davidh777

This Memorial Day order keeps on giving!

After I got the big box in August, I've gotten two other random packages in subsequent weeks, one for Joe Kubert and then one for Milton Caniff. I guess I should have checked this thread to remember exactly what I ordered.

The Caniff is over 900 pages. (Kim Thompson's widow advised me that the pronunciation is kuh-NIFF.)

davidh777

Never heard of this before but it looks pretty awesome.

http://boingboing.net/2014/01/23/can...ew-of-wal.html

Paul_SD

I own the first (large) trade that FB put out of it, but still haven't gotten around to reading it.
Wood's art makes it a 'library essential' though- and I'll definitely be upgrading to the HC for a more permanent, easier to read edition of the material.

I'm surprised though that they are doing Cannon first when their Sally Forth book has been out of print longer and is generally more sought after. As far as just plain entertainment, Cannon is probably much more straight forward and cohesive compared to SF's scattershot satire.

Lots of great of classic strip collections coming up soon
-Alley Oop Color Sundays (first time this material is seeing print in color as far as I know)
-Flash Gordon/Jungle Jim (last volume of IDWs superb large collection of Raymonds strip)
-Buz Sawyer Vol 3 (apparently the dodgy reproduction of strips in the first volume is a one time thing- the second volume was a big improvement and according to the project editor future volumes should be closer to that standard.)
-Russ Manning's Tarzan (the third volume hasn't been solicited yet, but should be soon. Outsanding material and the first two volumes were among the very best releases of 2013, imo)
-Prince Valiant (FB's superb re-mastered collection just keeps chugging along)

Also promised, though he's been late with some of his other books, a fourth volume of Stan Drakes Heart of Juliet Jones. It's been several years since Vol.3 so this one is long overdue.

davidh777

Interesting--I was wondering if this series was good.

I only have the first volume.

davidh777

Paul_SD's mention of Alley Oop got me poking around, and it appears IDW has launched a new line they're calling LOAC (Library of American Comics) Essentials. First selections are Baron Bean, The Gumps: The Saga of Mary Gold, Polly and Her Pals 1933, and Alley Oop 1939.

Neil M.

I have three of the Essentials. The price makes it pretty easy to dive in even though you only get one year's worth of comics. I hope they continue the series and fill in the previous years.

davidh777

I didn't even notice the price, but yeah, at $25 MSRP that's not bad at all. So it really is one daily strip per page, rather than the three-ish that we're used to? Is the size of the physical book somewhat small then?

Neil M.

Yes, it's one strip per page. The book itself is oblong. About 12 inches long and over 4 inches high. The paper is thinner than their normal books and actually seems more like a newspaper, but not quite as thin as newspaper.

Bronkster

Anyone interested in really old comics should check out gocomics.com feature called "Origins of the Sunday Comics". Rather fascinating stuff from many of the classic cartoonists as they developed their styles. Today's strip is an early Herriman, who later created Krazy Kat. Linky. The only drawback is the reduced size makes much of the dialog difficult to read (or I need a larger monitor). But still, it's cool to see how the funny pages got their start!

Paul_SD

Raymonds FG is a classic- moreso for the art than the story.
Foster's Prince Valiant OTOH, which shares the same basic aesthetic i.e. Sunday only, fine illustration w/ sparse narration and dialogue in one text block per panel etc, I think is more successful both as an illustration showcase and a solid adventure strip with satisfying character development and plotting. But Flash is still cool, and as the series progresses you can see Raymonds style become slicker and more polished.
I didn't realize it, but Vol 8 of PV is going to be out this week.
I love FBs series of Valiant, but I can't help wishing it were presented the size of IDW's Flash Gordon. I think, based on the price that Dark Horse's Alley Oop Sundays will be that size as well.
I think for the first couple volumes I would use a B&N 20% off coupon, which brought the net cost down under $40. Not bad for a $75 book.
I've since switched to pre-ordering everything from CheapGraphicNovels.com, because I'm far less likely to get anything dinged or banged up. Their pre-order discounts are comparable to Amazon too, if not better. And if I toss enough stuff in the order, the $6 shipping is basically a wash.

Please do not judge the Buz Sawyer strip by the first FB book- either in terms of how it looks reprinted or the story content. Once the war is over, the strip becomes a much different animal, closer to classic Wash Tubbs/Capt. Easy with Buz a globe trotting adventurer. Unlike the earlier series, the locales are, as befitting the worldview following the war, more realistic and less cartoon fantasy as they were in the WT/CE series.
I also ran across some comments from Rick Norwood- the editor of FBs Buz series on a blog review of the first book here. Apparently the poor repro through most of the first volume is due to Rick choosing to use the full size/uncropped version of the strip. The reprints in the past- which look vastly superior in repro to FBs- all use the cropped version which cuts off a little less than 1/4 off the bottom of the panels. Sort of like the difference between a full frame video and that same matted to 1:85. Personally, I think he made a bad call as the material that exists for the cropped versions would have yielded a substantially nicer looking product- and the missing art was something I never suspected was missing anyway. Volume 2 still has some strips here and there that are muddy like much of Volume 1, but the majority are exponentially better looking. And because of the duo shade that Crane is using, fidelity of repro is a HUGE factor in appreciating the art here. This just might be my favorite classic strip of all time, so I hope everything has been ironed out. Can't wait for Vol. 3!


Unfortunately the Oop Essential has gotten delayed with the release date TBA. I'm not as interested in any of the ones they've released so far, but I do love the idea of the books- the size and price point. Didn't expect the paper to be substantially different from the regular Library titles, but it sounds like it is.

Neil M.

I prefer the size of the Prince Valiant books. The IDW Flash Gordon books are a little harder to handle but it's worth every penny. You can buy the second volume for $22.50 at bargaingraphicnovels.com right now which is a steal.

Neil M.

According to the Dark Horse website, it will be the same size as the Flash Gordon books.

Paul_SD

I can't argue that the size of PV makes for a much more comfortable read than FG. It is a lot easier to curl up with. I just keep finding myself wishing that Fosters art was displayed larger. But even if they had done it at FG size, I might still be wishing it were larger (the actual printed Sundays were HUGE).
But I have to admit that given the number of volumes this will run, the size that FB chose was probably the most ideal all around.

I'm cautiously optimistic about the DH Alley Oop. The only strip reprints I have from them is Jet Scott. Repro was solid, but I wasn't a big fan of the glossier stock they used. I would much prefer a matte finish that most other publishers use. But it won't be a deal killer for me if it isn't.


I could have sworn I heard that Warren Tuft's Casey Ruggles was going to see release this year, but can't remember where I heard it. I'm not that familiar with the strip- other than it being a western, iirc. Alex Toth was a fan of Tufts though and I think he might have ghosted on a few dailies.
That's enough of a recommendation for me to put it on the buy list whenever it gets announced.

Just found out the delayed Mary Perkins On Stage Vol. 12 is off at the printers- so that should be coming soon. The publisher has 3 volumes left to finish off the run and he's hoping they will all be released this year. Great news as that's another series that's on my all time best list.

Nick Danger

I read once that Wally Wood's drinking problem got worse and he ended up doing porn. But that Cannon looks pretty good.

I'm not feeling it from that Sally Forth page. A naturalistically-drawn woman with big tits mixed in with cartoony characters just looks like adolescent fantasy. Kurtzman and Elder knew enough to draw everyone in Little Annie Fanny with the same level of cartoonishness.

Nick Danger

Mrs Danger got me this for Christmas.



I'm reading the first section, Peter Arno. So I went to Ebay and bought a stack of Peter Arno books. I'll see how well his cartoons have stood up to social changes.

Paul_SD

I have high res scans of about 20 original Sally Forth boards I can post here if anyone wants to see them.
Same with Cannon.

Nick Danger

Yeah. I'm interested.

Thanks for the head's-up. $27.50 shipped.

I had the old Nostalgia Press versions of Flash Gordon with rearranged panels. I sold them. But Nostalgia also printed a great B&W book of Flash Gordon. It's just the lines, without the colors. That was what showed me just how good Raymond's art was.

davidh777

I'd be interested in the Wood scans as well.

I have a number of these classic reprints, but the only ones I've substantially dug into are Peanuts, Buck Rogers (read these a lot as a kid in a huge hardcover), and Terry and the Pirates, which was new to me but enjoyable. Need more time! I was never smitten with Prince Valiant in the Sunday paper, but I did get one of the gorgeous Fantagraphics volumes and have been meaning to read it.

I haven't actually read the first volume but my initial impressions were not great so I'm glad for this info. Is it still worth reading #1 with a grain of salt, or would it be better to skip ahead?

Paul_SD

Sorry for the delay in getting these up. Got distracted with some other things.
I reduced these a bit, but they are still pretty big so I'm going to put them in spoiler tags.
They should all be in order...but there are plenty of gaps. Looks like I have over 60 of these so I'll do 10 to start and if you guys still want 'em, 10 a day after that.
Or I could post a few Cannon. I only have about 20 of those though.

Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway) these are NSFW

Paul_SD

I actively resisted Prince Valiant for 43 years. Never read it in paper when I was a kid (it looked quite lame, frankly). And when I got older and especially when I started getting into strip collections in the late 80's- this was still something I just couldn't get any enthusiasm up for. The whole form of doing away with balloons and having just a text block was something that rubbed me the wrong way. Balloons are immediate and makes the experience more 'in the moment'. Text blocks are so formal it seems to be all about admiring everything at a distance.
And for as influential as Foster was as an illustrator, I always found the blocking of the action within his panels very static.

All that just to tell you where my mind was when I finally broke down and got the first volume of the FB series. I'd been wrong on just about every count. It's definitely a different vibe reading a strip with text blocks, rather than balloons- but that difference is now something I find stimulating rather than off putting. It's great to go from, say Roy Crane's stuff (which is pretty much a polar opposite to Fosters in every way except quality and craftsmanship) to this and back again. And while I now can appreciate the high quality of draftsmanship Foster produced week after week, I gotta say what's really impressed me is how much I've enjoyed the actual story and characters. That aspect truly surprised me. I'd thought that the strips rep this whole time lay on how much detail Foster lavished on the illos.
No.
The strip is the entire package. It's as literate and mature and worldly-wise about human nature and relations as any classic work of literature. It's the real deal and I'm so happy and grateful I finally broke down and gave it a shot.



To me, ALL Roy Crane is worth reading. I'm a huge Alex Toth fan, and Toth was in awe of Crane's abilities as a storyteller. The strip , for me, was always entertaining. But as it progresses he picks up a wife and we get a little less of his sidekick Sweeny. And we get a non-stop change of locales from the barren wastes of the arctic to the jungles of South America (both in volume 2). It's just a breezy, fun adventure strip.
But muddy reproduction makes it more of a chore to read than it should be.
By all means, read the first volume...but if you walk away unimpressed I'd urge you to at least give the second volume a chance at some point.
Just like Terry and The Pirates changed dramatically after the first 6 months or so, the post war material that starts in volume 2 is more of a true taste of what the strip was like for the majority of its run.

just my $.02
YMMV, of course.

Nick Danger

Thank you for posting those. Actually, I'd like to see some Cannon boards next, and then get back to Sally Forth. For some reason, the Cannon pdf sample pages at Fantagraphics won't load for me.

How on earth did you get those?

Paul_SD

A couple Cannon. I'll post the rest after I re-size them.



and here's several Buz dailies. Not very impressive at first glance- but these might give you a better idea of the range and texture of the strip. Unfortunately, I don't have any good action sequences (and Crane staged some of the best action scenes of any cartoonist ever), so you still aren't getting a complete picture.



what the hell...one more, not strip related but pretty nifty anyway.
This is an original Little Annie Fanny board, with an art assist from _____.
well... see if you can figure it out.

Nick Danger

My guess is Frank Frazetta . . .

Paul_SD

And you would be correct. Good eye!

I also see a little influence of Jack Davis in the feet, but I'm not sure if he worked on this particular page or not. A lot of heavyweight talent contributed to this strip (I guess it does qualify in that regard for the purpose of this thread).
The Dark Horse volumes are beautiful collections, and both are OoP now. Though they were remaindered for the longest time. I think I bought Vol 2 about 5 years ago for like $4 new

JasonF

I bought both volumes of Little Annie Fannie new and have zero regrets.

Currently, I'm working through the latest Li'l Abner collection. Probably my favorite strip of all time. This is the volume that has Lena the Hyena, as beautifully (heh) depicted by Basil Wolverton.