Reprint This! 2009 Year in Review

This has been a fantastic year for getting great old properties back in print. Between IDW's line of hardcover reprints of classic newspaper comics, at least twenty essential collections of 2000 AD strips, Drawn & Quarterly bringing us the fascinating world of Yoshihiro Tatsumi's experiments in gekiga, Fantagraphics releasing everything I want yet cannot afford in big, beautiful editions and DC bringing back the hotdamned essential Bat Lash to their Showcase line, I have bought way more reprints of old comics than new ones, and I am probably not alone. But, as Graham Chapman once warned us, "this is no time for complacency!" While looking over the last three years of Reprint This! features, I myself noticed no fewer than two dozen things which were not on top of other things, or, I mean, not yet reprinted. So here's a look back at everything that Reprint This! has featured, and whether exciting announcements have been made or we're still, tragically, left crossing our fingers.

The Amazing World of DC Comics,
Ambassador Magma,
Angel and the Ape and
The Angry Planet: No news or rumors from any publishers on these features.

Armitage: Three of Armitage's earliest stories were reprinted by Rebellion in supplements bagged with Judge Dredd Megazine in 2009.

Axa: No news or rumors from any publishers on this feature.


Axel Pressbutton and
Barbarella: No news or rumors from any publishers on these features.

Black Jack: The ninth volume in a planned series of 17 is due for release in February 2010.

Black Orchid,
Cat's Eye and
Cobra: No news or rumors from any publishers on these features.

Steve Ditko: Killjoy / Odd Man: Fantagraphics has started a series reprinting 1950s Ditko work from various publishers, but there have been no announcements regarding his 1970s work for Charlton and DC.

Doctor Who Adventures: An editor for this magazine stated on the Doctor Who Forum in November that they have no plans to collect these comics.

Doonesbury: There have been no rumors about a proper, archival collection of the series, but the latest book, Tee Time in Berzerkistan, reprints a few hundred recent strips and was released in November.


Flex Mentallo and
Grimly Feendish: No news or rumors from any publishers on these features.

Herbie: Has been collected in its entirety in three hardcovers from Dark Horse.

Rian Hughes' 2000 AD work,
The Inferior Five and
Takao Saito's James Bond: No news or rumors from any publishers on these features.

Johnny Red: Volume one of this series is due in the spring from Titan.

Josie & the Pussycats: No news or rumors from Archie Comics on this feature.


Judge Dredd in the Daily Star and
Jungle Emperor: No news or rumors from any publishers on these features.

Major Eazy: Volume one of this series is expected in the summer of 2010 from Titan.

Marvelman: Marvel has obtained the rights to the 1950s series; no announcement has been made about the 1980s version written by Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman.

Missionary Man,
Nero Wolfe and
The New Adventures of Hitler: No news or rumors from any publishers on these features.


Oh Wicked Wanda!,
One Big Happy,
Ponytail and
Pussycat: No news or rumors from any publishers on these features.

Rat Pack: Volume one of this series is expected in the summer of 2010 from Titan.

Robot Archie,
Sapphire & Steel and
Scream!: No news or rumors from any publishers on these features.


Shade the Changing Man: No news or rumors from DC Comics on this feature.

The Stainless Steel Rat: It's strongly rumored that Rebellion is planning a complete reprint in the summer of 2010.

Steed & Mrs. Peel: No news or rumors from any publishers on this feature.

Sugar and Spike: An episode was reprinted in Abrams' recent Toon Treasury of Classic Children's Comics, but DC has not announced anything more for this feature.

Super-Hip and
Third World War: No news or rumors from any publishers on these features.

Thunderbirds: Ongoing reprints of all the Gerry Anderson properties are continuing in a series of large paperbacks entitled Century 21. The third and fourth volumes are due out in 2010.

Tippy Teen and
UFO Robo Gurendaiza: No news or rumors from any publishers on these features.


Urusei Yatsura and
a restored, black-and-white V for Vendetta: No news or rumors from any publishers on these features.

Gahan Wilson: The complete reprinting of Wilson's Playboy cartoons is due very soon and, I hope, will be reviewed here next month.

The World's Greatest Superheroes: No news or rumors from DC Comics on this feature.

Zenith: No word from the publisher on this feature. Rights issues exist.

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We also had a few disappointments from properties that we had hoped to see in 2009 but did not emerge. The worst offender was certainly Fantagraphics' Pogo. The publisher announced in February 2007 that they had the rights and that Jeff Smith would be designing their books. They've since announced their catalog for the first half of next year and Pogo's still nowhere to be seen.

Other publishers, however, have been pretty far behind expectations in getting the work we'd hoped to see to us. Drawn and Quarterly has pushed back the first collection of Thirteen Going on Eighteen into next year. Top Shelf's Marshal Law omnibus is almost a year late. Titan postponed the 1954-55 first volume of Roy of the Rovers indefinitely, choosing to focus on 1980s material, and still hasn't made a formal announcement about Misty.

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Still, 2009 must be remembered, overall, as a terrific year for reprints. There was a lot of surprising, fun stuff on shelves this year, including Bat Lash, Bloom County, Humbug, Rip Kirby, Ro-Busters, Sam's Strip and Swallowing the Earth, and 2010 looks to be really great as well. With that in mind, here are ten books, all either formally announced or heavily rumored, that Reprint This! is looking forward to seeing in the next twelve months:

Al's Baby by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra, from Rebellion
Ayako by Osamu Tezuka, from Vertical
The Bojeffries Saga by Alan Moore and Steve Parkhouse, from Top Shelf
Captain Marvel and the Monster Society of Evil by CC Beck and Otto Binder, from DC
Dial H for Hero by Dave Wood and Jim Mooney, from DC
James Bond: Nightbird by Jim Lawrence and Yaroslav Horak, from Titan
King Aroo by Jack Kent, from Titan
Penny Century by Jaime Hernandez, from Fantagraphics
Secret Agent X-9 by Dashiell Hammett and Alex Raymond, from IDW
The Stainless Steel Rat by Kelvin Gosnell and Carlos Ezquerra, from Rebellion

I've got a couple of dollars under my mattress for each of these, so you publishers get to work now!

Happy Holidays, everybody!