The format for the Gottfredson "Mickey Mouse" collections will be similar to Fantagraphics' other comic strip reprint books including "Peanuts" and "Dennis the Menace." "The books will be slightly larger than our 'Peanuts' books, landscape format, approximately two years of strips per book," Groth told CBR. "They need to be a little bigger than the 'Peanuts' books because Gottferdson's art is more dense than Charles Schulz's, and, interestingly, each panel usually represents a complete picture rather than an abbreviation of one. They need space to breathe."

In collecting the entirety of Gottfredson's 45-year run means Fantagraphics will be reprinting controversial strips, some of which have only been reprinted in a sanitized format in the time since their original publication. As highlighted in the case of recent editions of "Tintin in the Congo," some character depictions may be considered racist by today's standard, and a storyline in which Mickey repeatedly tries to kill himself is likely to raise some eyebrows. Groth confirmed, however, that "the Mickey strips are being published unabridged." "The book has about 60 pages of essays, some of which address the more controversial elements of the Mickey strips," he explained. "We do place them in context." In addition to the introduction by Warren Spector, creator of the recent "Epic Mickey" video game who will also be writing BOOM! Studios' upcoming "DuckTales" series, David Gerstein will be providing a number of essays for the first volume, as will historian Tom Andrae and Floyd Norman.

Buz Sawyer Vol. 1: The War in the Pacific by Roy Crane
Fantagraphics, March 2011
Rating: 9.0

There used to be these things called newspapers. They were like a bunch of paper placemats that were folded over and wrapped up together, but full of department store ads instead of the story of when Dave met Buster. They also usually ran comic strips, and one of the best in the days of our grandparents was Roy Crane’s Buz Sawyer. Crane arguably invented the adventure strip in the 1920’s with Wash Tubbs and its Sunday spin-off Captain Easy, and by the time he started Buz Sawyer for Hearst in 1943 he was an accomplished master of the form. In the serialized adventures of Buz Sawyer, ace World War II Navy pilot and clean-cut ladies man, Crane expertly mixes high action in the Pacific with just the right amount of romance, creating a storytelling engine as sturdy and reliable as Sawyer’s SBD Dauntless. Crane’s gorgeous art, with cleanly drawn figures, extensive shading, and a slightly cartoonish style, took full advantage of the space provided comic strips back in the day. It’s difficult to imagine how Crane, who passed in 1977, would work with the severely reduced real estate of today’s comics pages. Of course there’s an unfortunate racial element to Buz Sawyer, as all non-white characters are reduced to the broadest and most offensive stereotypes, but that doesn’t diminish Crane’s formidable talents. (GM)

Hermes Press adds yet another important title to its line-up of classiccomic book and comic strip reprints with Brenda Starr, Reporter by DaleMessick: The Collected Daily and Sunday Strips.Created by Dale Messick, the first woman to create, draw, and write asyndicated newspaper strip, Brenda Starr successfully mixed romance,fashion, and adventure into one of the longest running features in newspaperhistory. Even though the strip will officially end its syndicated run on January2, 2011, the feature will continue through Hermes Press' reprints of thestrip's early years.The first volume of this series will reprint, for the first time, the firsttwo Sunday storylines in full color. Hermes Press is digitally restoring theseSundays so that they look better than when they were first released. Alsofeatured in this volume will be the first "Man of Mystery" storyfeaturing Brenda's love interest, Basil St. John. Brenda Starr,Reporter started as a Sunday-only strip, but by October 22, 1945 a dailyversion of the feature also appeared. The first daily sequence will also befeatured in the first volume of Hermes Press' reprint.

Frank Robbins' masterpiece, one of the all-time greatest action/adventure newspaper comic strips, Johnny Hazard, is back! When Johnny Hazard first saw newsprint it was near the end of the Second World War. The first storyline in the feature finds Johnny escaping from a Japanese prisoner of war camp by stealing an enemy airplane. From there his adventures were packed with never-ending action, Veronica Lake-esque women, and classic bad guys. Now you can see it all from the beginning, complemented by the work of one of the master artists of the comic strip medium, Frank Robbins. Reproduced entirely from original King Features press proofs.

Now for the first time an in-depth collection surveying the greatest cowboy strip to grace newspapers, Roy Rogers. See the adventures of Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, and Trigger in both the black-and-white daily strips and twelve complete full-color continuities of the Sundays. Presented in this volume is the complete work of Silver Age master Alex Toth on the title. Also featured is artwork by Mike Arens, Pete Alvardo, and Tom, Chuck, and Bob McKimson. During the 1950's Roy Rogers was one of the most widely read newspaper comic strips in America and this volume presents a representative sampling covering the entire 12-year run of the title. This book, as with all Hermes Press' comic book and strip reprints, presents a detailed essay about the strip's history, written by comics historian Tim Lasuita, accompanied by artwork, movie posters, advertising, and toys.

IDW''s Library of American Comics is producing The Definitive Flash Gordon & Jungle Jim as part of the Ultimate Alex Raymond Collection. The Definitive Flash Gordon & Jungle Jim will present every Sunday by Raymond from both classic strips together for the first time, in the oversized 12" x 16" champagne edition format. The artist''s post-war modernist detective series, Rip Kirby, is currently being collected. Eisner Award-winner Dean Mullaney is editing and designing the deluxe editions. "Although Flash Gordon has been previously reprinted, this-finally-is the first meticulously remastered and restored edition that prints the strip in a large size and in Raymond''s original format that includes the Jungle Jim topper. We believe this will be the definitive edition for the ages." Created by Raymond in 1934, Flash Gordon is arguably the most famous science fiction comic strip of all time. It follows adventures of the title character and his companions-Dale Arden and Dr. Zarkov-as they leave Earth to discover the source of meteors that are threatening the planet, and gets waylaid on the planet Mongo, where they battle the evil Ming the Merciless. The three Earthlings encounter one strange race after another, from the water-breathing Shark-Men of the Undersea Kingdom, to the winged Hawkmen, to the ferocious Tusk-Men. All the while, Flash finds himself in the arms of one beautiful woman after another-much to Dale Arden''s chagrin. Jungle Jim was created as a strip topper for Flash Gordon, and followed the life of Jim Bradley, who fought pirates, slave traders, and assorted villains in the exotic Southeast Asia of the 1930s. This neglected Raymond classic also features Jim''s native cohort Kolu and femme fatale Lille DeVrille.

Beginning the complete library of the greatest science fiction hero of all time.

Volume One will spotlight the work of Alex Raymond, legendary for some of the finest storytelling of the 20th century. Raymond illustrated the Sunday strips until 1944; with his clear and much-imitated style forming the original aesthetic of the most popular and easily recognised science fiction hero for decades to come.

Introducing Flash Gordon, Dale Arden, Dr. Hans Zarkov, and Ming the Merciless, this volume will catapult readers to the deadly planet Mongo.

These are the strips that influenced George Lucas to create Star Wars, and which illustrator Al Williamson said were "the reason I became an artist."

Big News from the Swamp



We are pleased as punch to announce that Volume One of Pogo has gone to press. We have printer's proofs and it looks sensational. Or to put it another way, it looks worthy of the great newspaper strip (some would say the greatest) created by Mr. Walt Kelly.

Some of Pogo has been reprinted before, not always in the best possible manner. Now, all of it will be republished — every daily strip and every Sunday page with the latter in color — in twelve volumes being issued by Fantagraphics Books. This is not as simple as someone saying, "Hey, let's reprint Pogo" and making a deal to do so. Much of the material does not exist in pristine, ready-to-print form and the earlier a strip is, the more likely it had to be located and painstakingly restored. That takes time, which is why the release date of this book was announced and changed, announced and changed, announced and changed, etc.

But now the first one's at the printer and subsequent volumes oughta be a lot simpler. (That sentence was hard to type with fingers crossed.)



My friend, the lovely Carolyn Kelly, lovingly supervised the loving restoration of her lovely father's lovely strip and she also did the lovely design of this lovely book and its lovely dust jacket and the lovely imprints under that lovely dust jacket. Sure sounds like a labor of love to me. Not that the contents need any help but the strips are supplemented by a foreword from writer (and friend o' Walt's) Jimmy Breslin and essays/annotations by Steve Thompson, R.C. Harvey and myself. If I were you, I'd read all that text stuff after I read the strips themselves about eleven times.

Each volume contains two years of Walt Kelly's magnum opus. Since the first year started in mid-year, there's room in the book to also include the pre-syndication Pogo strips he did for The New York Star, a short-lived newspaper for which he worked. This gives you the chance to observe from Day One and watch as it develops steadfastly from a darn good newspaper strip to something a lot better than just "darn good." Working on this collection, that was my constant thought: "Gee, it just gets better and better, doesn't it?"

That's about all I need to say about the contents. I am not sure when exactly the book will ship. Amazon is cautiously saying mid-December but it'll be well before that by at least a month or two. It'll be soon enough that you can order a copy in confidence of holding one in your hand before long. (Ignore the old cover design on the Amazon listing. The real one is above.) I'll caution you that if you buy Volume One, you're going to want Two through Twelve. I don't want to claim that Pogo was the best newspaper strip ever done. But if you want to say that, I sure won't give you an argument.

Doug Wright’s pantomime strip about the life of a suburban family moves into the mid-1960s, and the pop culture of the time begins to seep in. Wright showcases the domestic mayhem that parents and their kids experience throughout the year. The endless play of kids is prevalent, from skateboarding to snowball fights, from the guilty pleasure of making prank phone calls to the daily roughhousing of siblings.

From the very beginning in 1934, these are the original adventures of the famous comic strip detective - collected in full for the very first time!

Mandrake is a master of hypnosis, whose ability causes his opponents to encounter wild illusions, giving the heroes the upper hand in a fight. His enemies cover a broad spectrum, including gangsters, mad scientists, alien creatures, and characters from other adventures. His greatest ally is Lothar, "Prince of the Seven Nations" who gave up his crown to join Mandrake in his globe-trotting adventures. They are accompanied by the beautiful Narda, princess of a European nation and Mandrake's romantic interest.

Mandrake's exploits are among the most stunning and exciting in the realm of comic strips.