The publisher Drawn & Quarterly won some plaudits last year with the announcement of a plan for a major reprinting of John Stanley's work. The first of these has been solicited for March:
JOHN STANLEY LIBRARY VOLUME 1: MELVIN MONSTER HC
(W/A) John Stanley
John Stanley is celebrated as one of the great children's comics writers for his work on the Little Lulu series. In fact, the Lulu work is a small part of his output; he drew and continued to write many other comics-notably his work on the 1960s teen comics from Dell and his monster comedy strip, Melvin Monster. Drawn & Quarterly is launching an extensive reprinting of Stanley's work in handsome volumes designed by Seth. The first in this series is the two-volume Melvin Monster collection featuring all ten issues about the oddball monster boy who just wants to be good, go to school, and do as he's told. Stanley's reputation as a great storyteller and visual comedian is richly deserved; few Golden or Silver Age comics stand the test of time the way these comics do.
HC, 8x11, 184pgs, FC SRP: $19.95
You can enjoy a PDF preview of Melvin Monster over at D&Q's site.
While there is no formal solicitation yet, the second volume, planned for the summer, will reprint Stanley's work on the Nancy comic book. Both volumes feature gorgeous design by Seth. Speaking of Seth, D&Q also has a collection of his strip George Sprott, 1894-1975 planned for May.
Also, Fantagraphics has released its spring and summer catalog, and you can see it here. More Peanuts, Popeye, Hernandez Brothers, Fletcher Hanks and the Peter Bagge strips from Reason? Yes, please!
Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter has the story/non-story of a possible delay in a forthcoming collection of Brian Sendelbach's Smell of Steve.
Rebellion hasn't formally announced them yet, but it looks like August will see the first collection of 2000 AD's Defoe by Pat Mills and Leigh Gallagher, in which a 17th Century tough guy defends Charles II's England from the zombie hordes of Oliver Cromwell, as well as the 1970s classic Flesh, in which cattle ranchers from the future set up shop in prehistoric Earth to harvest dinosaurs and things spiral spectacularly out of control. Mills wrote a fair chunk of Flesh, with art chores by a number of creators, including Carlos Pino and Massimo Belardinelli.
Finally, here's something very interesting coming in June from Dark Horse:
PLAYBOY'S TRUMP! THE COMPLETE COLLECTION
Written and art by Harvey Kurtzman and various.
Launched in January 1957 by Harvey Kurtzman and Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner, Trump partnered Kurtzman with many of his "usual gang of idiots" from his time at Mad -- famous humor artists such as Jack Davis, Al Jaffee, and Wally Wood. They were joined by such dynamic humorists as Arnold Roth, comedians Mel Brooks and Doodles Weaver, and TV writer and novelist Max Shulman (creator of the character Dobie Gillis, who appeared in dozens of stories, a movie, and the popular TV series The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis). Though it lasted only two issues, this first effort after Kurtzman's historic split from Mad was the breeding ground for the magazines Humbug and Help!, and would ultimately lead to the more than thirty-year run of Kurtzman and Will Elder's landmark character Little Annie Fanny in the pages of Playboy magazine.
Trump! reprints the only two issues of the magazine, released in January and March of 1957. Trump! features the contributions of the following artists and writers: Harvey Kurtzman, Harry Chester, Jack Davis, Will Elder, Al Jaffee, Wally Wood, Arnold Roth, Russ Heath, Mel Brooks, Doodles Weaver, Max Shulman, and many others.
144 pages, $19.95, in stores on June 17.
That's all for this time. I'll try to do a better job of remembering my features instead of spending all my blog time revising old entries, and we'll see what's new... in a couple of weeks.
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