Crash and Burn: What the heck is happening with British reprints?

Downright depressing news from lots of places, but what has spurred me into action is a new report from the otherwise always-a-pleasure-to-read Steve Holland at Bear Alley. Looks like we're coming up on a winter of discontent, and many hoped-for projects have been postponed, delayed or canceled outright.

Doctor Who: "The Crimson Hand": I've been watching this develop for several months now, and the news gets worse all the time. After twelve collected editions of the Doctor Who comic, a license dispute between the BBC and Panini has scuttled the third and final edition of Tenth Doctor episodes and left the whole line up in the air.



Panini collected all of the terrific Fourth and Fifth Doctor stories, all the weird Sixth Doctor ones and all the amazingly good Eighth Doctor ones. There weren't quite enough Ninth Doctor stories, but they did release a 100-page magazine with all those, and they released one in a proposed series of Seventh Doctor books, some of which at least were drawn well. (The late 80s and early 90s were a... troubled time for the comic.)

The Tenth Doctor's adventures were compiled in a pair of books called "The Bride of Sontar" and "The Widow's Curse." The storylines were meant to be wrapped up in "The Crimson Hand," but DWM's editor Tom Spilsbury confirmed on the Gallifrey Base Forum that the book never went to print. Spilsbury has, understandly, been tight-lipped about the rumors that have been spreading about why it was canceled and whether we might see it in the future, but there's a wide gap between "understandable" and "preferable" when you're a fan.

For my money, the strip has been weaker since the property returned to TV, but that's not to say it's at all bad, and that last Donna Noble comic, "Time of My Life," was so terrific that there wasn't a hat size to fit it. I don't buy Doctor Who Magazine, but the consensus among fans is that this last chunk of Tenth Doctor stories really was fun and special. I was really looking forward to Panini's collection of them.

Century 21: I reviewed the fourth volume of these reprints over at my Bookshelf blog last month, concluding that their production was going to keep me from preordering any more of them. An anonymous commenter suggested that Reynolds & Hearn was having some business trouble.



In a post earlier today, Steve (who, unlike me, enjoyed the reprints, which included wonderful artwork by the likes of Ron Embleton and Frank Bellamy) confirmed that Reynolds & Hearn has liquidated and resolved to close the company, leaving the proposed fifth volume up in the air. Whether another company which has acquired their publishing list does put "They Walk Among Us" back on the schedule has yet to be determined.

Titan Books: Charley's War, James Bond, Battle Picture Weekly, Action, Misty: But the real personal heartbreak comes from learning that internal business at Titan has left a whole pile of long-anticipated classic comics in limbo. There have been problems here for some time; Diamond did not ship the most recent volumes of Charley's War (from last year, vol. 6) and James Bond (from the spring, vol. 17) to my comic shop, and has no additional stock to meet my store's request, so I'm waiting for Titan to make an "offered again" opportunity for Bizarro Wuxtry to reorder them.



In the meantime, Titan has been soliciting one Battle collection after another, without actually producing any of them. Every few months, Previews will list another title and it will get ordered and everybody will wonder what the heck has happened to all the previous titles that they've offered. For those without long memories, these include:

Johnny Red Vol. 1: Falcon's First Flight
Darkie's Mob
The Best of Land Battle
Rat Pack Vol. 1
Major Eazy Vol. 1
The Best of Action Vol. 1
The Best of Misty Vol. 1

None of these have been formally canceled, although Holland does believe that the company's Roy of the Rovers line is dead. Darkie's Mob, by John Wagner and the late Mike Western, hasn't been officially kicked to 2011 yet, but nobody's optimistic enough to suggest that it will actually arrive before Christmas. And the seventh volume of Charley's War, which I believe deals with the infamous "monocled mutineer" Percy Toplis, is still scheduled for next month. Shame I can't read volume six first.

Oh yeah, and Fantagraphics pushed the first Pogo book back again, to December. That's not British, but it's intended as a Christmas gift, so I'm steamed about it.

Hopefully the next time I find some reason to update this blog, it'll be with good news...!

Reprint This! Update on Thunderbirds

The archivist, everything-in-order side of me doesn't approve of them, but Reynolds & Hearn has released the first two volumes in a series of large-format reprints of Gerry Anderson tie-in comics. These feature the lovely artwork of Ron Embleton, Mike Noble, Frank Bellamy, Eric Eden and others, with adventures from the comic versions of Thunderbirds, Stingray, Captain Scarlet and others. These originally ran in 1965-69 in the pages of the anthology TV Century 21 and its sequels and spinoffs. The first volume features an introduction by Chris Bentley, who makes a strong case for including this comic alongside Eagle and 2000 AD as the three most important and influential of British comics.

As a sampler, these are very good books. I finished the first one and enjoyed most of the ten stories in it, though I was disappointed by the reproduction of the Stingray adventure "Haunting of Station 17." I realize that reprinting double-page spreads is a challenge, but it's always a bummer to see artwork and word balloons disappear into a book's gutter. It's made worse when it's such lovely painting by Ron Embleton, and when the pages have an outside margin of about an inch. These could surely have been laid out with a greater inside margin to prevent that happening,

Otherwise, the book is a very good sampler of the comic, with a mix of short stories and the longer epics. It leads with a really interesting Fireball XL5 story which crosses over into both Stingray and Lady Penelope, which instantly disproves the old thought that a similar crossover in Battle Picture Weekly was British comics' first - TV21 beat them by thirteen years! My favorite story in the book was another Lady Penelope serial, drawn by Frank Langford. This, and many of the other stories here, were scripted by regular Gerry Anderson TV scribe Alan Fennell, but there's an interesting Zero X story about a planet of skeleton monsters written by Angus P. Allan, who went on to write the majority of the strips in Look-In during the 1970s and 1980s, which is worth a read. There never was a Zero X TV series; this was the ship that International Rescue and Spectrum had to keep getting out of trouble.

At any rate, Reynolds & Hearn released two volumes of this series in the spring. A third, "Escape from Aquatraz," and apparently focussing just on Stingray episodes, is due before Christmas. I would have preferred straight reprints of everything in their original order - I don't suppose we'll ever get such a thing - but whether you just want to kick back with some nostalgic, escapist fun or would like to reappraise some artwork that was even better than you thought it was, you should certainly check these out.

---

Read more of what (very little) I've written about Ron Embleton at A Journal of Zarjaz Things.

I have not any real reviews for this book, only previews. If you see a review of it, or post one yourself, let me know and I will list it here.

---

In other news this month, I do like to make updates when something from the Reprint This! wish list makes it back into print. Rebellion has made this reader at least a little happy by issuing a new, limited edition collection of the first storyline for the grouchy, future detective Armitage by Dave Stone and Sean Phillips. The reprint appears in the freebie "graphic novel" bagged with Judge Dredd Megazine # 287, and it's available in US shops now. If you're going digital, you can purchase PDFs or CBRs of this Megazine and the reprint (130 pages in all) from Clickwheel for just $3.99.

It's been strongly hinted that a follow-up edition, featuring some of the Charlie Adlard-drawn episodes, might appear in another Meg before the end of the year. Hopefully all the time spent adding these episodes to the company's digital archive will count towards a proper bookshelf edition before much longer!

---

I haven't thought of it in years, but when I was a kid, Dik Browne's Hägar the Horrible was one of my family's favorite strips. There have been dozens of paperbacks over the years, but it's finally getting the archival hardback treatment from Titan. The first collection, featuring all the strips from 1973-74, is due in November. Titan's look back at the British wartime strip Jane is finally back on the schedule as well. It was anticipated some months ago but delayed due to production issues. Still no sign of their long-overdue Best of Battle book, sadly.

---

A few months ago, I passed along the rumor, originally reported by Chris Duffy at the mostly-defunct "Comic Books Are Interesting" blog, that the obscure King Aroo, a delightful, surreal, pun-filled 1950s strip by Jack Kent, might be due for a collection. Publishers Weekly this month confirmed that IDW does indeed have a collection planned for 2010. It's part of their "Library of American Comics" imprint, and other strips selected for 2010 releases include Blondie and Secret Agent X-9. The latter strip was scripted by Dashiel Hammett, the godfather of American detective fiction, and drawn by Alex Raymond, and I've been curious to see it for many years now. Preceding all of these, however, is a collection of a later Raymond strip, the detective drama Rip Kirby, which began in 1946. IDW plans five volumes compiling all of Raymond's work on the title before his untimely death in 1956; the first of these fifty-dollar hardcovers is due late next month, and a second in March of next year.

---

I enjoyed the volume of Fred van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey's Action Philosophers that I read. I read at The Comics Reporter just yesterday that Evil Twin Comics is releasing a big collection of all three volumes, along with four bonus stories, later in the year. It's wacky, biographical fun, very well drawn, and a great gift for the know-it-all academic type in your life.

---

The two "Skinny Showcases" from DC that I have mentioned before are both out. Bat Lash, reviewed the other day at my Bookshelf blog and Eclipso are each about half as thick as a usual Showcase for around half the price. Two other anticipated "Skinny Showcases" are off the table for now: the Ramona Fradon Super Friends was cancelled without explanation at the beginning of the summer, and The Creeper was axed in favor of a hardcover, color collection of all Steve Ditko's episodes, including the late 1970s ones from the World's Finest anthology which were not planned for the Showcase. That's due in 2010.

---

This month's Marvelman update: Kurt Amacker interviewed writer Alan Moore last week, and he certainly seems to think that a collected edition of his old series is in the works. Even if, Alan being Alan, he'd like Marvel to publish the book without his name on it.

---

Finally this time, assuming Diamond can be trusted to deliver them, Yen Press's brand-spankin' new editions of Kiyohiko Azuma's oddball, addictive family comedy Yotsuba&! should be in stores today. They've reissued the first five volumes and brought out the first English-language edition of the sixth, with at least two more scheduled for 2010.

---

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

Reprint This! 15. Oh, Wicked Wanda!

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!

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 of the most memorable comic strips I've ever run across was Frederick Mullally and the late Ron Embleton's OH, WICKED WANDA!, which detailed the machinations of a domineering, super-rich European heiress and her schemes of global domination. It's a strip most of you might have seen glimpses of once or twice, but very few people actually read, what with all the glorious amounts of sex and nudity to distract you from the storyline...



Around 1982 or 1983, I was in middle school and discreetly reading my dad's quarter-century run of Playboy when a formidable stack of new material made its way into the house. Dad had taken on a co-worker's collection of 1970s Penthouse mags when his new bride demanded that he dump them. Well, it didn't take long at all to determine that Penthouse was not in any way appealing, in pictures or in words, except for this remarkable, mind-blowing eight-page comic in the back of most of the issues.

Oh, Wicked Wanda! debuted in 1973 and spent the next eight years engaging in a savage satire of seventies politics and sexual conquests. Our heroine, Wanda von Kreesus, a brunette Amazon who was most often seen in a leather outfit with red thigh-highs and a riding crop, had inherited a Swiss bank in which most of the world's governments had deposited vital secrets. The series involved her various manipulations and schemes to take over the world, assisted by her young lover Candyfloss and a small military strike force made up of lesbians from many nations.

Wanda's adventures put her up against various world politicians, along with media celebrities, who were depicted in savage caricature and odd pseudonyms. Most commonly and mercilessly mocked was Ted Kennedy, who seemed to pop up every month standing in a swimming pool or a pond or a puddle and holding a steering wheel. After OPEC's actions triggered international inflation during the 1973 oil crisis, Wanda was often at work playing Ford and Brehznev against each other before the backdrop of Middle East politics.



Little of this, of course, made much sense to a thirteen year-old whose eye was first caught by Ron Embleton's artwork, and the gorgeous naked women on display. But I was curious enough to start learning what the hell was going on in the 1970s to make everybody act so crazy, and if you're familar enough with the news and events of that decade, then Oh, Wicked Wanda! genuinely shines as a brilliant piece of satire, easily on par with such period gems as Howard the Duck and the Doonesbury of the day. The typical panel composition, with little sidebar conversations among bystanders or Hollywood celebs or the writer and the artist, also evokes Jack Davis or Mort Drucker's work for Mad.

The strange thing is that Wanda is probably so easily dismissed as a sex strip that the remarkable humor, in equal parts bawdy, political and subtle, is completely overlooked. But the sex probably works against any possible reprint value the strip might have, even among publishers who specialize in adult material. Wanda and Candyfloss were probably the first lesbian couple that thousands of people ever read about, and it was arguably just as many people's first exposure to a BDSM lifestyle, but by modern standards, the series is far too tame to have any mileage as a "top-shelf book." Sure, there is full frontal nudity, but nothing explicit, and characters are always seen just before or after they've done the dirty, so a publisher like Eros Comix wouldn't see any value in it. On the other hand, there's more nudity and adult content in Wanda than any non-porn series outside of Playboy's Little Annie Fanny (the success of which certainly inspired Penthouse to commission an ongoing strip of some kind), and it's impossible to claim that the content is incidental to any reader's enjoyment of the comedy and the politics. There's also the problem that the original artwork is long since gone, and from what I understand, Penthouse's archives are in nowhere near the good shape that Playboy's are.

Looking back, it really did feel like an awkward fit in Penthouse even when it was running. Even from today's perspective, the magazine, in the 70s, just felt sleazy, dark, intense and secretive and totally lacking the joie de vivre that a healthy sex life brings. Oh, Wicked Wanda! was vibrant and silly and playful; the adult overtones are masked by the same veil of fun that you see in Bettie Page's smile. That suggests to me that Dark Horse, who have published a few collections of Page photographs by Jim Silke and her other fans, might be the right publisher for the series. Dark Horse also compiled the complete Little Annie Fanny in two volumes, though I expect they did so because of the sales potential of Annie's celebrated creators and artists (Kurtzman, Elder, Jaffee, Davis, etc) as much as the desire to have Annie back in print. It's certainly worth looking into again, and I hope somebody does!



(Originally posted October 26, 2007, 11:01 at hipsterdad's livejournal.)