Reprint This! Update on Gahan Wilson

Be careful what you wish for department: I've loved Gahan Wilson's work for many years. He's an amazing talent, and while you may never find a consensus as to precisely when Playboy was no longer really worth the effort, it's clear that the cartoons have been the best thing about the magazine for many years, and Wilson's the best of those.

Fantagraphics has pleased me greatly by releasing this fantastic collection of all of Wilson's gleefully surreal and macabre work for Playboy. It is one hell of a presentation. It's three hardback collections in a slipcase with a plexiglass backing. The back cover of each volume features a different hilarious photo of the 79 year-old artist's face and hands pressed up against glass; boxed in the slipcase, it looks like he's been crammed into the box and is praying for release. Each book has a die-cut cover and, while arranged chronologically, is divided into sections by inserted pages repeating the die-cut of the cover.

This can't have been a cheap book to produce, and the price tag confirms it: $125 is a lot to pay at retail. It's worth every penny, as, apart from the bells-n-whistles of the presentation, it does contain every single drawing that Wilson did for Playboy, along with short stories, appreciations by Hugh Hefner and Neil Gaiman, and an interview with the artist by Gary Groth. It's nearly 1000 pages long, the cartoons are printed at their original publication size (that is, mostly one to a page), and it's all done on just about the nicest paper available. It's a book that just oozes quality.

And yet... there's a part of me that wishes there was a little less to it. Don't misunderstand me; Fantagraphics has created an amazing tribute, and I'll treasure my copy, but $125 is a really tall order. The presentation and the supplements are wonderful, but I can't help but wish that Fanta made this material available in a series of inexpensive softcover volumes as well. I feel at least a little strongly that great comics should be available to as wide a range of buyers as possible. Then again, I thought that about the thematically similar complete hardcover editions of Calvin & Hobbes, The Far Side and Don Martin's work for Mad and nobody's put out anything resembling mass market editions of those, so I'm not holding my breath. Thanks for realizing one Reprint This! request, Fantagraphics, but could you make sure the next one you fill is just a little more affordable?

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Read more of what little I've written about the artist at A Journal of Zarjaz Things.

Read other reviews of Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons:

Jeet Heer at Comics Comics
John Hogan at Graphic Novel Reporter
Laurel Maury for the San Francisco Chronicle
The Comics Panel at the Onion AV Club

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Every month, I pick out a few upcoming collected editions that sound a little neat, and pass those along to readers in what surely must be the least objective "collected editions" news around. For example, you'd do well to talk to your local comic shop about Dark Horse's April offerings. For one, they've got a hardcover collection of all of Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson's Beasts of Burden stories. I've read a couple of these and they are really quite good. The series is about a menagerie of dogs and cats who defend a small community against weird supernatural grotesqueries, and I guarantee you that the last page of the second issue will send the meanest chill up your spine you've ever felt. They're also issuing a paperback edition of Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons' complete, 600-page Martha Washington series. Actually, I don't much care for this title at all, but 600 pages of Gibbons drawing anything sounds good for only thirty bucks.

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But the really, really cool thing is this: A long time ago in a market far, far away, Dark Horse had issued full reprints of Marvel's old Star Wars series, the one by Roy Thomas, Archie Goodwin, Carmine Infantino and Walt Simonson, among others, but it was at a disagreeable price point and I never bought them. But in June, Dark Horse is doing them in their successful omnibus line of reprints, and you'll be able to get the first 26 issues of the series in one volume for only $25. Good job; I will probably buy that!

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I will also be passing on IDW's forthcoming Li'l Abner series, but I'm glad to hear about it. The comic strip by Al Capp ran for forty years, leaving behind a downright odd film adaptation that featured both Julie Newmar and Billie Hayes, a tie-in soda called Kickapoo Joy Juice which, as Ski / Mountain Dew clones go, was just fine by me, and an amusement park called Dogpatch USA which still sits abandoned in the middle of nowhere, Arkansas, attracting explorers and Airsoft players. Some years ago, Kitchen Sink embarked on a complete reprint of the series that never finished, and, to hear my dad tell it, didn't get to the strip's really good years that started in the late 1950s. My dad probably likes Li'l Abner more than you, mind. Anyway, it's another addition to IDW's "Library of American Comics" imprint, a big line which nobody can afford but which we're glad to see available anyway.

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I don't know whether you've tried to read Marvel or DC's forthcoming solicitations, but it's been getting harder and harder to separate the gems from the dross, in part because, as an eyeball-bludgeoning glance at the graphic novel shelves at Borders will confirm, the companies are hell-bent on rereleasing everything that they publish in these flimsy, 144-page things which retail for $14.99 and which get battered all to heck on the shelves. Nevertheless, somewhere in those fields of crap, if you look through DC's summer notes - they will be offering eight separate hardcovers detailing the thousands of pages of their current "Blackest Night" storyline - you'll see that the publisher is releasing a second Showcase collection of classic Doom Patrol episodes by Arnold Drake and Bruno Premiani. The first volume was easily one of the highlights of the line, and if you enjoy high-concept adventure stories, you'll probably get a kick out of these crazy sixties comics.

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Lastly this time (yeah, it's a short one), we're still waiting on confirmation about what the forthcoming two volumes of Judge Dredd Restricted Case Files will contain, but the big news from Rebellion is the formal announcement of two July books: The Stainless Steel Rat and Al's Baby, two titles drawn by Carlos Ezquerra which I have wanted to see reprinted for such a long time. Place your orders now, friends, and tell everybody you know. The Stainless Steel Rat, based on three novels by Harry Harrison, is 36 episodes of twist-filled, high-concept, con-artist sci-fi from the early eighties, and Al's Baby is 33 episodes of hilarious mob-comedy about a hitman who cannot convince his wife, the godfadda's dotta, to have a baby, so he's got to carry one himself to avoid a pair of concrete boots. Cross-dressing, getaway cars, first trimester cravings, high explosives, labor pains and sleeping with the fishes, it's all here and it's very funny. Spread the word!

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That's all for this month! See you in March!

Update on Indiana Jones

In 1981, Marvel Comics got the license to release a three-issue adaptation of the hit film Raiders of the Lost Ark. The comic turned out to be pretty terrible, even if goodwill and curiosity turned the three-parter into a commerical hit. You know how Indy figures things out silently in the movies, and acts without telling people what he's up to? That's not how Indy works in that comic. Anyway, Marvel continued their license and released a pretty successful series of follow-up stories under the title The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones from 1983-86. This was a pretty uneven title, but it was occasionally very entertaining. The book seemed to suffer from the lack of a consistent creative team, but even if some of the contributions were a little underwhelming, you can tell from rereading the stories that veterans like John Byrne, Denny O'Neil, Howard Chaykin, Archie Goodwin and David Michelinie all enjoyed working with the character, and doing something a little different than the typical Marvel title.

Dark Horse has been Indy's comic home for several years now, and last year, they landed the rights to the old Marvel series, which had lapsed. The publisher has a really interesting reprint line, principally used for their licensed properties like this, Aliens or Buffy, which repackages about 350 pages in color for $25 in a format a little smaller than a standard American comic. Dark Horse had already released two of these Omnibus editions for their own Indiana Jones miniseries in 2008. This is the first Omnibus to reprint the Marvel series, and it collects the three-part Raiders adaptation and the first 12 issues of the ongoing series. Despite some genuinely awful coloring (as noted with examples in February at my LiveJournal), the comic has aged pretty well for something with so many thought balloons on the page, and the creators put Indiana through some pretty thrilling and fun paces. It's certainly worth checking out!

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I have not seen any substantive reviews of this book. If you see any or have written any, drop me a line and I will list them here.

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In other reprinting news, Yen Press has announced the release dates for the next three volumes of Yotsuba&!, the addictive family comedy series by Kiyohiko Azuma which had previously been published by ADV Manga. Volume six is due out in September, with the next two following in December and in April 2010.

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There have been rumors for ages that DC Comics will one day be releasing a complete collection of the 1940s Captain Marvel storyline "The Monster Society of Evil," a much-loved serial that ran for several months and was recently revisited by writer/artist Jeff Smith in a very fun new version. Looks like we'll finally be seeing this classic in December. The Amazon listing is right here if you'd like to pre-order it.

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In other DC news, looks like they've finalized plans for their Showcase Presents volumes through the end of the year, in a mix of $17 regular 500-page books along with ten buck 300-page "Skinny Showcases" in the summer, although it does appear they are slowing the number of titles released to allow people to actually catch up to them. Titles include Super Friends in May, The Creeper in June, the long-awaited Western adventure Bat Lash and the fourth collection of 1960s Batman in July; Eclipso in August; Warlord in September; House of Secrets volume two in October; DC Comics Presents the Superman Team-Ups in November; and the third volume of Wonder Woman in December.

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News of some other new releases from the good fellows over at Titan have crept out. October should see a sixth collection of Charley's War along with new sets of stories from Dan Dare ("Safari in Space") and Modesty Blaise ("Death in Slow Motion," with the previously-announced October collection, "Scarlet Maiden," moved forward to August). No announcements yet about a third set of Jeff Hawke adventures - the second collection was reviewed last month over at my bookshelf.

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Viz has not formally announced it yet, but it looks like they've got a plan for Rumiko Takahashi's InuYasha that I can get behind. The series, her longest-running but, to my mind, the least compelling, recently concluded and the 56th digest collection was issued in Japan in February. I picked up a few of these cheaply, but the prospect of having 56 of the darn things on my shelf was a little unappealing. Fortunately, it looks like they're going to begin issuing the series in their "VizBig" line, which collects three digests in a thick package priced about the same as two of the smaller ones, starting in November. They've already had some success with Dragon Ball, Rurouni Kenshin and Fushugi Yugi in this format, and I'm much more likely to follow InuYasha to its conclusion if I can spend less money on it, and not have to devote shelf space to 56 little books.

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Finally this time, Rebellion looks to have settled on October for release of the fifth Sinister Dexter collection - the fourth volume was just issued in England - and the first proper collection of the excellent Judge Dredd epic "Mechanismo." This should include the first two arcs, with artwork by Colin MacNeil and Peter Doherty, which were once compiled by the previous book publisher Hamlyn in an incomplete package, but ideally this one will also include the never-before-reprinted third arc, with art by Manuel Benet.

See you next month! Thanks for reading!

Reprint This! Update on Herbie

I finally finished the first of Dark Horse's Herbie Archives. It was released earlier in the fall, and while the price point is a little steep at $50, a near-mint condition copy of any of the ten issues reprinted in it will set you back at least $20, so it works out pretty well in the end. Herbie was a very weird kid's comedy book, starring "a little fat nothing" of a son who drives his father to screaming distraction with his apparently sedentary lifestyle. His dad doesn't realize that Herbie is in fact the most powerful person on the planet, who can talk to animals, travel in time and clobber the Loch Ness Monster, and who hobnobs with Winston Churchill, Mao Zedong, the Beatles and U Thant.

Herbie Popnecker was created by Richard E. Hughes and Ogden Whitney. Hughes was the editor of ACG, a small comics company that didn't make it through the sixties. Herbie appeared sporadically in some of their sci-fi anthology books before getting his own title, which ran for three years. Hughes and Whitney died many years ago, but their bizarre little fat nothing of a character has been winning over new fans ever since.

I'm very pleased with the quality of the collection. Dark Horse is planning to reprint the full run in three hardbacks, the second of which is due next month and the third in the spring. They don't include some of the other gag strips which originally appeared in the books, but they do include many of the cute house ads for the next issue of the comic. They shot from really nice copies of the comics, with minimal restoration of the color, but it looks far better than certain scans which can be found at torrent sites. It is certainly worth your time, and I strongly encourage readers to give it a try!

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Read more of what I've written about Herbie at A Journal of Zarjaz Things.

Read other reviews of Herbie:
Hilary Brown and Garrett Martin at Shazhmmm
Adam at Rack Raids
Mike Sterling at Progressive Ruin
Kristy Valenti at comiXology
Variety

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In related reprinting news, DC has apparently made some neat plans for next summer. While they haven't formally announced anything, a look at Amazon shows that they are planning at least three volumes in a slightly rejigged Showcase Presents series.

You're probably aware that the Showcase Presents books reprint around 500 pages of classic comics for $16.99. But DC has offered many well-remembered characters who never made it to that many pages in their original iteration. So next summer, DC will release three thinner Showcase books - each around 300 pages for $9.99. These will reprint The Creeper by Steve Ditko, Bat Lash by Sergio Aragones and Nick Cardy, and Eclipso by Bob Haney and Jack Sparling, apparently with some rare fill-in work by Alex Toth. Each will come out the same month as the traditional 500-page book. Good show, DC - I will buy all three!

(Originally posted November 21, 2008, 08:35 at hipsterdad's livejournal.)

OBNOXIOUS! WHO IS THIS POPNECKER?

Jackie Kennedy's heart MELTED AT THE SIGHT OF HIM!



Lady Bird Johnson was his PUPPET ON A STRING!



He wore a turtle shell, made dragons gag and BOPPED THINGS WITH THIS HERE LOLLIPOP!



I'm talking about Herbie, the Fat Fury, an incredibly funny comic published by ACG in the sixties. Earlier this month, Dark Horse announced that Herbie Popnecker was finally going to get a proper reprint series, which had all the comic bloggers applauding, but it occurs to me that many of my readers just don't know why this news is so damn good.

Herbie is often overshadowed by the reputations of other comedy titles. He was never licensed for TV cartoons and his publisher, who also presented the superhero exploits of Magicman and Nemesis, never obtained the hip cache of Marvel among collectors. It doesn't look like a typical comedy book of the sixties, and unlike Harvey's Richie Rich, who, at his peak, was appearing in three titles a week, Herbie's every-other-month book never had the chance to dominate drugstore comic racks. So his exploits have always appealed to a comparatively small crowd, one which I only joined last year.

The character, created by Richard E. Hughes and Ogden Whitney, first appeared in 1958, and made sporadic appearances in ACG's anthology titles before getting his own book in 1964. Herbie is the most powerful being on the planet - a juggernaut of strength, irresistable to women (save for the ones he's actually interested in dating), possessing uncanny powers which are unlocked by supernatural lollipops. Everybody on the planet, throughout history, is aware of Herbie's might, with the exception of his blissfully ignorant parents. His dad laments this "fat nothing" of a son, to which Herbie can only shrug.



If you recall the classic Monty Python sketch about Mr. Neutron, the most powerful and dangerous man on the planet, spending his days in the suburbs considering the outcome of a prize of all the ice cream he can eat, you've got a good start on how surreal, bizarre and often hilarious these stories are.

A recurring gag features Herbie travelling back in time, thanks to the power of his time lollipops, which give him a flying grandfather clock to zoom into the past. He's usually recognized and greeted by somebody along the way - General Custer and a Lakota might pause from the battle at Little Big Horn to shout hellos as Herbie flies overhead.



Despite the recurring gags, Herbie was a constantly inventive and unpredictable book, with zany plots spinning out in any direction. The character himself is oddly appealing, with his unusual, terse speech patterns, dropping the subjects from his sentences or beginning a thought and letting it tail off. And the occasionally topical stories, with presidents summoning Herbie to the White House to deal with some threat that only he can stop, can't fail to please. It's surreal, off-kilter and just really entertaining.

That's why I'm so incredibly pleased that Dark Horse is starting its reprint line. One of the members of a collected edition message board which I frequent believes that Dark Horse can collect all of Herbie's appearances in three volumes. Normally, fifty bucks is too much for me to justify spending on one book, but as each of these will reprint about nine comics, which start for around $20 each for fine condition copies, then I'd be more than happy to upgrade from my scans. And so should you! Trust me, friends, if you want some wacky fun comics to read, make yours Popnecker.

Besides, Elizabeth Taylor does not go ga-ga for just ANY man.



(Originally posted March 18, 2008, 09:54 at hipsterdad's livejournal.)

Reprint This! Update: Dark Horse Announces Herbie Collections!

Mike at Progressive Ruin calls this "the greatest comic book news of all time." He's not far wrong. Herbie was included as one of the five strips in the Reprint This! coda and is delightfully bizarre. I'm very glad to have the chance to buy bookshelf editions of these...



Writer: Shane O' Shea
Artist: Ogden Whitney
Genre: Humor

Make way for the Fat Fury! The unlikeliest superhero of all time makes his mark in this new Dark Horse archival series. Coming from the strange, wry imagination of classic comics scribe Richard Hughes (writing as Shane O'Shea) and artist Odgen Whitney, Herbie Popnecker looks like a plump lump, but with his collection of supernatural lollipops, there is pretty much nothing that he can't do.

* Herbie Archives Volume One is the first of a new archive series collecting the finest works of 1960s comics publisher ACG.

* Herbie Archives Volume 1 collects the earliest appearances of Herbie, as he battles monsters, bends time and space, and gets the better of Fidel Castro! Herbie is a delightfully weird, all-ages barrel of laughs!

Publication Date: Aug 20, 2008
Format: Full color, 224 pages, Hard cover, 6 5/8" x 10 3/16"
Price: $49.95
ISBN-10: 1-59307-987-7
ISBN-13: 978-1-59307-987-1

SOLD.

More on Herbie in these pages soon!