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Seven (Seven!) New Fantagraphics Classic Comics Volumes

Published Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:14:45 -0500

Last updated Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:52:43 -0500

Okay, we know what we expect now. Big thick volumes of comics, lovingly restored at vast expense, shoved in a thick hard cover with a hope that a mainstream market and a very long tail indeed will turn this into a viable market opportunity.

And with Fantagraphics has jumped on ex-employee comics historian and editor Greg Sadowski (Supermen: The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes 1936-1941) to put these new books together.

The once-a-quarter line starts with the pictured Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics Of The 1950s in June, a collection on non-EC horror comics from a number of publishers, including work by Ditko, Frazetta, Wolverton and Wally Wood.

Then in autumn, Setting The Standard: Alex Toth at Standard Comics 1952-54, following Alex's work as he defined himself as the artist he would be for the rest of his career.

Next up is The Road To Plastic Man: The Golden Age Comics of Jack Cole 1937-41 — basically Jack Cole comics that aren't Plastic Man, including the Claw, Comet Daredevil and Silver Streak.

Away From Home: EC Artists at Other Companies is, well, what it says really. No EC license, no need for one, just work by the likes of people associated with EC for other companies. Harvey Kurtman, Basil Wolverton, Bernie Krigstein, all that.

Then we've got Creeping Death From Neptune: Basil Wolverton's Sci-Fi and Horror Comics 1938-55 with, basically Wolverton's work that's not EC and that wasn't in any of the previous volumes, in full colour. Like Space Patrol, Meteor Martin, Spacehawk and a stack more horror.

And finally, sometime around the beginning of 2012, if the aliens haven't come for the Mayans by then, The Comic Book Frankenstein: The Monster According to Dick Briefer, a collection of work by the first employee at Will Eisner and Jerry Iger's comic book studio in the mid-1930s, comprising his Frankenstein adaptation and continuation into an ongoing series.

So. Anyone want a link to a bookshelf manufacturer?

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