It’s new comic book day! What’s everyone getting? What are you excited for? Sound off in the comments below! While you wait for shops to open, here’s some comic news and a review from around the web.
ICv2 – Library of American Comics and EuroComics Moving to Clover Press – Interesting move.
ComicBook – DC’s Naomi Adds Stephanie March to New CW Series – So excited for this television series.
Comic Review
Talking Comics – Batman: Fear State Omega
In celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the first Star Wars film this May, IDW Publishing and the multi award-winning imprint, Library of American Comics present Volume One of Star Wars: The Classic Newspaper Comic which contains 575 sequential strips from its premiere run March 11, 1979 to October 5, 1980. Included are every Sunday’s title header and “bonus” panels in meticulously restored original color, making this the first-ever complete collection of this comics classic as they originally appeared. During the five years Star Wars Comics first appeared, early fans were treated to a total of twenty-seven storylines that remain some of the best “Classic Star Wars” era tales ever told.
In this first of three volumes, a stunning image of Darth Vader graces the cover and the most beloved original Star Wars characters journey through space along with new characters in new worlds never seen in the feature films. These daily adventure comic strips brought all the action of the movie directly into people’s homes for the first time.
Initially the color Sundays and B&W dailies told separate stories, but within six months the incomparable Russ Manning merged the adventures to tell brand new epic seven-days-a-week sagas that rivaled the best science fiction comics of all time. When the strip launched, Russ Manning accurately predicted that “People today can’t get enough science fiction, especially if it is original and full of creative adventure. The Star Wars characters are like Mickey Mouse. They will be loved forever.” These strips reflect a simpler time in the franchise’s history and are a “must-have” for both the hardcore and casual Star Wars fan.
The books are produced under license, and in cooperation with Marvel Comics and Lucasfilm.
Star Wars: The Classic Newspaper Comics, Volume 1
11” x 8.5” landscape hardcover, 260 pp, $49.99
Available May 2017
Welcome back, Elly, John, and the entire Patterson family as IDW Publishing and the Library of American Comics have announced For Better or For Worse: The Complete Library by Lynn Johnston. These definitive hardcover editions will collect the entire series in nine volumes, three books per decade of the strip.
For Better or For Worse is one of the most beloved comic strips of all time, with a devoted audience of more than 220 million. These new collections are being produced with Lynn Johnston’s cooperation and are being edited by Dean Mullaney, Kurtis Findlay, and Lorraine Turner.
Since For Better or For Worse debuted in 1979, the world was able to watch the Patterson family grow up in real time—and to many readers, they feel like family!
Book One, coming October 2017, collects all the daily and color Sunday strips from the strip’s debut in September 1979 through the end of 1982. The book will feature a new cover panel by Lynn Johnston, and occasional context notes and comments. For Better or For Worse: The Complete Library reprints the strips in chronological order, allowing us to enjoy it as it originally unfolded!
Lynn Johnston was born in Ontario, Canada. She is the first woman to receive the Reuben Award for Cartoonist of the Year from the National Cartoonists Society. She has also received the Order of Canada. Lynn began For Better or For Worse in 1979. She told the saga of the Pattersons for 29 years, until August of 2008, when she retired from the daily production of new strips and storylines.
Adding to IDW Publishing’s ever-growing partnership with Marvel, the publishers announced at New York Comic Con they will be teaming up to bring the world’s most popular Super-Hero, The Amazing Spider-Man, to IDW’s Library of American Comics (LOAC) imprint.
The wondrous wall-crawler’s long-running newspaper strip by Stan Lee, John Romita, and others will be collected in a series of deluxe new hardcover editions that are sure to leave Super Hero fans and comic-strip collectors equally delighted. Consistent with the other newspaper strip reprints in the Library of American Comics line, each volume in the Spider-Man series will include full-color Sunday pages.
Launched in 1977, the Spider-Man newspaper strip begins with Peter Parker’s arachnid alter-ego facing off against the deadly menace of Doctor Doom! Classic Spidey villains, including Kraven the Hunter, Doctor Octopus, Mysterio, and the Kingpin, make appearances in pulse-pounding tales drawn by master Spider-artist John Romita Sr. and written by none other than Spider-Man co-creator Stan “The Man” Lee! As the series unfolds, the artistic torch was passed to Larry Lieber (Stan’s younger brother), Paul Ryan, Alex Saviuk, and legendary inker “Joltin’” Joe Sinnott. No matter the artistic interpretation on display, The Amazing Spider-Man comic strip features the kind of fast-paced action and genuine human emotion that has made Peter Parker a star in movies, theatre, TV, video games, and the comic books that started it all back in 1962 with Amazing Fantasy #15.
LOAC’s Spider-Man series is designed by Dean Mullaney and edited by Bruce Canwell, both winners of multiple 2014 Eisner Awards for Genius, Illustrated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth.
The Amazing Spider-Man, Volume 1 goes on sale in early 2015, so plan a visit to your favorite comics shop or bookseller so you can enjoy the special Lee/Romita storytelling magic and learn with Peter Parker once again that, “With great power comes great responsibility”.
Continuing to set the gold standard in comics preservation, IDW Publishing’s Library of American Comics, in partnership with DC Entertainment, will release the amazing never-before reprinted adventures of Superman that appeared in the Sunday newspapers for more than twenty-five years. The strips will be releases in in chronological order in three sub-sets: the 1940s Golden Age, the 1950s Atomic Age, and the 1960s Silver Age.
The first volume in the Superman: Golden Age Sundays series will collect 170 sequential Sundays, from May 9, 1943 through August 4, 1946, beginning where the Superman Sunday Classic book by DC Comics and Kitchen Sink Press left off. These World War II-era stories feature work by legendary artists such as Wayne Boring and Jack Burnley.
The stories include the complete “Superman’s Service to Servicemen” series, which ran from late Summer of 1943 until a few months after the Second World War ended. In these human interest tales, Superman responds to requests from men and women of the armed services, as well as their family members back home. In supporting troop morale, Superman travels from the Mediterranean theatre to the bleak Aleutian Islands to the steamy South Pacific. He helps a wounded Army Air Corps pilot return home to witness the birth of his twins; solves numerous romantic misunderstandings; checks up on mothers for their worried sons overseas…while simultaneously stopping enemy torpedoes, bombs, and bullets!
In a clever transition to the post-War world, there’s a flashback to Superman’s origin and Clark Kent’s first assignment at the Daily Planet, followed by a thrilling inter-stellar saga in which Superman comes face to face with Queen Arda of the planet Suprania, who threatened to kill Lois Lane unless the Man of Steel agrees to become her King!
These Sunday strips represent an important era in the development of the Man of Steel into an international phenomenon. Each book in the series features an introduction by Mark Waid and covers drawn by Peter Poplaski.
Superman: Golden Age Sundays joins The Library of American Comics and IDW’s line of archival DC classic newspaper strips, first started with Superman: Silver Age Dailies, which will continue into 2014, as well as the 1940s Wonder Woman and the 1960s Batman.
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditoriums are among the most popular museums worldwide, yet most people don’t know that it all started with a daily cartoon drawn by one man—Robert Ripley. IDW and the Library of American Comics will present the definitive edition of Ripley’s sensational cartoons that featured the odd and amazing from around the world.
Originally a sports cartoonist, Ripley drew a “Champs and Chumps” cartoon that eventually morphed into “Believe It or Not!” By 1929, the series took off as Ripley became a world traveler, seeking stories of bizarre and unusual proportion to put in his internationally-known feature. In an era when not many people traveled outside their own home town, let alone out of the country, Ripley became a compulsive traveler and journeyed whenever he could! The cartoons were adapted into radio and television programs, and helped make Ripley the highest paid cartoonist in the world. The franchise still thrives as the famous Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditoriums.
Starting in 2014 IDW and the Library of American Comics will begin reprinting Ripley’s famous daily cartoons in hardcover collections, including bonus and background material from Ripley’s impressive archives. The first volume will collect the cartoons from 1929 and 1930, when Ripley’s fame raised him from relative obscurity to international celebrity!
IDW’s Library of American Comics and DC Entertainment have announced the beginning of a new partnership to reprint some of the rarest DC Comics stories — the Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman newspaper strips.
At the same time that Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman became the world’s most famous and recognizable superheroes in comic books in the 1940s and beyond, they also starred in runs of newspaper comic strips, most of which have not been seen since they first appeared.
The Man of Steel’s newspaper adventures ran for more than 25 years, from 1939 until 1966. Only about 10% of these strips have ever been reprinted. The complete comics will be released in three sub-sets, starting with The Silver Age, then The Atomic Age, and finally, The Golden Age. The black-and-white daily and color Sunday strips contained distinct storylines and will be released in separate, concurrent, series of deluxe hardcovers.
The line kicks off this July with Superman: The Silver Age Newspaper Dailies, Vol. 1: 1958-1961. Fans can look forward to nearly 800 strips featuring classic artwork by Curt Swan, Wayne Boring, and Stan Kaye. While most of the stories from the Atomic Age and Golden Age were original and completely different from the comic books, under Mort Weisinger’s editorship in the late 1950s Silver Age stories, Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel was brought in to script adaptations of then-current comic book tales.
Covers for each book are being specially created by Pete Poplaski to evoke the look and style of the times; Volume One is an homage to Curt Swan’s art and Ira Schnapp’s lettering design. Tom DeHaven, author of the novel It’s Superman!, is writing the foreword, and the introductions are by Sidney Friedfertig.
Additional details on the Sunday strip books as well as the Batman and Wonder Woman collections will follow, but eager fans should begin watching the skies in July!
Superman: The Silver Age Newspaper Dailies, Vol. 1: 1958-1961
(HC, B&W, $49.99, 288 pages, 11” x 8.5”)
ISBN: 978-1-61377-666-7
IDW Publishing has announced that the Library of American Comics will be collecting comics legend Russ Manning’s classic run with Edgar Rice Burroughs’ King of the Jungle in 2013! Tarzan: The Complete Russ Manning Newspaper Strips is a four-volume series. The first three volumes will chronologically collect all of Manning’s daily black & white and full-color Sunday strips from 1967 to 1974, while the fourth volume will collect the remaining Sunday strips, which Manning continued to do until 1979.
The series of hardcover volumes will commence May 29th with Tarzan: The Complete Russ Manning Newspaper Strips, Vol. 1: 1967 – 1969. Fans will be treated to the first-ever collection of a historic turning point in Tarzan history: when Russ Manning was handpicked by the Burroughs estate to return the strip to its creator’s original vision. Manning put together a dream team of assistants in this historic endeavor, including future comics greats Dave Stevens, William Stout, and Mike Royer, creating one of the most loaded rosters in comics history, and a perfect opportunity for new fans to discover the adventures of Viscount Greystoke.
In his introduction to Volume One, William Stout writes, “Russ Manning was a natural storyteller. He may also be one of the most underrated writers in comics. His beautiful art is so captivating that it’s easy to understand how it might overshadow his scripts. He was as adept with telling Tarzan tales in contemporary Africa as he was setting Ape Man stories in dinosaur-infested Pal-ul-don.”
Reproduced from the Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. file copies, fans can expect Tarzan: The Complete Russ Manning Newspaper Strips to receive the same critically acclaimed, award-winning treatment that Dean Mullaney, The Library of American Comics, and IDW Publishing have become renowned for.
Tarzan: The Complete Russ Manning Newspaper Strips, Vol. 1: 1967 – 1969
(HC, B&W, $49.99, 288 pages.)
ISBN: 978-1-61377-694-0
Official Press Release
IDW and the Library of American Comics announce
The Complete Skippy by Percy Crosby
![[Skippy Image]](https://i0.wp.com/gallery.mailchimp.com/5792cac24346d164eb0cf6ad2/files/Skippy1_pr.jpg?resize=150%2C136)
San Diego, CA (December 7, 2011)—IDW Publishing and the Library of American Comics are proud to announce a new archival hardcover series that will reprint, for the first time, the complete legendary Skippy comic strips by Percy Crosby. THE COMPLETE SKIPPY will be co-edited by Jared Gardner and Dean Mullaney, with an ongoing biography by Gardner, and designed by Lorraine Turner. The premiere volume, containing the daily comics from 1925 through 1927, will be released in summer 2012.
![[Percy Crosby Image]](https://i0.wp.com/gallery.mailchimp.com/5792cac24346d164eb0cf6ad2/files/Percy_Crosby.jpg?resize=150%2C183)
“Percy Crosby caught lightning in a bottle and learned how to draw with it,” wrote Jules Feiffer in a 1978 appreciation. Milton Caniff marveled, “Boy, there’s nothing faster than watching Skippy run the way Crosby drew him.” Debuting in 1923 in Life magazine, Skippy moved to the comics pages in 1925 and soon became a sensation, published in twenty-eight countries and fourteen languages. In 1931, Skippy became the first comic strip to see its film version win an Academy Award. Crosby continued writing and drawing the feature until 1945.
![[Life Cover]](https://i0.wp.com/gallery.mailchimp.com/5792cac24346d164eb0cf6ad2/files/life1924cov.jpg?resize=150%2C189)
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. Crosby’s artwork has hung in the Louvre in Paris, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, and the Tate Gallery in London, among other venues, but it is his work as a cartoonist, as the creator of Skippy—the philosopher man-child— for which he’s best known.
![[Life Image]](https://i0.wp.com/gallery.mailchimp.com/5792cac24346d164eb0cf6ad2/files/life19250416.jpg?resize=200%2C287)
Today Skippy can be seen as the spiritual ancestor to Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes, among many other kid strips. 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 ![[Crosby Family Image]](https://i0.wp.com/gallery.mailchimp.com/5792cac24346d164eb0cf6ad2/files/Crosby_family.jpg?resize=150%2C192)
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.
The series is produced with the full cooperation of Skippy, Inc. and the Crosby estate. Joan Crosby Tibbetts, Crosby’s daughter, who has waged a 50-year campaign to keep her father’s legacy alive, said, “I’m delighted that the complete Skippy will be published at long last. For years, Skippy fans and namesakes have written me, wanting to see more of their favorite character, and now I can tell them their wishes are granted.”
![[Skippy Image]](https://i0.wp.com/gallery.mailchimp.com/5792cac24346d164eb0cf6ad2/files/Skippy19250622.jpg?resize=501%2C139)
![[Skippy Image]](https://i0.wp.com/gallery.mailchimp.com/5792cac24346d164eb0cf6ad2/files/Skippy19250630.jpg?resize=500%2C144)
Visit IDWPublishing.com to learn more about the company and its top-selling books.
About IDW Publishing
IDW is an award-winning publisher of comic books, graphic novels and trade paperbacks, based in San Diego, California. Renowned for its diverse catalog of licensed and independent titles, IDW publishes some of the most successful and popular titles in the industry, including: Hasbro’s The TRANSFORMERS and G.I. JOE, Paramount’s Star Trek; HBO’s True Blood; the BBC’s DOCTOR WHO; Toho’s Godzilla; Wizards of the Coasts Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons; and comics and trade collections based on novels by bestselling authors, Joe Hill, Anne Rice, George R.R. Martin, and James Patterson. IDW is also home to the Library of American Comics imprint, which publishes classic comic reprints, and Yoe! Books, a partnership with Yoe! Studio.
IDW’s original horror series, 30 Days of Night, was launched as a major motion picture in October 2007 by Sony Pictures and was the #1 film in its first week of release. More information about the company can be found at IDWPublishing.com.
Skippy © 2011 Skippy, Inc. All characters herein and the distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks of Skippy, Inc. All rights reserved.
Official Press Release
Second installment of acclaimed series features Ted Koppel introduction
![[Bloom County Vol 2 cover]](https://i0.wp.com/gallery.mailchimp.com/5792cac24346d164eb0cf6ad2/images/Bloom2_Cover_small.jpg?resize=150%2C116)
San Diego, CA (May 21, 2010) – The wildly successful return of Opus, Binkley, Bill the Cat and the entire cast of Bloom County continues with the debut of Bloom County: The Complete Library, Volume Two at fourth on the New York Times Best Seller list. In Volume Two, creator Berkeley Breathed offers even more funny and insightful commentary than in the first volume, while context pages help fans recapture the glory of the 1980s.
“Ha, fooled them again!” exclaimed Breathed. “Seriously, I’m happy people still enjoy this stuff. Surprised, but happy.”
Beginning with September 27, 1982, Bloom County: The Complete Library, Volume Two offers every daily and Sunday through July 1, 1984, most reproduced from Breathed’s personal archives of original art. Kicking off this second installment, renowned journalist Ted Koppel takes readers on a brief journey back to the Reagan years and reflects on the strips he shared with Opus in his introduction.
“What’s really astounding to me is the freshness of this material after so many years” said editor Scott Dunbier. “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.”
Bloom County: The Complete Library Volume Two 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.
Bloom County: The Complete Library Volume Two is published by IDW under its imprint Eisner award-winning imprint, the Library of American Comics. Bloom County: The Complete Library series is edited by Dunbier and designed by Dean Mullaney.
![[Bloom County, February 7, 1983]](https://i0.wp.com/gallery.mailchimp.com/5792cac24346d164eb0cf6ad2/images/blm830207small2.jpg?resize=625%2C214)
Bloom County: The Complete Library Volume Two ($39.99; 304 pages; hardcover) is now available in stores. Diamond order code FEB10 1005; ISBN 978-160010-583-8.
Visit IDWPublishing.com to sign up for updates and learn more about the company and its top-selling books.
About IDW Publishing
IDW is an award-winning publisher of comic books, graphic novels and trade paperbacks, based in San Diego, California. Renowned for its diverse catalog of licensed and independent titles, IDW publishes some of the most successful and popular titles in the industry, including: Hasbro’s The Transformers and G.I. JOE, Paramount’s Star Trek; Fox’s Angel; the BBC’s Doctor Who; and comics and trade collections based on novels by worldwide bestselling author, James Patterson. IDW is also home to the Library of American Comics imprint, which publishes classic comic reprints; Yoe! Books, a partnership with Yoe! Studios; and is the print publisher for EA Comics and ComicMix.
IDW’s original horror series, 30 Days of Night, was launched as a major motion picture in October 2007 by Sony Pictures and was the #1 film in its first week of release. More information about the company can be found at IDWPublishing.com.
About The Library of American Comics
The Library of American Comics, an imprint of IDW Publishing, was established in 2007 to preserve the long and jubilantly creative history of the American newspaper comic strip in archival, hardcover editions. To date, every LoAC release has been nominated for an Eisner or Harvey Award and the imprint’s inaugural series, Terry and the Pirates, won the Eisner in 2008. Creative and Editorial Director Dean Mullaney has been an influential force in the comics field since 1978, when he published the first graphic novel for the comics specialty market (Sabre by Don McGregor and Paul Gulacy). His pioneering efforts, as founder and publisher of Eclipse Comics, brought about many milestones to the field, including creator copyright ownership, the first line of Japanese manga in English translation in 1988, and the first digitally-colored comic book. More information about The Library of American Comics can be found on IDW’s website— www.idwpublishing.com—and that of the imprint itself—www.libraryofamericancomics.com.
*Comic strip for February 2, 1983.
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