Reprint This! 25. Coda

Reprint This! is a periodic feature where I talk about some out-of-print comic book gems that are not available in collected form for readers to enjoy. This is hoping to let rights owners know that, yes, readers are out here, and we'd like to buy the things we can't get at this time!

I decided to do this series of articles based on an earlier, three-part feature, but chose to keep it limited to 24 titles for the sake of personal convenience and to make sure I had an end in sight as I did my daily writing. But there are plenty of other great comics that deserve to see the light of day as well. Here are five others which would be great to see again... which I'd certainly buy if only my local comic shop could order them from somebody!



HERBIE by Richard E. Hughes and Ogden Whitney

I don't know nearly enough about this series, which is incredibly odd and readable, save that you do not wish to mess with the ultra-powerful Mr. Popnecker, else he'll bop somebody with that there lollipop. Herbie first appeared in American Comic Group's Forbidden Worlds in 1958, and made periodic appearances before getting his own title in 1964. ACG went out of business in 1967. Back issues are incredibly scarce and start at around $20 for good condition copies. There's no telling who might have the rights to Herbie, suggesting that any compilation would probably be a long time in coming. However, an episode was reprinted in 2005's Art Out of Time and there were a couple of mid '90s black and white reprints with new art from celebrity fans like Bob Burden and John Byrne, so I reckon somebody must know. (edited to add: LJ's spook_town informs us that the rights to ACG's library may currently belong to Roger Broughton. So, D&Q, Fanta, y'all go invite him around for drinks, okay?)



JAMES BOND by Takao Saito

Yeah, that's the same scan everybody's got. That's why we need a reprint. In 1964, Gildrose licensed four James Bond novels to Shokakugan, and Takao Saito, who'd later create Golgo 13, adapted them in monthly installments for Boy's Life. The stories were: Live and Let Die (9 parts, 1964-65), Thunderball (7 parts, 1965-66), On Her Majesty's Secret Service (9 parts, 1966) and The Man With the Golden Gun (8 parts, 1966-67). Single-volume editions were later issued and are highly prized by collectors.



JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS by Dan DeCarlo

All of it. Not a "best of." By DeCarlo. With his name on it. And while I'm at it, I'd like a pony.



THIRD WORLD WAR by Pat Mills, Carlos Ezquerra, Sean Phillips, John Hicklenton, Steve Pugh and others

Okay, so there are probably more representative images from 3WW that I could have used, but none of them would raise the eyebrows of my gamer geek girlfriend. It ran in the pages of Crisis from 1988-90. I maintain some small hope that Rebellion will announce a two-volume collection before we get too old and gray. This is certainly the most likely of these five, and I only moved it to the coda because Ezquerra got a couple of spotlight articles already.



PROPER V FOR VENDETTA WITHOUT THAT #$@&*! COLORING by Alan Moore and David Lloyd

Thinking that the first two-thirds of V for Vendetta is supposed to look like anything other than the above is like thinking that Humphrey Bogart is supposed to be wearing an ochre yellow jacket in Casablanca. And I'm missing five issues of Warrior, where it first appeared, so my set's not complete. Unfortunately, DC has the rights to V, and DC and Alan Moore don't get along anymore, so we'll probably see a complete Dan DeCarlo Josie before we ever see this restored to its proper, beautiful black and white.

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That's that for Reprint This! as a regular feature, but I'll still use the tag from time to time when something occurs to me and I want to see an old favorite on bookshelves again, or when some publisher does the right thing and announces something good is coming up. As was mentioned some weeks ago, Vertical's bringing Osamu Tezuka's Black Jack to us in a new English edition and Thunderbirds was already out in a UK-only collection nobody'd heard of, so that's two down and 27 total to go. If one of your favorites is somewhere on this list, link to it, talk about it and let publishers know. Every bit of buzz helps!

(Originally posted January 24, 2008, 09:03 at hipsterdad's livejournal.)

Reprint This! 4. Axel Pressbutton

Reprint This! is a periodic feature where I talk about some out-of-print comic book gems that are not available in collected form for readers to enjoy. You might consider it a companion to my Weekly Comics Hype, which is taking a short summer vacation, except while that's preaching to a potential audience, this is hoping to let rights owners know that, yes, readers are out here, and we'd like to buy the things we can't get at this time!

Despite such an enormous variety of books available these days, and genuine efforts to present the material in reasonably-priced, archival volumes, there are still countless fabulous series from the US, Britain and Japan which are overdue for new editions. I've selected two dozen titles which should be on bookshelves, but at this time are not.

One missing gem is AXEL PRESSBUTTON by Steve Moore and Steve Dillon, among others. This is a science fiction serial about a cyborg gun for hire who lost more than half his body to a carnivorous plant. He has teamed with Mysta Mistralis, a clone with an unfortunate past.



Axel Pressbutton originally appeared as a character in a monthly comedy strip called "Three-Eyed McGurk and His Death Squad Commandos" in the fanzine Dark Star in 1979, and later resurfaced in a weekly strip called "The Stars My Degradation" in the pages of the music paper Sounds in 1980. Many of these strips were drawn by Alan Moore, who's probably better known for some writin' you might have read, under the pseudonym Curt Vile.

In 1982, Axel was one of the featured stars in Dez Skinn's anthology book Warrior, now teamed in 6-8 page episodes with a troubleshooting lady named Mysta Mystralis, the Laser Eraser, for more traditional, serialized adventures. Here, the odd balance of SF action and sexy, juvenile humor really meshed well. The episodes were originally drawn by Steve Dillon, but his other commitments forced him to drop out after a year. Pressbutton appeared sporadically after that, with occasional other appearances by the bizarre supporting character Zirk occasionally filling in. Zirk's artists included Garry Leach and Brian Bolland.

Most, if not all, of the Warrior episodes were colorized, badly, and reprinted in US format by Eclipse Comics in a six-issue series. A year later, new episodes began in another Eclipse title called Laser Eraser and Pressbutton. This doesn't seem to have lasted for much longer than six issues, but the artists included Dillon, David Lloyd and Mike Collins. I think these were Steve Moore's last comics work for many years; he went on to the editorial staff of Fortean Times, where he spent much of the 1990s investigating cryptids and crop circles, before returning to comics with work for Rebellion and for America's Best in 2001.

So you see, there is a variety of material out there, in a number of formats and from a number of publishers. And there have been further whispers of new material; both Rufus Dayglo and Jon Haward have been rumored to be working on new episodes and prepping some sort of collection. But honestly, somebody need to put this all together, from the start. Not only because you get some rare work by so many well-known artists, but the only time this rare Alan Moore artwork has been reprinted has been in samples in those biographies and tributes that came out in 2003. I'd love to see all of those again. I'm not sure who actually owns the rights; they may be shared between Steve Moore and all the artists, much as Marvelman was between its creators. But whoever's out there, how about it?



(Originally posted July 09, 2007, 03:09 at hipsterdad's livejournal.)