito: In His Own Words - Part Two

We continue to honor the late Mike Esposito, who passed away at the end of October, by publishing the second excerpt from my 2009 interview with him. Mr. Esposito and I spoke in support of our upcoming release, Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth, and we return to the interview at the beginning of a wide-ranging conversation about Alex:

ME: As far as Toth goes, he was good right to the end. I get the Alter Ego magazine - he did a lot of articles for Jim Amash.

LOAC: Yeah, he really kept his interest in the field down through the years ... and he definitely wasn't shy with his opinions!

ME: Yeah, but he had the right to 'em, he was a real veteran ...

LOAC: Sure.

ME: But you're right about that. And all his articles and notes, every little thing, he would letter it himself - he wouldn't write it, he would print it. And he had a way of lettering ... he would have been a great full-time letterer, he had that knack. When you see my lettering it's so sloppy, when I write a note to somebody or something. But he had control right to the end of his life. I used to see those little articles of his in Alter Ego - amazing! I couldn't help but admire him for it. But I didn't know he died so young. I never knew he was that sick.

LOAC: Well, the medical problems began, and they mounted up. And maybe he wasn't as quick to get help as he should have been. But years before that, his wife passed away before him and that affected him, as well.

ME: Sure. Did he have any children?

LOAC: Yes, he had four children, two girls, two boys.

ME: I didn't know that.

LOAC: Actually, we're working with the kids, we're doing the book with their approval, and we're working with them ...

ME: What about talent-wise? Are they art-interested?

LOAC: None of them have followed in his footsteps, obviously, but some of them work in design and photography, and there are grandchildren ...

ME: That's what I meant. Sometimes it steers toward music, sometimes it steers toward acting, but it all comes from the creative spark that gets passed along.

LOAC: Let me ask you a quick question in another area. I saw some of the stuff that you and [lifelong artistic partner, penciler] Ross [Andru] had done at Standard, some pages from Joe Yank ...

ME: Oh, yeah . . .

LOAC: It seemed to me that in some of that work, the two of you were going for a Toth-like look.

ME: Oh, definitely! Ross realized that he would overwork too much, and he tried to get a more visually-readable look to his stuff. Like the way Toth would do it, with the faces, the layouts, the backgrounds, and the figures in the foregrounds.

LOAC: One of the guys who inked a lot of Toth's work, especially at Standard, was Mike Peppe. And Peppe was the art director there, too, right?

ME: Sure, sure. You know, he wanted to ink Ross. Ross had an argument with him. He said to Ross, "I want to do your inking," and Ross said to Peppe, "No, Mike's my partner for life." We were kids, Ross and I, we grew up together, all the way through high school, the Music and Art High School. He said, "Partners for life." Ross was young, and an up-and-comer, but he said, "No." Peppe was actually shocked.

LOAC: Sure. In most businesses, there's not a lot of that kind of loyalty.

ME: You're right. But sometimes loyalty is because of your own insecurity.

LOAC: That's true.

ME: Ross might have been more comfortable with me because he knew me from when we were kids - he trusted me.

LOAC: When you get a good working relationship together ... if it's not broke, why fix it?

ME: Especially if you're paranoid. And we were! [National/DC editor Bob] Kanigher called us, "The Paranoid Twins!"

The conclusion of my interview with Mike Esposito will appear tomorrow.

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Wednesday, Nov 3rd, 2010

Mike Esposito: In His Own Words - Part One

We at The Library of American Comics were saddened by the news of Mike Esposito's passing on October 24th of this year, at the age of eighty-three. Mike was a mainstay of the comic book industry from the 1950s to the 1990s. During his career Mike produced material for companies including Fiction House, EC, National/DC (Metal Men, Wonder Woman, and a plethora of war stories), Standard (Joe Yank), Skywald, and Marvel (touching most of that company's Silver Age characters under a handful of pseudonyms, with notable runs on several Spider-Man titles), retiring at the end of the 20th Century following several years of steady work for Archie Comics.

Of course, Mike was best known for inking the work of his lifelong friend, Ross Andru. In addition to producing thousands of pages of comic book art, the "Mikeross" team packaged comics and dabbled in publishing during both the 1950s and early 1970s.

I conducted a telephone interview with Mr. Esposito in 2009 as part of our research work for the upcoming Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth. I found him personable and opinionated, very open and knowledgeable; it was my distinct pleasure to have spoken with him. I've extracted the quotes I need from the interview for my Genius, Isolated text, but that leaves a significant amount of our discussion "on the cutting room floor."

To pay our respects, The Library of American Comics will run the remainder of my interview with Mike Esposito in this space over three installments. We'll run the text in Q&A format (unusual for us) to allow you to "hear" Mike in his own words.

We hope you'll find what he has to say as entertaining and interesting as we did.

LOAC: Mr. Esposito? My name is Bruce Canwell, and mutual friends tell me you might be interested in talking a little bit about Alex with me.

ME: Well, I don't have too much time I spent with Alex. I can only tell you what a great artist he was. Ross [Andru], my partner at the time, when we were young - Ross Andru loved Toth's stuff, because Toth developed that decorative look, that two-dimensional look, which Ross didn't understand when he was starting out.

Ross would overwork - when he saw the stuff up at Standard Comics, he realized the approach would be almost like props on a stage, the flat, decorative look. Two-dimensional - but it wasn't two-dimensional, it was - the design was two-dimensional, but the way Toth did it, he brought depth to it.

When he did stuff for Dell Comics, it was unbelievable. Stuff like Zorro ... I couldn't believe his stuff. And I remember him when I was a young feller, up at DC. I was a young inker with Ross, working for Bob Kanigher, and Toth's stuff was really unbelievable. Just unbelievable.

LOAC: Right, Alex did work with Kanigher.

ME: Oh, yeah. And he worked for Julius Schwartz ...

LOAC: And before him, Shelley Mayer.

ME: And I think [Murray] Boltinoff, he did some work for. He was good. Unfortunately, we didn't have too much to do with one another, but artistically, what he did ... as an artist myself, I couldn't help but appreciate what he did. He was really, really way ahead of any of the other guys.

LOAC: Right. He was a major reason DC moderated their very quiet, Dan Barry "look" from that period ...

ME: At DC, Toth did some great stuff. The Westerns - I loved the way he handled horses, and he was almost Caniff-like in his design. That's before he got decorative. That's when he was doing complete drawings.

LOAC: Sure - he was a big fan of both Caniff and Noel Sickles.

ME: Right, right! That's where everybody stemmed from, that period. That's why guys like Frank Miller became so famous, later, in that psychedelic look up at Marvel. Ross, myself, Johnny Romita - we came from the schools of Sickles and Caniff when they drew differently. Now let's face it, Frank Miller is great, but it doesn't have the warmth ... it's not warm. It doesn't have the warmth of the '40s and '50s. But you can't knock the guy - big movie director . . .

LOAC: Exactly right. He's done pretty well for himself.

ME: I would say so. It's just that, you develop a taste from over the years, back when you were young, and you can't accept some of that psychedelic approach. Today, when I look at a comic book - I get 'em in the mail, I get 'em from Marvel and from DC, and when I see 'em, I say, "Gee, we didn't think this way!" It's so psychedelic -- I use the word "psychedelic," because ... I don't know if you know what I mean by "psychedelic" ...

LOAC: Yeah, I think so - there's such a sense of design in every page ...

ME: Right, right, right! It's hard to read! It's got noise. I should use the word "noise" over "psychedelic" - it's  screaming, it's not quiet. When you look at John Buscema when he did the ant and the giant-girl - I did a couple stories with him on that, The Avengers. It's so beautifully delineated on the page. Now, it's very graphically different. But hey - the whole world takes a different look!

More of my interview with Mike Esposito tomorrow.

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Friday, Oct 22nd, 2010

The Return of the King of the Tunes

My first job was in radio broadcasting. I started as a copywriter at the top-rated album-rock station in my home state, 100,000-watt WIGY-FM. Today - last I heard, anyway - WIGY is an all-religious station, but back in the day we played (and sometimes helped make) Top 40 hits, mixed with album cuts and plenty of standards. Jack O'Brien, our program director, would sing along in the studio every time he played Meat Loaf's "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" and never stumbled over a syllable, even when he was doing Phil Rizutto's staccato play-by-play part. Believe it or not, our midday man was named Steve Rogers. Our morning drive jock, Bob Anderson, was a thorough-going professional and one of the funniest persons it has ever been my pleasure to know.

We did some fantastic promotions at WIGY. I caught for the station softball team and coached the basketball team (it was a great chance to do my Tommy Heinsohn impersonation, tossing my clipboard and jawing at the refs). We staged a "fantasy day parade" in the studio that sounded so realistic, police officials in the towns we had announced on our route were calling the station to ask if they should put officers at key intersections to handle traffic control. The jocks took over the station on July 4th, declaring their independence and playing whatever music they wanted to play. For years, I never watched the sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati - I was living WKRP in Cincinnati.

Like everything else, radio has changed a lot since those days. I'll get a small taste of how it's changed starting at 3PM Friday, October 29, 2010, when I'm Scott Katz's guest on his Internet radio show at www.ustownhall.com.

WIGY's evening jock, wild-man Willie Mitchell, won't be on hand to do two-man shtick with me, but Scott and I will be talking classic comics in general and The Library of American Comics in particular. The odds are mighty good we'll discuss "coming soon" attractions such as Polly and Her Pals, popular favorites like Bloom County, eagerly-anticipated upcoming projects (including our Alex Toth biography, Genius Isolated), plus a sneak-peek at what to look for from LOAC as 2011 unfolds.

If you haven't been to www.ustownhall.com, why not zip over and take a look? Extensive coverage of the New York Comic Con is available on-site, including a photo gallery containing a snapshot of Dean Mullaney and me manning the LOAC section of the IDW booth. And our resident expert on all things Dick Tracy, Max Allan Collins, has already appeared on Scott's radio program; you'll find a link to their interview, so be sure to listen to that informative and entertaining segment.

In my WIGY days, a lot of us talked about being, "The king of the tunes, the duke of the doo-wahs, the man with the stacks of hot wax." Though I still have my FCC license, I won't be playing any Warren Zevon or Rolling Stones, but I'm definitely looking forward to my return to radio!

I'm dialing in to talk with Scott Katz of www.ustownhall.com at 3PM on Friday, October 29th. Check the site to hear the show ... 

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Wednesday, Oct 13th, 2010

I Just Flew in From New York, and Boy…

…You know the rest. Rather than regale you with warmed-over Henny Youngman shtick (go ahead -- Google him), here are my rapid-fire recollections of the whirlwind that was the New York Comic Con:

• Greatly enjoyed my first face-to-face meeting with fellow LOAC scribe Brian Walker and his father, the legendary Mort Walker of Beetle Bailey fame. Brian's brand-new book on Doonesbury (done for another worthy publisher) looks mahvelous.

• Here's the graphic IDW prepared so passing fans would recognize Dean:

Note his extra-curly hair and pupil-less eyes. I warned him not to eat that bagel leftover from Friday morning, but would he listen to me? Noooo-o-o-o ...

• Guess which ultra-talented, ultra-cool, ultra-popular artist walked into the IDW booth on Sunday carrying a green satchel bearing the shamrocked logo of the winningest team in NBA history? Though we'd never previously met, that satchel prompted me to immediately approach him, introduce myself, and say, "Celtics, bay-bee!" To which he affirmed: "Celtics rule!"

• Memo to Lorraine Turner: no special apple juice in evidence all weekend long. Boo! Hiss! Boo!

• Very gratifying that Jim Steranko remembered we had once talked about the possibility of my working for him on his media magazine, Prevue. Some team-ups are meant to be: we combined efforts on 2008's Scorchy Smith and The Art of Noel Sickles. Made my day when Jim grinned and said, "We finally gave Scorchy the treatment it deserves!"

• Biggest surprise: getting the opportunity to meet Nicky Brown, granddaughter of Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson (see our Monday, October 4th entry, "Two Birds, One Blog"). Nicky is, as the old saying goes, a real pistol, and I had such fun getting to know her. You can read more about her famous grandfather at: http://majormalcolmwheelernicholson.com/wordpress/.

• Biggest disappointment: I failed to meet up with pals-via-keyboard Jeff Vaughn and Joey Cavalieri. Sorry to have missed you, gents!

• Because so many industry giants are helping us with Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth, the project grows bigger and grander every day. Once again, Jim Steranko has provided invaluable assistance; I also got to spend time with Irwin Hasen -- who was among the first persons I interviewed for the project -- and Joe Kubert, who spoke with me about Alex scarcely a week before the convention. With contributions from titans like this (and Ruben Procopio, and James Robinson, and so many others), Genius, Isolated is on track to be the most ambitious project ever published under The Library of American Comics banner.

• Cracked up to learn IDW Chief Executive Officer Ted Adams thinks my caricature on this site makes me look like Captain Marvel's arch-enemy, Dr. Sivana. How can you say that, Ted (you big red cheese!) ...

• What a deee-light to catch up with Dauntless Don McGregor on Saturday! They broke the mold when they made Don, and I was pleased to be able to tell him I'd recently finished re-reading his groundbreaking Black Panther issues, collected by editor Cory Sedlmeier in a lovely Marvel Masterworks edition. As a boy I read those stories when they were first published; if memory serves, both Dean and my by-lines appeared in the Jungle Action letters column during that run.

• Finally, I was happy to meet for the first time: Melissa Singer of Tor Books - Glenn Whitmore - Tim Ogline - Ryder Windham - Larry Shell - Ken Steacy (after a steady diet of Annie's mutt Sandy, Dean was glad to hear about different puppies, Ken!) - Andrew Farago of the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco - and ...

…And you! If you stopped by the Library of American Comics area and talked to us about our line of books in particular or the great comic strips of the past in general, it was a pleasure to speak with you. My voice is still raspy as a result, but it was well worth it!

Here's hoping your NYCC was as good as mine --

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Saturday, Oct 9th, 2010

It's a Gorgeous Weekend

The weather couldn't be better in New York City for this year's Comicon—comfortable temperatures in the mid-70s outside, and all 70,000+ of us are having a grand time inside the Javits Center. Here's the Library's "Mutt and Jeff" (a.k.a. Dean and Bruce) at the IDW booth (#2115). We spent most of Friday talking classic strips and Alex Toth with fans, bloggers, reporters, librarians, retailers, and fellow professionals. "Talking Toth" is one of the big topics -- we had a blast chatting with superscribe James Robinson and super-everything Jim Steranko about the upcoming GENIUS, ISOLATED: The Life and Art of Alex Toth tome we're preparing. And, naturally, we're looking forward to another two full days of the same. So don't forget to come see us if you're in the neighborhood.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Thursday, Oct 7th, 2010

NYCC is Upon Us!

Here's but one example of the literally hundreds of pieces of Alex Toth original art that you'll find in the upcoming GENIUS, ISOLATED: The Life and Art of Alex Toth. The bonanza ranges from complete stories to unpublished works to his justly-famous doodles. If you're at NYCC this weekend, stop by the IDW Booth #2115 and talk to Bruce Canwell and me about the amazing treasures we've uncovered for what will be the ultimate Alex Toth collection.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Monday, Oct 4th, 2010

Two Birds, One Blog

During the recent LOAC mini-summit in Boston's Back Bay, Lorraine Turner suggested that a good topic for this space would be a discussion of the questions readers might ask about my job.

I admit, I'm still mulling over how to address that topic - writing is a solitary pursuit, after all. In addition, years ago a close friend said, "People don't want to read about writers." I recalled my high school freshman English class rebelling halfway through John Steinbeck's autobiographical Travels with Charley: hmmm-m-m - maybe my friend was on to something. I don't entirely agree with him, but I've come to believe it takes a writer as dynamic and entertaining as, say, Harlan Ellison to successfully fracture my friend's rule of thumb. I have enough ego to think I do a pretty decent job of putting words into print, but let's be honest: an Ellison I ain't.

Recently, however, I finished reading a slender volume worth recommending to you that will also allow me to reflect a bit about how I approach my text features for LOAC titles. Submitted for your approval: Our Hero - Superman on Earth, by Tom DeHaven.

Our Hero examines Superman's history, his growth and evolution as a cultural icon, and his major appearances in media outside the comics (the movie serials and feature films, the live-action and animated TV series, the Broadway musical). It offers an insightful look at many of the key creators behind the Big Red S's comics adventures - with emphasis, of course, on the amazing saga of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

I'm a long-time DeHaven reader - his novel Derby Dugan's Depression Funnies is an outstanding recreation of the Golden Age of Comic Strips and is also well worth reading - but my efforts for LOAC would put me on the side of Our Hero even if I had never previously read anything by this fine writer. The sheer volume of information DeHaven researched, read, distilled, and organized into a cohesive whole is staggering. I have a first-hand appreciation for this sort of thing, of course, and my reaction as I made my way through the book was consistently the same: "Wow!" DeHaven provides significant new information about pulp-era impresario Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, provided by the Major's granddaughter, Nicky Brown - fascinating, not-to-be-missed stuff. And there are photos and illustrations sprinkled throughout the essay's 206 pages.

The book is hardly all facts 'n' figures. Rather, it's a fast-paced, engaging, thoughtful assessment of the Man of Tomorrow, sprinkled with personal reflections that are insightful or humorous, sometimes both at the same time. Here is DeHaven on the gestation of the Broadway play, It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman:

The songwriting team of Charles Strouse and Lee Adams, who'd been successful with Bye Bye Birdie in 1960 and the musical adaptation of Clifford Odets's Golden Boy in 1964, were looking for a next project when they asked magazine writers David Newman and Robert Benton ... did they have any good ideas? It was Newman's wife, Leslie, who suggested Superman after picking up a bunch of Action Comics from their kid's bedroom floor. Newman and Benton thought it an inspired recommendation - this was, after all, the Pop Art era of Warhol lithographs and Lichtenstein paintings - and so did Strouse and Adams. Although usually it had taken the composers at least two years to write a score, It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman was finished in just thirteen months.

After listening half a dozen times to the original cast recording, available again on CD, I think maybe they should've taken those extra eleven months ...

• • • • •

Another reason Our Hero resonates with me? DeHaven does something I continually strive to do in my LOAC work: he has found the story that makes the information compelling, and he does his usual excellent job of telling that story. No matter how impressive the research and how revelatory the new information brought to light, when an essay is written in the manner of an eighth grade social studies paper, my interest quickly wanes and I start asking myself why I'm spending my all-too-precious reading time on a snoozefest when I could be reading one of the John D. MacDonald paperback originals beckoning me from my To Be Read shelves.

Fortunately, LOAC books don't put me in that frame of mind: our writing staff consistently delivers the goods. Jeet Heer knows how to entertain readers while he makes us all smarter about Harold Gray, Orphan Annie, and the worlds in which they both inhabit; you'll soon enjoy the distinctive Heer touch in our first Polly and Her Pals volume, as well. Meanwhile, over in Rip Kirby, a lifetime spent inside the comics industry allows Brian Walker to write about Alex Raymond and Der Ripper with great confidence, while his work in Bringing Up Father: From Sea to Shining Sea helped that book earn its Eisner nomination.

And me? I do my thing, striving to make readers want to keep turning the pages. I don't want a future high school freshman English class to rebel against one of my essays the way my English class rebelled against Travels with Charley…

Read more about Our Hero here. And about Derby Dugan here. 

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Sunday, Oct 3rd, 2010

Al Williamson, Master Artist

Alex Deuben has written a loving tribute to Al Williamson at Comic Book Resources. Definitely worth checking out. Our first volume of Al's amazing collaboration with Archie Goodwin on X-9: Secret Agent Corrigan is now on sale. This not-be-be-missed collection is the first comprehensive edition of the series, reproduced from Al's personal syndicate proofs. Above is the cover for the second volume, which will be published next February.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Friday, Oct 1st, 2010

Dean Mullaney Interviewed

Chris Marshall at the Collected Comics Library is one of the most articulate and well-read interviewers around. On his latest podcast, he turns his attention to The Library of American Comics. Check it out, as we discuss the whys and wherefores of our books, our general philosophy about archival work, and what new projects are on the horizon!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Friday, Oct 1st, 2010

New York or Bust!

The Library of American Comics is leavin' Dogpatch and headin' for Noo Yawk Comic Con, October 8-10 at the Javits Center. Come to IDW's Booth 2115 and meet Creative Director Dean Mullaney, Associate Editor (and author of the forthcoming Alex Toth biography!) Bruce Canwell, plus assorted friends and sundry acquaintances. We look forward to talking to you about our favorite classic comic strips, and to show off our new releases. Get the exclusive first looks at Li'l Abner 2, Blondie, and the amazing Polly and Her Pals.

See you there!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Wednesday, Sep 29th, 2010

Podcasts R Us

Chris Marshall at the Collected Comics Library is one of the most articulate and well-read interviewers around. This week on his podcast, he turns his attention to The Library of American Comics. Check it out, as we discuss the whys and wherefores of our books, our general philosophy about archival work, and what new projects are on the horizon!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Tuesday, Sep 28th, 2010

It's a LOAC Invasion!

The Library of American Comics is headin' for New York Comic Con, October 8-10 at the Javits Center. Come to IDW's Booth 2115 and meet Creative Director Dean Mullaney, Associate Editor (and author of the forthcoming Alex Toth biography!) Bruce Canwell, plus assorted friends and sundry acquaintances. We look forward to talking to you about our favorite classic comic strips, and to show off our new releases. Get the exclusive first looks at Blondie and Polly and Her Pals.

See you there!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Sunday, Sep 26th, 2010

Eat more strawberries

Once upon a time, about twenty-six years ago, I had a little girl who was fascinated with Annie. She saw the movie with Carol Burnett and, at the age of three, memorized every dang song from it. We still refer to this as her "Annie Phase." My father bought every scruffy stuffed Sandy and Annie doll he could get his hands on at local flea markets and yard sales. He even told her if she ate enough strawberries, her hair would turn red.

And so it is with great joy and fondness that I now find myself restoring this fantastic work of Harold Gray. This spunky little girl reminds me of my own tough scrappy kid, the one who is now all grown up, the one who has organized and composed all of the music for her own band named after her childhood hero..."Orphan." Perhaps destiny led me to this remastering work, perhaps fate…or perhaps a calling to be near someone I love and admire.

Comics reflecting moments captured in time…a kid teaching an adult. The story continues :)

posted by Lorraine Turner

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Friday, Sep 24th, 2010

Check…and re-check

Although all restoration and design for our books are done digitally using Macs and Cintiq interactive pen displays, we still receive hard-copy proofs for every book from the printer. Mornings seem to be when the ol' eyeballs work best, so with coffee and pen in hand, we check the proofs and make corrections the old-fashioned way. There's nothing like seeing the pages on paper in order to make those final corrections. Here are the proofs for Li'l Abner volume 2, which is being approved for print today. It will be on sale in stores in November.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Sunday, Sep 19th, 2010

On My Walls

I never set out to collect original art, but over the years I've amassed a couple dozen pieces, all of which I've had matted and framed for display. I have my share of other, mass-produced items hanging, as well. The Graffiti Designs poster of James Bama's cover for the Doc Savage supersaga The Monsters was a must-have, as was the Mike Kaluta poster, "The Shadow Ablaze." And how could I pass up this classic shot of The Kid, smacking a home run in his first at-bat of the 1947 season:

(Sorry, all you fans of Barry Bonds, Josh Hamilton, Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols, or any other masher you can list - four decades after he hung up his cleats, the incomparable Ted Williams remains the greatest hitter who ever lived.)

First-time visitors to my humble abode acknowledge the posters and photos, yet they linger over the originals. Some sketches were bought strictly out of fan appreciation - a Gil Kane Green Lantern; a color head shot of The Thing from "Mr. FF," Joe Sinnott; a magical, mystical Doctor Strange by that painter with a pencil, Gene Colan.

Two big frames in my living room contain mementos from my own comic stories. In the late 1990s, some might recall, I spent several months writing freelance for DC Comics, arriving on the scene just in time for the business to take a major nosedive (the speculator bubble popped; Marvel Comics filed for bankruptcy protection), but before the work dried up underneath me I teamed with my old friend, Lee Weeks, on the graphic novel Batman: The Gauntlet and had my "Huntress" short story for the Batman Chronicles anthology title illustrated by Jim Aparo. I'm pleased to own two pages from each of those stories and am proud to have worked with both those talented gentlemen.

Some too-generous friends have given me several originals, including a very wonderful Olive Oyl profile shot rescued from a waste paper basket at the Fleischer Studios by a member of the production staff and later sold at an Atlanta Fantasy Fair. Color notations around the edge of the piece lend one to believe this was put together for one of the three Fleischer two-reelers, the only color Popeye work they produced.

As LOAC was building up its head of steam, I decided to keep my eyes open for select originals from some of our books. I wasn't about to break the bank (my prudent Scots heritage at work again), but for the right price I was willing to dabble in the original market.

The few Scorchy Smiths I found were priced well beyond the amount I was willing to pay, meaning I still have no original Noel Sickles piece. Yet I was lucky enough to snag a daily from his artistic stable-mate's greatest creation:

Yes, that's the March 11, '39 Terry and the Pirates, as the "Indo-China" sequence rushes to its climax. Milton Caniff had been hospitalized at the start of this storyline; many believe Sickles assisted his close friend throughout, to help him get back on schedule. Look at the foliage in the background of that last panel and judge for yourself, but some of my friends believe I own both Caniff and Sickles work in this one strip ...

Not long after acquiring the Terry, lightning struck again and I procured this, the February 23, 1953 Rip Kirby daily.

While Rip is nowhere to be seen, I'm a Honey Dorian fan, so owning a daily featuring Honey is fine by me. Raymond's exacting, confident rendering continues to delight.

If you've read my text in King Aroo Volume 1, you've likely figured out I'm a big fan of the strip (and you are, too - right?). It was a red-letter day when I was able to land this January 30, 1960 Aroo original:

The seller told me he was a Jack Kent fan, parting with the strip only reluctantly in order to raise money that would help him in a financial pinch. I sent him a copy of King Aroo when it went on sale - perhaps the seller having Kent strips in quantity at least partially counterbalanced his having parted with this original? I can only hope so.

Bringing Up Father led me a merry chase indeed. Four or five times I chased a McManus/Zekley BUF only to come up short. In mid-summer, however, opportunity knocked and I opened the door . . .

I'm mighty happy to have added this to my handful of original art. There's Jiggs - there's Maggie - there's the Deco motif - there's the surreal little background figure cutting capers. A neat, representative sampling of the best elements of this long-running strip.

As you might expect, I've become a familiar figure at my local framers over the fifteen years I've lived at my current residence. Here's a heads-up, Brian and Sally, if you're reading this - I'll soon be coming through the door to ask you to work your magic so I can add Bringing Up Father to the other pieces of art on my walls!

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Sunday, Sep 19th, 2010

Secret Agent Corrigan Hits Stores!

The first volume of our multi-volume series reprising Al Williamson and Archie Goodwin's X-9: Secret Agent Corrigan has officially hit the bookstores. The strips are reproduced from Al Williamson's personal proofs. To provide context, Mark Schultz wrote a touching tribute to Al, and Bruce Canwell offers up a detailed look at the history of X-9, going back to its creation in 1934 by Dashiell Hammett and Alex Raymond.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Saturday, Sep 18th, 2010

On the Town with George and Zeke

It was a great honor to have our Bringing Up Father: From Sea to Shining Sea nominated for a 2010 Eisner Award. There can be only one winner in each category, and BUF did not take home the trophy (Bloom County, our other entry in the awards, did win—yay!) but we gained a lot of satisfaction from the Eisner committee's recognition of the fabulous work of George McManus and his long-time assistant, Zeke Zekley.

As usual, our research into the history of the strip and its creators blended details from well-known sources with newly-uncovered information and rare photographs. In studying the life of George McManus for BUF: FStSS, I bought all three issues of the early 1950s Collier's Magazine that featured the artist's autobiographical musings. My research also uncovered birth records from the City of St. Louis that provided, for the first time, clear-cut proof of the date McManus came into this world (Geo. McM. himself often played fast and loose with that information). I was also fascinated to find McManus remained in the news after his passing - wire services and several newspapers followed the story Zeke Zekley going to court to contest McManus's will. This was fresh information to even some of the art form's most erudite scholars.

From Sea to Shining Sea also brought what is, to my knowledge, unprecedented (but much deserved) attention to the accomplishments of Zeke Zekley. It was the cooperation of comics historian and Zekley acquaintance Chris Jenson, as well as interviews with Zekley's descendants, that made possible this coverage.

Now, presented for your viewing pleasure, here are a half-dozen additional photographs of George and Zeke. They came to us courtesy of David Folkman, of Hogan's Alley fame, who was very close to Zeke for many years.

First up, McManus and the Zekleys chow down Hollywood-style, accompanied by actress Renie Riano, who played Maggie in five Bringing Up Father motion pictures:

If this next photo is any indication, McManus gravitated toward the lovely ladies as much as did his strip's hero, Jiggs. Though surrounded by fellow cartoonists, notice George is chatting with Zeke's wife, Anita Zekley.

Cartoonists have a long and notable history of doing their bit for Uncle Sam. Here's Zeke (third from left) standing next to Dennis the Menace's Hank Ketcham at a U.S. Savings Bond event that included cartoonists Chic (Blondie) Young, Gus Edson (Dondi), Milt Gross, Ferd Johnson, Dan (Hopalong Cassidy) Spiegle, and several others.

McManus moved in the same circles with artist Jimmy Swinnerton, another favorite of William Randolph Hearst (the newspaper mogul who was the prime mover and shaker behind King Features Syndicate). Here, George and Swinny share a laugh:

And here they participate in a U.S. Treasury event. Two things to call to your attention: [1] at far-right is George's brother, Leo McManus, who worked for many years at King Features. [2] Notice with whom George is shaking hands - none other than Walt Disney, himself!

Finally - my lifelong love of Popeye is well known amongst my social circle, but have you ever seen a sorrier version of that spinach-eating gazookas than the one in this 1949 photo?

Zeke and Otto (The Little King) Soglow appear to be massaging Popeye's flaccid right arm muscles while McManus gives the squinky-eyed sailor a pep talk. Fred Lasswell (Barney Google and Snuffy Smith) may be wondering if even a can of spinach would be enough to help this guy whip Bluto.

You may also want to take a look at Popeye's pants. Could it be that E.C. Segar's inspired creation invented the "low-riders" so prominently worn around today's schools and malls?

One of the absolute truisms of studying comics history: no matter how much we uncover, there is always more to be learned!

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Wednesday, Sep 15th, 2010

Beau Smith joins the Library

Beau Smith, self-styled raconteur and manly man about town, has joined the Library of American Comics as our new Director of Marketing.

We're thrilled to have Beau onboard. He and I go way back to the 1980s and Eclipse Comics, where I was the publisher and Beau the Marketing Director.

A graduate of Marshall University in his native West Virginia, Beau's done it all in comics. In addition to Eclipse, where he got his start, Beau was the VP of Marketing and Publishing for Image Comics, Todd McFarlane Productions and McFarlane Toys, was with IDW Publishing for many years, and is the former Director of Product Information for toy maker JUN Planning USA.

As a comics writer, Beau's written Batman, Superman, and Wolverine, and his stories have appeared at DC, Image, IDW, Eclipse, Dreamwave, Moonstone, Dark Horse, and many other publishers. He created several well-received series, including Wynonna Earp, Parts Unknown, Maximum Jack, Courting Fate, and Cobb.

If that wasn't enough, he offers his pearls of wisdom in regular columns: "Busted Knuckles" at Comics Bulletin, and "From the Ranch" for Sketch Magazine.

Beau's going to be focussing on retailers, libraries, and universities, so all retailers, librarians, professors, and teachers are encouraged to give him a shout: beau@loacomics.com

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Monday, Sep 13th, 2010

Of Kings, Newsboys, and Pinheads…

Bill Griffith always keep us laughing, and this "Zippy" daily from Friday, September 10th, is no exception. What makes this daily different from all others? Check out his hilarious reference to Jack Kent's King Aroo in the first panel. "Big words" is another reason for you to give the Myopian King a try, if you haven't already.

Thanks to Bill for letting us post the daily (©2010 Bill Griffith). His -- and Zippy's -- own site should be on your list of regularly-viewed sites.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Wednesday, Sep 8th, 2010

Happy Birthday, BLONDIE!

Today is Blondie's 80th Anniversary! Here's the very first daily. Chic Young's classic creation premiered on September 8, 1930 in only two newspapers, and grew to become to world's most popular strip. Congrats to the entire Young family, as well as King Features! And don't miss our first volume of Blondie dailies -- from the beginning -- which will be on sale soon!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Sunday, Sep 5th, 2010

The Next Generation?

And now for something completely different:

If you'll allow me this brief diversion, I'd like to introduce you to my new nephew, Henry. He's the first for my younger sister and her husband, born in April at nine pounds and twenty-one inches long. In the weeks since, he's been thriving, having developed a ready smile and as sunny a disposition as an infant can display.

I'd like to say I played some role in making him that happy, but his mom and dad deserve all the credit.

One of the things I do hope I can give the not-so-little guy in the years ahead is an introduction to the classic comic strips we all know and love. Certainly there are Library of American Comics volumes to capture his interest as he grows up. The funny animals of King Aroo might make him laugh in his early school years—in his "tween" years, he may get swept away by the exotic adventure of Terry and the Pirates and our upcoming Flash Gordon/Jungle Jim—and by the time he's a teenager, the sophisticated sleuthing of Rip Kirby or outrageous comedy of Bloom County could catch his fancy.

Of course, his interests may develop along entirely different lines…and that's OK. We all get to pick our own path, which is how it's supposed to be. I won't push anything on him—but if he expresses interest in any of the LOAC books on his parents' shelves, he'll know who to talk to in order to learn more about them!

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Thursday, Sep 2nd, 2010

If My Dad Could See Me Now

If you can imagine yourself slipping into the ink pot and flowing out the end of a cartoonist's pen, this is how I felt when I worked restoring the raw talent in Cliff Sterrett's Polly and Her Pals Sunday pages.  We just approved the color proofs and the book, all 12" x 16" of it, is now in the printer's hands.

My profession of graphic design has taught me more about people than the artwork itself; I've worked on tight deadlines and sometimes felt like I was running up the courts along with the NBA players I helped market. You get to know the subject well and you either love it or survive the stress.

Polly and her Pals put me in touch with this amazing creator, Samuel Clifford Sterrett. I closely studied each swoosh and brush stroke as his linework danced and dipped. His characters felt like members of my own family. I stumbled along every unfolding gag with Sterrett's bizarre unpredictable checkered pathways leading me to Paw with twinkling eyes, and the purring Kitty. Kitty—heart of a lion and the strength of a Dane. Her attitude came alive as she added her two cents in every upturned-nosed-strut. I love Sterrett's extra little touches—the curl at the end of Paw's beard and the crink of Kitty's tail as it mocked the direction of the staircase. His use of patterns and inexplicable objects that appear like unexpected hail kept my interest peaked and the laughter flowing. This was not a job-this was playing with one of the kids that created sheer FUN for my parents' generation. How awesome to be able to bring this to future generations. Sterrett was an artist some thought daffy, but in reality, of course, he was a visionary pioneer.

I am thrilled to have been a part of presenting this work. I feel as if I have met Sterrett, wish I had...perhaps in my next lifetime. Gazing through Paw's iron-sashed windows with smiling crescent moons, I will happily dream on.

posted by Lorraine Turner

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Sunday, Aug 29th, 2010

Noel Sickles, 1925!

Sometimes we receive more artwork than we can comfortably fit into our books and are forced to offer only a representative sampling from a given period in an artist's career. That was the case with Scorchy Smith and The Art of Noel Sickles - though readers and reviewers told us we provided enough treasures so they didn't exactly feel short-changed!

Still, while sifting through one of my file cabinets earlier this month, I happened to find a batch of spot drawings Sickles did as part of his first regular paying gig as a cartoonist. In 1925, while in his mid-teens, Sickles created artwork for the Mead Co-operation, the house organ for the Mead Corporation's paper plant in his native Chillicothe, Ohio. In Scorchy we ran examples of "Bud's" regular features for the newsletter - "Bud's Meaco Comics" and "What's Wrong?". Here are a half-dozen non-series, standalone drawings Sickles produced for the Co-operation. First up, from February of 1925 - the first known Sickles illustration for Mead, a comedic rendering of one of the company's employees who was a radio buff in his off-hours:

In April, Sickles produced the "Bet Your Money on Mead" cartoon to illustrate an article chronicling the safety competition being staged between Mead and another area manufacturer. He also did a small illo to accompany an article about an employee's victory in the local pool hall, and the comedic consequences of his win.

Humorous anecdotes about Mead employees were a standing feature in the Co-operation - it was easier for people to laugh at themselves in the '20s than it is today. May saw Sickles generating chuckles about a first-class auto aficionado.

Workplace safety was a key theme in Bud's cartoons for Mead. This "split screen" piece conveys that message as it illustrates two possible meanings of the same phrase. One wonders if Sickles realized both the Mead worker and the barber need to exercise caution on their respective jobs?

The end of the year brought both the holidays and rabbit hunting season to Ohio. The Sickles "panoramic bird's-eye view" cartoon below pokes fun at Chillicothe's seemingly-plentiful supply of Elmer Fudds . . .

Looking at these very early Sickles pieces, one sees little sign of the skilled artist who would revolutionize comics storytelling in Scorchy Smith, create such spectacular illustrations as "The Old Man's Bride" or the "Crete Invasion" series, and finish his career by producing a series of wonderful Western paintings. Still, they remind us of three truths:

[1] Everyone has to start somewhere.

[2] We learn by doing.

[3] Stay true to your dreams and mastery and success are likely to come your way…

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Monday, Aug 23rd, 2010

Dateline: Myopia

We were mighty pleased to discover that King Aroo Volume 1 got a positive review from noted fantasist and critic Charles de Lint. Mr. de Lint writes a regular review column in the mighty Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and he closes the May/June 2010 installment of his "Books to Look For" by telling his readers that Jack Kent's King Aroo is "just so darn good." And who are we to disagree?

You can read the review at: http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/2010/cdl1005.htm. If you're looking for some prose reading, the full column contains looks at recent releases by Stephen King, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Cory Doctorow, and Peter Straub. Or if you're the impatient type, scroll to the bottom of the page to read Mr. de Lint's delightful words about Aroo.

In Sergio Aragones's introduction to the first Aroo book, he wrote about his love for the strip. Here's Sergio and me catching up for a chat at the San Diego Comicon this year. (He's the handsome one on the right)

We're currently putting together the finishing touches on King Aroo volume 2, which collects November 1952 through November 1954. Jack Kent Jr. has again provided all the original art in his family's collection, and Bubbly Bruce Canwell has written another incredible biographical essay. Here's one of my all-time favorite Aroo dailies (from December 25, 1952) that fully captures Kent's amazing talent for wordplay.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Sunday, Aug 22nd, 2010

A Rollicking Roster of Riotous Ramblings

Those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer? The perfect time to pull a few items out of the Library Of American Comics "Odds & Ends" file:

From the "As Others See Us" Dept: A few weeks ago, a reporter from my local New England arts and entertainment weekly contacted me to do an interview about LOAC and other things comics-related. Liltin' Lisa Parsons admitted she knew very little about comics, and in addition to discussing about our line of books, here are some of the questions she tossed my way:

Any comments on the "Sunday Funnies" stamps the U.S. Postal Service plans to release in July? (I had forgotten all about them - but I wasn't telling Lisa that!)

What strip(s) should I plunk down in front of my ten-year-old to hook him on the wonderful world of comics? ("It depends on what he likes," I began, before recommending Terry and the Pirates, Popeye, and Dick Tracy if he's the action-adventure sort, Peanuts and Calvin & Hobbes to tickle his funny bone.)

Is it just me, or has there been a surge in the reprinting of old comic strips lately? (I couldn't resist - I said, "It's just you!" Of course, then I gave her a more serious answer ...)

Since so many of the interviews we do here at LOAC run "inside" the comics community, it was both entertaining and educational to do one for the "mainstream" media. Thanks for thinking of us, Lisa - I'll give you a shout when Archie Volume 1 goes on sale!

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From the "Boopadoop" Dept:  You've likely seen us refer to our upcoming Blondie Volume 1 with the catchphrase "Blondie like you've never seen her before!" That's not an idle boast - by going back to the very beginning of the strip, you'll be seeing Blondie as a flighty single girl, modeled after real-life "boop-boop-a-doop" girl Helen Kane. You'll also see Dagwood as the pampered scion of wealth, meet Blondie's mother and both of Dagwood's parents, and discover there were plenty of rivals for the affections of our two star-crossed lovers.

If that doesn't sufficiently whet your reading appetite, I'm pleased to report that Chic Young's granddaughter has shared with us the family's collection of Blondie memorabilia from this period, including several items you'll have to see to believe. Is the term "unprecedented access" an overstatement? I think not! Boisterous Brian Walker is writing a fact-filled text feature to glue the whole package together. Keep your eyes open for Blondie Volume 1 - it just might turn into the sleeper hit of 2010 . . .

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From the "Miami Beach Audiences Are the Greatest Audiences in the World!" Dept: Little Orphan Annie Volume 5 and Dick Tracy Volume 10 are both on sale. Even though we've now reprinted the first decade of Annie and the first seventeen years of Tracy, each series continues to remain popular. Given the sales pattern in the pamphlet-based segment of comics often begin a sharp drop after issue # 1 hits the stands, the loyalty of our audience is something we greatly value and never take for granted.

Everyone here at LOAC salutes you rambunctious readers, whether you're supporting the entire LOAC line, following one of the extended series like Annie or Tracy or our launched-in-2010 Li'l Abner, buying one of our short series (Rip Rirby, Bloom County), or eagerly awaiting coming attractions like Polly and Her Pals and X-9: Secret Agent Corrigan. May you enjoy perusing our offerings as much as we enjoy putting 'em together!

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Saturday, Aug 21st, 2010

Sir MixaLot

Many of us remember when the idea of alternate universes was strictly the province of science fiction and comics enthusiasts. SF writers like Robert Silverberg, using their personal interest in history, have dabbled with the concept in short stories and novels for decades (most recently in Roma Eterna). "Mirror, Mirror," one of Star Trek's most popular episodes, dropped Captain Kirk and three of his officers into an "evil twin" reality. And DC Comics has maintained a decades-long love affair with alternates, beginning with the Gardiner Fox/Carmine Infantino "Flash of Two Worlds" story from 1961's Flash # 123.

Today we live in a science fictional world, and the phrase "alternate universe" is part of the common cultural coin, to the point where even crusty Republicans like Newt Gingrich are making money off the idea.

Recently I found myself pondering possible alternate universe comic strips. If there truly are an infinite number of Earths in the multiverse, these four comics must exist out there somewhere:

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Little Orphan Terry: Taken in as a seven-year-old by Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks, Terry Lee grows up finding adventure in the four corners of the globe. Terry proves he'll not be separated from his adoptive guardian when he stows away the first time "Daddy" sails to deal with business interests in the Far East: even today, the "Wun Wey Battles Captain Blaze" storyline remains a classic. Many are especially fond of later stories, after Terry has grown into young manhood and helps "Daddy" get girls.

Scorch Kirby: Alex Raymond's ex-aviator private eye has a straight nose and never wears glasses or plays the piano; Honey Dorian finds him crude but irresistible, especially after he feeds Pagan Lee to the law for her involvement with The Mangler. Scorch's butlers never seem to last long. Short-timers like Tex and Gus have their supporters, though the majority of fans divide equally between the droll reserve of Desmond and the thick German accent of Himmelstoss.

Bringing Up Family: The George McManus/Zeke Zekley "diagrammatic" Sundays remain must-see material, as Maggie and her brood criss-cross the city in search of Jiggs and his carousing buddies.

Li'l Annie: The red-headed waif is the smartest (and best spoken) person in Dogpatch; her bemused comments about the zany antics going on around her built a daily readership that numbered in the tens of millions. She was beloved for her annual consultations with Old Man Mose in order to help deserving bachelorettes land a "dream-boat" on Sadie Hawkins Day. After Annie and the Dogpatch kids brought Gat Garson to justice, a pop culture catch phrase was born in 1939 with Garson's last words on his way to the electric chair: " ... And I'd have gotten away with it, too - if it hadn't been for those KIDS!"

#

Got an alternate universe comic strip you'd like to see in this space? Send your ideas to info@loacomics.com ; we'll run a follow-up in a future installment!

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Friday, Aug 20th, 2010

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (or Brunettes)

Forget the decades-old question, "Ginger or Mary Ann?" - our reprinting of Alex Raymond's Rip Kirby has spurred a new matter submitted for consideration. To put it simply:

"Pagan or Honey?"

This deeply philosophical discussion was energized by a reader named Jim Davis, who resides in Maryland Heights, Missouri. He posted was a review of Rip Volume 2 at Amazon.com in which he said, "Pagan Lee has it all over girl next door Honey Dorian, who continues to be a weak point of the strip, in my opinion."  Jim went on to say he sees Honey as primarily filling the role of deus ex machina, on hand simply to help launch new cases for Rip Kirby to solve.

Jim's review was thoughtful, balanced, honest, and direct, all qualities I admire. Yet when it comes to the "Honey or Pagan?" question, he and I are on opposite sides of the fence.

Yes, I'll admit it: I'm a Honey Dorian fan. That said, I'll confess I wish Raymond and Rip's co-writer, Ward Greene, had continued to characterize Honey as she was depicted in the first two storylines (which we reprinted in Volume One under the titles "The Chip Faraday Murder" and "The Hicks Formula"). In those stories Honey is especially spritely and sassy, bringing a unique sparkly to Rip's somewhat straight-arrow lifestyle. But even as the strip matures and Honey becomes more serious and far less fun-loving, I find myself siding with her over Pagan. Maybe that's because I'm really big on loyalty and no matter the occasional spats and separations, there's never really a doubt that Honey is devoted to Rip.

Pagan, by contrast, has already changed allegiances once, throwing over The Mangler for a chance at life on the straight and narrow. Though redemption after sin is nothing to be sneezed at, the vibe I get from Pagan says, "It's only a matter of time before I cross the line once again and end up either in jail or on the run . . . "

How fortunate that Raymond and Greene gave us both characters, since they so nicely counter-point one another and they present Rip with the possibility of a conflict of the heart. Conflict is hell on our heroes, but fun for us readers!

"Pagan or Honey?" It's a matter of preference, of course, with no right or wrong answer. So I send a friendly wave to Jim Davis and all the other Pagan Lee fans out there -- I'll be easy to spot when you return the wave, because I'm in the forefront of the Honey Dorian camp.

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Tuesday, Aug 3rd, 2010

Noel Sickles 1935!

It's not often that we get to see previously unknown art from seventy-five years ago by one of the greatest cartoonists of all time. The above specialty drawing by Noel Sickles came to us from Everett Slaughter, via our pal Leif Peng. It is only the second color Scorchy Smith piece by Sickles that I've ever seen (the other we reproduced in Scorchy Smith and The Art of Noel Sickles). Everett writes, "My late wife, Virginia, was a neighbor to Noel Sickles in Chillicothe, Ohio.  Attached is a cartoon Noel did for her in July, 1935 when she was 10 years of age."

Sickles had an obvious fondness for his young neighbor. The cartoonist was living in New York in 1935, sharing studio space with Milton Caniff, but made regular trips back to Chillicothe to visit with his family. The watercolor is of Scorchy and his pal, the German pilot Himmelstoss, and references a Western storyline from the strip.

Thanks so much to Everett for sharing this treasure with us.

The Eisner and Harvey Award-nominated Scorchy Smith and the Art of Noel Sickles is available at your favorite comics shop, online bookseller, or IDW's webstore.

And in case you aren't familiar with Leif Peng's fantastic blog about 20th Century illustrators, take a look. It's on my "must-read" list every week.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Monday, Aug 2nd, 2010

"No publisher is more dedicated…

…to archival collections than IDW," writes Peter Rowe in the San Diego Tribune. "The Library runs the gamut from familiar titles to obscure works that haven’t been seen in decades: “Polly and Her Pals” debuted in 1912; detective “Rip Kirby” was on the case in the 1940s and ’50s; and fanciful “King Aroo” is another ’50s revival."

Here's yours truly in the IDW booth at the San Diego Comicon. Check out the complete link. It's great to see such positive mainstream coverage for the Library of American Comics and classic newspaper strips in general.

The Library and IDW were triple winners at the Eisners this year. In addition to Bloom County taking home the Archival Newspaper Strip award, The Rocketeer won as Best Archival Project—Comic Books, and Darwyn Cooke's amazing adapation of Richard Stark's Parker: The Hunted was feted for Best Adaptation from Another Work. A big round of applause for all, especially Scott Dunbier, who edited all three winners!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Monday, Aug 2nd, 2010

Bloom County Wins 2010 Eisner Award

The Library of American Comics again won the Eisner Award for Best Archival Project—Newspaper Strips given at the San Diego Comicon, as Bloom County took home the honors. LOAC's Bringing Up Father was also nominated.

Above are (left to right) Creative Director Dean Mullaney, Associate Art Director (and Sunday colorist) Lorraine Turner, Berkeley Breathed himself, and series editor Scott Dunbier (proudly holding the award).

It was the first Comicon appearance for Berkeley, who also received the Inkpot Award. He was a real trooper, signing books and talking with fans for three straight days. He also created a Comicon-exclusive t-shirt. Needless to say, a fun time was had by all.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Sunday, Jul 18th, 2010

Dogpatch by Way of Amesbury

From the highway, Amesbury's major distinguishing characteristic is a family sports center visible at the foot on an enormous hill. In the wintertime that snow-covered slope is home to what looks like the finest sledding in all of New England. One drives past on a sunny January day and sees a steady stream of brightly-colored plastic saucer-sleds blasting down multiple paths at top speed; one can practically hear the laughter and shrieks and squeals of delight, even from the highway, even through the closed car windows. On this weekend, however, snow was a distant memory. This was the first weekend of summer, pleasantly warm and sunny, and personal business put me on the highway, driving north for the pleasure of seeing my brother and his family before the sadness of a Sunday that required the saying of a final goodbye.

And on this sunny summery Saturday, I was about to do something I had never done before - I was taking Exit 54 off Interstate 495 in order to pay a visit to Amesbury, one of the towns Li'l Abner's creator, Al Capp, called home. From the highway one follows Route 150 through a few miles of nondescript residences before reaching the outskirts of the downtown area, where Route 150 gives way to Main Street.

To two of them, actually.

As I waited at the intersection for the light to change, I did a double-take. No, my eyes were not deceiving me - the two perpendicular streets were both named Main Street! The road sign marked the corner of Main and Main. I shook my head: only in New England . . .

Following Mapquest directions to a lot on Water Street, I parked and prepared to explore the downtown area. At one end of the parking lot: a pub known (for obvious reasons) as The Barn, its façade showcasing quintessential New England kitsch. The building certainly appeared old enough to have been around during Al Capp's day, though I wondered back then if "The Barn" was simply "a barn."

On the town's major thoroughfares, another New England staple - a street fair - was in full swing. Pastel-topped tents dotted both sides of the street. Some offered for sale a variety of crafts - hand-made clothes, jewelry, puzzle boxes, woodwork, and more - while others served up a variety of snacks and drinks designed to help beat the summer heat. Buskers inhabited every second or third street corner, playing a guitar or a banjo, softly singing their tunes. Wandering from display to display were new parents pushing prams - teenagers in t-shirts and jeans, clutching skateboards beneath their arms - young lovers strolling arm in arm - senior citizens, out to enjoy the splendor of an early-summer day.

Making a turn off Market Street, passing under an extended brick archway, I found the item that had sparked this trip, something originally reported in the Boston Globe and also covered here in this space as "Favored Son" (you'll find it by clicking here, then scrolling down http://www.libraryofamericancomics.com/blog/2010-06/).

Anchored to the wall of the archway was the four-panel painting that serves as Amesbury's new tribute to Al Capp. Created by local artist Jon Mooers, the work was inspired by the autobiographical feature from the June 24, 1946 issue of Life Magazine. You can see the Life piece on pages 21 - 24 of our Li'l Abner Volume 1; you can see the Mooers version right here:

I stepped in to examine the work up close, mentally comparing and contrasting it to Capp's Life feature. I heard other voices behind me, but paid no attention to them - until I turned around and saw a couple, perhaps mid-to-late fifties, telling their teenaged grandson about how funny Li'l Abner was, how it was once one of the most popular comics in the world.

"And best of all, it's back again," I said, stepping in and offering the man one of my business cards. He could see The Library of American Comics logo on my card as I explained how we are reprinting Abner in a series of hardcovered books, with the first one now available and the second coming later on this year. Not a hard sell ... rather, a random encounter that might give the family something extra to talk about and perhaps help increase everyone's level of interest. That's the hope, anyway ...

Back on Main Street I continued my walkabout, snapping pictures, trying to capture more of the Amesbury ambiance. Al Capp is not the town's only literary luminary; Li'l Abner is not its only claim to fame. Amesbury was also home to 19th Century poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier, who returned to the town after 1845, when ill health ended his involvement in the anti-slavery movement.

The Boston Globe article on Capp included a rather snooty-sounding quote from a member of the J.G. Whittier Home Association that makes it sound as if the Greenleafers are not entirely comfortable with the town's attempt to attract Cappites. (The exact line was, "My son or anybody younger wouldn't really know about him [Capp]. A lot of people don't make the connection at all" - why do I hear that being said with a Lovey Howell-style intonation?)

One side of a prominent multi-storey building is given over to a mural honoring Whittier. The artwork is clearly visible as one drives or strolls down Main Street, and as I looked at it, I found myself hoping there is room in Amesbury to honor two contributors to the arts.

Amesbury's chief industry was not poetry or comic strips, of course - not long after Whittier settled in town, a thriving carriage-manufacturing business developed and is remembered in yet another mural on yet another Main Street building.

Capp's wife's maiden name was Catherine Cameron; her father, Colin Cameron, came from old money earned in the carriage trade. In the early 20th Century, the carriage business morphed into the construction of automobile bodies before the Great Depression wiped out this particular industry.

My trip up Main Street brought me to the town's public library, which featured well-maintained grounds and an inviting atmosphere. New Englanders love their statues and in Amesbury, a statue of Josiah Bartlett sits on the edge of the library's grounds. Bartlett was born in the town and went on to sign the Declaration of Independence, though he lived much of his life (and had most of his successes) as a resident of New Hampshire.

As I retraced my steps, making my way back to my car, I spotted the storefront of the town's bookstore, Bertram & Oliver Booksellers. I am decidedly cool to everything "chain" - chain department stores, chain restaurants, chain home improvement stores, chain bookstores - so I was delighted to step inside and be greeted by the soothing sight of shelf upon shelf of books, a simple employee station and single cash register, and preparations being made for a kids' reading session slated for later that day.

I spoke with B&O's owner, the delightful Joanne Wimberly, who gave me some of her valuable time even though she was in the midst of preparing for the special children's event. I explained why I was in town and about LOAC's Li'l Abner reprints and she was interested to hear we weren't reprinting the strips as comic books, but rather as hardcovers. "Ah! A graphic novel!" Joanne said. "See, I'm learning the lingo!" At her request, I promised to send her the book specs and ordering details about Abner.

By the time I left Bertram & Oliver's it was approaching noontime, my camera's memory was nearly full, and I had hours of driving still ahead of me. It was time to say goodbye to Amesbury - but my detour off the highway lightened the somber circumstances awaiting me on Sunday, as several friends and I gathered to pay our due respects. It rather lightened things for my oldest, closest friends as well - as the day began to wane, I summarized my visit to Amesbury, my encounter with the family near the Capp mural, my exchange with Joanne Wimberly, my surprise at seeing the intersection of Main and Main. One of my friends shook his head. "You have about the greatest job on earth," he said.

And you know - I'd be hard-pressed to disagree!

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Sunday, Jun 20th, 2010

More Jabs Than Puns

    The end of Annie as a regular newspaper feature received significant media coverage, but here in the Library of American Comics universe we are smack in the midst of Great Moments in Annie History. You'll see one of the greatest later on this year, as the incredible Punjab marks his debut in the sixth volume of our series.

     Check out the extremely rare Punjab Mystic Code Translater above, courtesy our friend Richard Olson. He'd been searching for this elusive premium for nearly forty years and recently added it to his phenomenal LOA collection. Richard has been kindly sharing his goodies for the introductions to our Complete Little Orphan Annie.

     The year 1935 opened with Annie, Sandy, and "Daddy" on the bum. Prospects looked bleak, but the first sign fortunes would change occurs in the January 26th daily, when "Daddy" shaves off the scruffy beard he had been cultivating for almost three weeks. "Maybe I was a little bashful about letting people recognize me-the great Warbucks sunk to the level of a tramp," Warbucks muses. "But what do I care? Let 'em look-I've never cringed yet and I'll not start now." When "Daddy" gets that steely note of resolve in his voice, it's only a matter of time before he's back on top again...

     But what's the one lesson Gray consistently teaches? Even a man as formidable as Warbucks can't do it alone. This time the path back to respectability leads to "Daddy's" globe-trotting old friend, Henry Morgan, and his giant bodyguard from India, the exotic Punjab.

     We get our first look at Punjab in the February 3, 1935 Sunday; "Daddy" begins introducing him to Annie on Monday, February 11th. In the weeks that follow, Gray's stoic new character tosses around no-goods like Doc Savage, he appears and disappears like The Shadow, he espouses a Far Eastern philosophy that's a mix of Rudyard Kipling and Sax Rohmer. As he performs feats of prestidigitation and serves up inscrutable visions of the future, Punjab takes Little Orphan Annie—always the most hard-headed and pragmatic of series - into the misty realms of mysticism. It is Punjab who shows America's spunkiest kid there are unseen forces at work in the world, that there is knowledge and then there is Knowledge.

     By the end of March, when Annie finds an old tramp near death, lying deep in the woods, it is Punjab who uses his many abilities (including his skill with the "jungle wireless") to save the tramp's life. That tramp, as Annieologists know, puts "Daddy" back on the path to respectability as Harold Gray begins to unfold perhaps his most trenchant sociopolitical commentary.

     Little Orphan Annie Volume 6 offers more than a dance around the edges of the supernatural—old friends Wun Wey and (huzzah!) Pee Wee the Elephant make their returns, as well. But the spotlight moment comes in the early months of 1935, when Punjab steps onto the stage and into Annie's life.

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Monday, Jun 7th, 2010

A TERRY Top Ten

And now for something completely different...

I thought it would be fun to compile a Top 10 of my favorite Terry and the Pirates characters. No small task, that, given the large cast Milton Caniff assembled and the many memorable moments he crafted during the first dozen years of the strip's existence. I'm exempting Terry, Pat Ryan, and Connie from consideration. Our three heroes, who were on stage from that very first pair of October, 1934 dailies, get an automatic pass into the Hall of Fame. Beyond that, any character is fair game. I calls 'em as I sees 'em, and here's how I sees 'em:

10) Pop Scott: He brought an early dash of color to the narrative, and was the strip's first sacrificial lamb, proof that Caniff was willing to use death to amp up the drama.

9) Nasthalia "Nasty" Smythe-Heatherstone: Her dad is a mensch; she's proof that even the most upright tree can bear rotten fruit. I enjoy the way Caniff made her a thorn in Terry's side both as a child and, later, as a conniving young woman.

8) Singh-Singh: A great visual: hulking form, bald head, enormous jet-black moustache. A great bit of comedic relief, too.

7) Captain Blaze: The Sundays first come alive when he battles the Dragon Lady, with Terry, Pat, and Connie caught in the middle. A true "pirate," in every sense of the word.

6) Dude Hennick: Bless Bess, he's a more devil-may-care leading man than stolid Pat, making him the perfect character to play male lead in Caniff's his most dramatic storyline. Based on Frank Higgs, Dude is the first character to be based on one of Caniff's true-life pals - but he's far from the last.

5) April Kane: From spunky Southern belle to cold-blooded opportunist, no character in Caniff's vast tapestry undergoes more radical change than darlin' li'l ol' April.

4) Captain Judas: His heinous act of 10/05/41 makes him one of comics' all-time grand villains. I hope Burma put a slug straight through his inky-black heart.

3) The Dragon Lady: Beautiful, complex, calculating. Look at all the myriad ways Caniff used Lai Choi San throughout his Terry tenure and it's clear what a spectacular creation she is.

2) Big Stoop: I'm a sucker for misunderstood brutes. I'm a sucker for tough guys with unsullied hearts of gold. I'm a sucker for the skillful use of pantomime. Stooper successfully turned the Terrific Three into a Fabulous Foursome.

Annnnnn-n-n-nd, my Number One favorite Terry and the Pirates character...

1) Burma: She hits the strip like a sassy blonde meteor, heating up the comics page as it had never been heated before in the sequence from 03/17/36 - 03/21/36. And ask yourselves this: Who was the star of the prototype Male Call series? And when Caniff spun his final Terry storyline, whose note and newspaper clipping sets up the final week of strips? Burma, both times. For those reasons and more, she's tops in my book.

* * * * *

I'm certainly not arrogant enough to claim my list is the be-all and end-all: your mileage may (and almost certainly will) vary. If you'd care to submit your own Terry Top 10 to info@loacomics.com, we'll run responses in future installments.

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Thursday, Jun 3rd, 2010

Favored Son

One of the catalysts that helped create Li'l Abner was the hitchhiking trip undertaken by teenaged Al Capp and his friend, Gus Lee. Determination and a youthful zest for adventure overcame the obstacles created by Capp's wooden leg as the duo traveled from New England to Memphis, Tennessee via Virginia and Kentucky, meeting a variety of "hill folk" along the way. 

Later milestones in Abner's genesis occurred in New York City: Capp hired on as Ham Fisher's assistant on Joe Palooka, where he created that strip's "Big Leviticus" Sunday sequence - during a night out at a theatre in Columbus Circle, a comedic "mountain music" performance made a huge impression on Capp and his wife, Catherine - counseled by artist Paul Fung, Capp worked up his samples and hit the Syndicate trail, ultimately selling Li'l Abner to United Features in 1934.

Yet neither New York nor the Ozarks figured into Capp's life while his brainchild was in full flower - instead, Capp and his family (Catherine, two daughters, and an adopted son) spent much of each year occupying a sizeable farmhouse in Catherine's hometown of Amesbury, on the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border. Today, more than three decades after Capp's passing, Amesbury is remembering its adopted son.

As reported in the Saturday, May 18, 2010 Boston Globe, this quiet town has renamed its amphitheater in the artist's honor and is looking to develop a Capp Museum. As part of its annual "Amesbury First" festival, four 4' x 8' paintings recreating scenes from Capp's June 24, 1946 Life autobiography-in-comics-form were unveiled (the entire feature appeared on pages 21 to 24 of our first Li'l Abner volume). The jumbo-sized reproductions were created by local artist Jon Mooers under the watchful eye of Capp's heirs, including his surviving daughter, Julie.

Capp was not the town's only famed citizen - 19th Century poet John Greenleaf Whittier also resided in Amesbury. The Globe article hints that modern-day Whittier fans may look down their noses at Capp and his rambunctious comic strip; one paragraph in reporter James Sullivan's piece reads:

"My son or anybody younger wouldn't really know about [Capp]," says Diane Cole, 56, who is a member of the John Greenleaf Whittier Home Association. "A lot of people don't make the connection at all."

The Amesbury Improvement Committee is more bullish on Capp and the tourism potential associated with his name, and artist Mooers expressed this wish for the newly-rechristened amphitheater: "I'd love to find somebody who could donate a bronze statue of Al. I'm a dreamer."
Only time will tell if dreams can come true. Mooers's cause may be aided later this year, when PBS devotes a segment of its American Masters series to Al Capp.

And who knows? Perhaps a segment of our readership might find ways to help Amesbury remember one of its favorite sons.

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Friday, May 21st, 2010

"Ha, fooled them again!"

"Ha, fooled them again!" is what Berkeley Breathed exclaimed when told that Bloom County: The Complete Library, Volume Two debuted in the number four spot on the New York Times Best Seller list. "Seriously, I'm happy people still enjoy this stuff. Surprised, but happy."

In Volume Two, Breathed ramps up the volume, offering even more funny and insightful commentary than in the first volume, while context pages help fans recapture the glory of the 1980s.

Beginning with September 27, 1982, Volume Two collects every daily and Sunday through July 1, 1984, most reproduced from Breathed's personal archives of original art. Kicking off this second installment is an introduction by journalist and former Nightline host Ted Koppel, who takes readers on a brief journey back to the Reagan years and reflects on the strips he shared with Opus.

"What's really astounding to me is the freshness of this material after so many years" editor Scott Dunbier told me this afternoon when the New York Times list was announced. "The events in these pages are right out of today's headlines—the economy, politics, even Michael Jackson! But, most importantly, we see them all through Breathed's own unique perspective, which is the true joy of Bloom County."

Volume Two also features the introduction of Binkley's anxiety closet and boy genius Oliver Wendell Jones, as well as the fondly remembered death of the Bill the Cat storyline.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Thursday, May 20th, 2010

"If You Knew Polly Like I Knew Polly"

In my teens, I'd have said you were nuts had you told me I would fall in love with a comic strip that was named after a flaxen-haired flapper but starred her diminutive, balding, mustachioed father and the family cat.

Of course, you wouldn't have been nuts, because Polly and Her Pals is indeed one of my fave-raves, and I unleash a real big grin whenever I think about the upcoming Polly Volume 1 in our new, oversized "champagne edition" format.

I got my first taste of Cliff Sterrett's unique comics vision in 1983, when Fantagraphics treated readers to a five-page black-and-white Polly sampler in Nemo # 1. This oh-so-tantalizing taste revealed a cartoonist with a bouncy, light-hearted comedic style and a dab hand with pantomime. I wanted more of this guy Sterrett ... it just took me seven years to get it, in 1990's two-volume Remco set of full-color Sundays. This was bravura stuff, demonstrating a playful sense of design, delightfully wonky stories and gags, and a consistent surrealistic touch.

I sang Polly's praises, and one day in 1991, an In acquaintance mailed me a copy of Merlin Haas's 1986 "Flying Flounder Review" compendium of Polly dailies, produced for the enjoyment of members of that venerable APA, CAPA-Alpha. Haas's pamphlet presented "The Mystery of Greystone," encompassing a run from 06/18/29 to 09/27/29, and the dailies thoroughly charmed me. What a pleasure (though hardly a surprise) to discover Sterrett was as clever at concocting day-to-day continuity as he was at producing stand-alone Sunday work.

A decade later, on vacation in Arizona and shopping in a deeply-stocked comics shop, what to my wondering eyes did appear but a copy of Arcadia Publishing's 1990 Comic Strip Showcase featuring - yes, you guessed it - Polly and Her Pals. Fourteen delicious months of Sterrett dailies from 1930-'31. Heaven!

I never get enough of sweet Polly Perkins, her Maw and Paw, her cousin Ashur Earl, their servant Neewah, and Kitty, who surely deserves a place in Cartoon Cat Valhalla next to Krazy and Felix.

Now I'm doing my bit helping to bring Polly back into print for 21st Century audiences, and how cool is that? If you're a Pollyologist, you know how cool that is. If you've yet to sample the joys of Sterrett's unique vision, this summer you can discover the coolness for yourself by checking out The Library of American Comics's Polly and Her Pals Volume 1, served up in a 12" x 16" format that showcases this series the way it's never been showcased before.

The Sunday above—from December 6, 1925—has never been reprinted before.

Our goal is a simple one: we plan on introducing Polly to a whole new batch of pals!

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Thursday, May 13th, 2010

Yesterdays and Tomorrows

In a sign of changing times and technologies, it was announced today that Little Orphan Annie will end it run in newspapers next month. We all know that newspapers are going through tough times and are losing print readership; and that daily and Sunday comics have long since been reduced and shrunken and diminished so that they are but shells of their former glorious selves. So, this announcement is not unexpected, and I'm sure we'll see similar ones about other long-running strips in the future. But the fact remains that it's always sad to witness the end of an era.

We raise our glasses with a toast to the current creative team of Jay Maeder and Ted Slampyak, and to Leonard Starr and the other writers and artists who contributed to the strip's history in the past forty years.

And in salute to Harold Gray—who created and directed Annie's adventures for forty-four years—there's no better way for us to celebrate his achievement than by bringing his work back into print for all to read…on paper.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Thursday, May 13th, 2010

Golden Years: A decade of LOA

Some said we couldn't do it...some said we shouldn't do it...but we did it and now everyone seems glad we did!

Here's a little behind-the-scenes gossip: when we were planning the Library of American Comics's release of Little Orphan Annie, we spent a lot of time discussing whether we should go in chronological order, beginning with the 1924 strips that marked Annie's debut, or whether we should begin in the 1930s, considered by many to be the "golden period" for America's spunkiest kid. Some Big Names argued for the "golden" approach, while other knowledgeable Annieologists warned it could be difficult to locate all Harold Gray's earliest strips. We gnawed at the question the way that loveable mutt Sandy gnaws worries an offending thug's shin-bone.

If you're reading these words, odds are you know those hours of contemplation and debate led us to begin at the beginning. It took several visits to Boston University's Mugar Library (and the unstinting assistance of Mugar Archivist J.C. Johnson and Associate Director Sean Noel) plus a little timely assistance from select Annieologists, but our first volume not only reprinted all the original dailies, it also contained a "lost" 1924 strip that had never appeared in any newspaper. During those first few visits to B.U., it was a great delight to be seeing and actually holding Harold Gray's original artwork. It was great fun, during a later visit, to meet both Jeet Heer and Chester (Yummy Fur) Brown, who were in town pursuing their own lines of Harold Gray-related research.

Now, fortified by having seen strip's first decade of storylines and character development, we're positioned to fully appreciate Little Orphan Annie's "golden period" as fifth volume in the series offers sixteen months of continuity spanning 1933-1935. When Annie gets a taste of show biz during her alliance with Uncle Dan, we're ready to accept it because we've seen her 1926 days performing with the circus. When the Bleeks appear, claiming to be Annie's parents, we fully appreciate how plausible this could seem to "Daddy" Warbucks, because we watched him live through the 1928 fire that destroyed Miss Asthma's orphanage, along with all evidence of Annie's lineage. After Phil O. Bluster and his cronies have wiped out the Warbucks fortune and put Our Heroes on the bum, we have confidence in "Daddy" and Annie's ability to prevail, because we've cheered them on as they've survived the machinations of Count DeTour in the 1920s and Tom Bullion's 1931 financial squeeze play that left them rooming with Maw Green.

The stories in Little Orphan Annie Volume 5, together with Jeet Heer's latest historical/biographical essay, are a showcase that remind us why Annie remains an enduring American icon.

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Tuesday, May 11th, 2010

A+A = X-9

I've returned from deep cover. My trenchcoat is back on its hangar; my Sig Sauer P239 concealed carry package has been safely returned to its lock-box; my forged credentials have been burned, the ashes sifted and tossed into three separate dumpsters.

Still, all my derring-do pales before the high-octane espionage and action you'll find this summer in our first volume of X-9: Secret Agent Corrigan. And when you see the delicious artwork and stories of tradecraft created by that comics team par excellence, Al Williamson and Archie Goodwin, you'll likely find yourself wishing for a gadget-laden attaché case of your own.

Separately or working together as a team, Al and Archie created a high level of quality that sustained their decades-long reputation as two of the finest craftsmen in the business. Al was born in the United States, the son of a Colombian father and American mother, though at age two he moved to Colombia with his parents; he says he learned to read both Spanish and English through comics, primarily through the Mexican title, Paquin.

As a teenager, again living back in the States, Al studied under Burne Hogarth and befriended Roy Krenkel; he hit EC Comics at age twenty-one years old. He later spent three years as John Prentice's assistant on Rip Kirby, also pulling uncredited stints on Big Ben Bolt and Dan Flagg, where he teamed with Archie. By 1967, the Williamson/Goodwin team was selected to replace Bob Lewis (the pen-name of Bob Lubbers) on Secret Agent Corrigan, an assignment which benefited from their distinctive creative stamp for the next thirteen years.
Together, Al and Archie pitted Secret Agent X-9, Phil Corrigan, against a seemingly-inexhaustible supply of threats to the free world. Archie's imaginative plotting and rock-solid characterizations mesh perfectly with Al's exceptional draftsmanship, detailed rendering, and sense of drama.

If, like me, you love ‘60s spies such as Kelly and Scotty of I Spy, Napoleon Solo, Nick Fury, and the British Johns (Steed and Drake), you'll likely be glad to add Phil Corrigan to their ranks. So keep a keen eye out for X-9: Secret Agent Corrigan Volume 1!

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Friday, May 7th, 2010

Al Williamson and Archie Goodwin's SECRET AGENT CORRIGAN!

In case anyone out there thought the 1930s and 1940s had exclusive domain over the best adventure strips of all time, we offer for your consideration one of the greatest of them all…from the 1960s to 1980s!

In 1967, famed EC artist Al Williamson teamed with Archie Goodwin, the greatly admired writer and Editor-in-Chief at Warren magazines, to take over the long-running and somewhat tired X-9 series. It was a team that was made in sequential art heaven: Archie and Al had a magnificent 13-year run on the strip, and they teamed again later for wonderful work on Star Wars.

In July, we'll begin reprinting their entire X-9 run in five volumes under the title X9: Secret Agent Corrigan. It's the first comprehensive collection of the strip and will be printed from Al Williamson's personal proofs in an oversized format that matches our Rip Kirby series by Alex Raymond.

"Al Williamson's delicate line-work, coupled with a style that's both realistic and atmospheric, enhances the no-nonsense story of Phil Corrigan," says IDW's Scott Dunbier, who's editing the series. And I would add that Archie Goodwin's unerring sense of pacing, which he developed in comic books, is even more noticeable in the daily strip format. Man, the guy could write!

Secret Agent Corrigan updates the character created in 1934 by Dashiell Hammett and Alex Raymond. X-9 was originally an agent known only by his code name, who worked for an unknown government agency. Over the years, the series benefited from the individual styles of many writers and artists—including Leslie Charteris (author of The Saint novels), Charles Flanders, Mel Graff, Bob Lubbers, and George Evans—but it is the Goodwin/Williamson tenure that is best-loved by today's comics fans. It was during their run that X-9 received the name of Phil Corrigan.

The first volume also features an introduction by Mark Schultz, and a essay on X-9's long history by Bruce Canwell.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

Two Twos on sale today!

If it were a Rip Kirby mystery, we might call it "The Case of the Tandem Twos," but it's even better news than that: two different Volume Twos go officially on sale today. We invite you to consider Alex Raymond's Rip Kirby vol. 2 and Berkeley Breathed's Bloom County vol. 2, and then check out the online IDW store, your local comics shop, favorite brick-and-morter bookstore, or an omnipresent online bookseller. Between Alex Raymond and Berkeley Breathed, there's some enjoyable comic strip reading for everyone.

  posted by Dean Mullaney

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Sunday, May 2nd, 2010

TRACY Hits Double Digits

No, that title doesn't refer to the denouement of a newly-discovered continuity (though wouldn't it be great to unearth a lost Chester Gould work featuring a heretofore unknown grotesque antagonist?). Instead it marks a minor milestone, as with our upcoming July release Dick Tracy becomes the first Library Of American Comics series to require a tenth volume. In many ways this next Tracy installment, reprinting eighteen months of continuity from September 1945 to March '47, is my favorite of the run. While no criminal in Volume 10 is as wily as Flattop, as sadistic as The Brow, as shocking in appearance as Pruneface, time and again this group strikes close to home in ways that are tense and sometimes disturbing.

Which Tracy rogue is as amoral and tenacious as Itchy? He pursues the late Shaky's ill-gotten gains, threatens both Junior and Tess, then teams up with a distaff member of the criminal element to ensnare Tracy in a fiendish trap. During this sequence, a great panel showcases Tracy's indomitable will: when all seems hopeless, Tracy nevertheless manages to snarl, "Itchy - - - I promise you one thing - - - when we leave this house - - - I'll WALK out, but they'll be carrying you!" Look for it in the December 12, 1945 daily.

This volume also features the rotten apples hanging from a few family trees. The innocent boy-scientist Brilliant is done wrong by his relatives. Nilon Hoze and her cousin Rod connive to get their hooks into their rich aunt's moolah, while what happens to spunky little Themesong is a reminder that in Chester Gould's world, no one is truly safe (relevant today, when people are quick to surrender civil liberties for vague promises of "security").

The book's final sequence is its most spine-chilling, as Vitamin Flintheart—that overwrought thespian and "capsule receiver" (as Themesong christens him)—returns in time to cross paths with the eerie Influence, who has the power to bend others' wills to his own. Mental take-over stories always creep me out—as a kid, I didn't even find it funny when Dr. Boris Balinkoff used his robot rings to take control of Gilligan and the other stranded castaways! So my flesh crawled as Influence systematically seized mind after mind, cementing his unscrupulous plans, toying with people like a cat at a mouse convention. Brr-r-r-r!

I'll admit there's one more reason I'm a Tracy booster besides Chet Gould's crackling good stories and the exceptional behind-the-scenes insights offered by Jeff Kersten and Max Allan Collins: I'm the guy who writes each volume's "Previously in the Case Files of Dick Tracy" feature. It's a challenge to compress over two hundred pages of continuity from the previous book into two pages of text and images, but what great fun to write first-person commentary in Tracy's voice!

It's a pleasure to salute The Master Sleuth on the advent of his tenth LOAC volume, and it's delightful to know there are plenty more to come…

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Saturday, May 1st, 2010

"If it's Free, it's for me."

It's the first Saturday in May and that means "Free Comic Book Day" is here! Don't forget to head down to your local comics shop and pick up the exclusive Library of American Comics #1.

This free comic book is a little different from the usual fare. You won't find holographic variant covers or even superheroes in the 32 pages. Instead, we feature 30-year-old penguins and octogenarian flappers, 60-year-old "teenagers" and 40-something secret agents. What they all have in common is that, regardless of age, they are timeless and classic.

It's 32 pages of previews for some of our upcoming books, so check it out. If it's free, it's for me…and you!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Tuesday, Apr 27th, 2010

Time Changes Everything

I noticed that DC Comics's "trinity" titles will soon be celebrating major milestones: Superman and Batman are both reaching their 700th issues, with Wonder Woman arriving at #600. Certainly, an enduring legacy has been shaped by those characters and the many fine creators who have worked on them.

Still, these anniversaries remind me how immense it seemed to me as a kid in 1970, when The Fantastic Four reached their centennial. A hundred issues—wow! Now I think about the length of time I've been involved with comics - as a reader, a fan, and a writer - and I say "Wow!" for different reasons.

Let's take that 1970 FF anniversary as a starting point: forty years have passed between that issue and today. Start at 1970 and go forty years back from there—welcome to 1930. Think about what's going on (and what is yet to go on!) in comics at that time:

Milton Caniff is still two years from moving to New York; Dickie Dare is three years away, Terry and The Pirates four.

It's been only a year since Popeye walked on stage at Thimble Theatre to utter the immortal words, "Ja think I'm a cowboy?"

The Shadow's pulp adventures don't begin until 1931; Doc Savage and King Kong both bow in 1933.

Kolor Krazy Kat Sundays are five years in the future.

Likewise, it will be five years before George McManus meets and hires Zeke Zekley to assist him on Bringing Up Father.

And oh, by the way, those comic book characters with milestones in 2010? None of them exist yet—there's an eight-year gap between where we're standing in 1930 and the release of Action Comics # 1.

What's the point of this little exercise? It may make you feel old…or it may make you feel good. No matter if you came to comics in time to buy FF # 100 off the spinner racks—or to see Doonesbury to take on the Nixon White House—or for Frank Miller's Daredevil—or for the launch of Calvin & Hobbes—you have participated in a lot of comics history. And together, we're fortunate to be here in 2010, a time when the breadth and depth of that history is being expanded even as it is being captured and preserved for future generations by The Library of American Comics and our friendly competitors, as well as the good persons behind DC and Dark Horse's many Archive series and Marvel's Masterworks.

Yes, we're growing older - but there are still reasons to say, "Wow!"

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Monday, Apr 26th, 2010

The Errata Bug Bites LOAC

Due to printing errors, two daily strips in Dick Tracy Volume Nine were duplicated, and two are missing; in King Aroo Volume One, one strip was similarly duplicated, while one is missing. We apologize for the mix-up. In order to keep both series truly "complete," the missing strips will be printed in the succeeding volumes. For those who can't wait, we reproduce them here.

The top strip is the Dick Tracy from June 24, 1944 (page 67); the middle strip is from May 24, 1945 (page 211). Below them is the correct April 4, 1952 strip from King Aroo (page 173).

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Saturday, Apr 17th, 2010

Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth

     We've been keeping this project under wraps for the past year, but it's time to release this little note from the "Coming Attractions" Department: this fall sees the release of a big stand-alone project that will bookend 2008's Scorchy Smith & The Art of Noel Sickles. It's a little number we call Genius, Isolated: The Life & Art of Alex Toth.

     Odds are you recognize Alex as one of the true icons of 20th Century comics art, and know the broad strokes that comprise his career: a working professional artist by his late teens; set the industry on its ear working for DC and Standard Comics between 1947 and 1954; did incredible work at Dell, particularly his classic and definitive Zorro; migrated into animation, and is perhaps best known for his designs for Hanna-Barbera Studios's Space Ghost, The Herculoids, and Super Friends; and marked a return to comics in the 1970s and 1980s, doing new work for DC and also publishing his much-beloved, creator-owned Bravo for Adventure. He ended his career feeling largely disillusioned with the comics of the late 20th and early 21st Centuries, though he continued to comment on the industry through forums such as Comic Book Artist.

     There is, of course, much more to Alex's story, and we'll bring it to you in Genius, Isolated. This book is being produced with the cooperation of Alex's family. We're also hearing from well-known "Friends of Alex," as well as folks close to him who have never before spoken publicly. We'll examine several of his artistic influences, names both familiar and less-well-known. Captured between two covers for the first time ever will be the complete run of Jon Fury in Japan, created while Alex was in the Army in the mid-50s. We'll also present other complete Toth stories—from the original artwork!—that will show newcomers or serve to remind longtime fans why Alex Toth's legacy will long endure. And then there will be page after page of rare and previously unseen art.

     We'll release some teasers from the book in this blog over the next couple of months…just to make sure you're paying attention!

posted by Bruce Canwell

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Tuesday, Apr 13th, 2010

It's amoozin' but not confoozin'—it's THE COMPLETE LI'L ABNER!

     Head for the hills—or your nearest comics shop, bookstore, or online seller—because the first volume of Li'l Abner is now on sale! The book contains the daily and never-before reprinted color Sundays from the beginning in 1934 through December 1936.

     Al Capp's comedy masterpiece introduced Sadie Hawkins, Lower Slobbovia, the double whammy, Lena the Hyena, and The Shmoos to over 60 million laughing readers. In Volume 1, 19-year-old Li'l Abner Yokum travels between sleepy Dogpatch, Kentucky and New York City. Will he marry socialite Mimi Van Pett, or will Marrying Sam hitch Abner to beautiful Daisy Mae in a dee-luxe six dollar wedding? Can Abner outwit both kidnappers and the fightin', feudin' Skragg family? And trouble brews when Abner's evil lookalike, gangster Gat Garson, arrives on the scene!

     Bruce Canwell has researched and written a fantastic all-new essay on Capp that utilizes a newly-discovered manuscript by Capp's father! Yours truly, Dean Mullaney, is responsible for the design. For the introduction, we called on our old pal Denis Kitchen, who was more than happy to return to his Dogpatch roots. Long-time readers may remember the series of Abner dailies that Denis published way back when. Denis also supplied all the color Sundays used in the book's production. The dailies are reproduced from the Capp family proofbooks.

    We think you'll enjoy this oversized, 9.25" x 12" book. Let us know.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Friday, Apr 9th, 2010

Welcome to the Digital Library!

     Welcome to the official launch of our website! We appreciate your stopping by.

     This is the place for information about all new and upcoming releases. We'll also use our blog to offer behind the scenes production notes, links to reviews and interviews, plus plenty of web exclusives. We often come across backstory items in our research that don't necessarily make it into the books. We'll post them here so this website becomes an ephemeral addendum to the Library's releases, in addition to being a central location where you can buy all of our books.

     We invite you to check in regularly. We guarantee you won't be disappointed!

posted by Dean Mullaney

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Thursday, Apr 8th, 2010

Two More Eisner Nominations for LOAC!

     If we weren't Red Sox fans, we might say this is a "three-peat." In our first three years, the Library of American Comics has been nominated six times for Eisner awards. Our initial release—Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates—won as Best Archival Project.

     This year, Bloom County and Bringing Up Father have each been nominated for Best Archival Project.

     Bringing Up Father collects the most famous of George McManus's storylines: the cross-country tour of 1939-1940. The book was edited by Bruce Canwell.

     Bloom County Volume One begins the first comprehensive reprinting of Berkeley Breathed's 1980s classic. The series is edited by Scott Dunbier.

posted by Dean Mullaney

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