Four Color Comics

When I started this site a year ago, it was only my second blog. For a few months I was able to devote a lot of time and effort into it. It was fun. But even then, it was superfluous. There are other, much better comics sites out there. Four Color Comics was always destined to be lonely voice in the wilderness.

Over the past year, I’ve started a couple of other blogs. One of them — Get Rich Slowly — has exploded. In fact, it’s pretty much a full-time job for me now. As a result, I need to cut back on my blogging pursuits.

Because my true love is old comic strips, it only makes sense to fold this site into a new blog I’m beginning to publish: Vintage Pop. Vintage Pop isn’t fully functional yet. It’s up-and-running with a couple posts, but I have some work to do on it before it’s really ready to go. Eventually it will feature any comic strip or comic book related stuff I write.

Graphic novels, however, aren’t appropriate for Vintage Pop. I’ll write about them at my book site, Bibliophilic.

I’ll leave this site up for the forseeable future, and continue to renew the domain. But, for now at least, there will be no new content here. Thanks!

Wow. We really are in some sort of Golden Age of comic strip reprints. Now comes word that IDW Publishing will publish a six-volume set reprinting the entirety of Milton Caniff’s classic Terry and the Pirates. Sunday pages will be in color; daily pages will be in black-and-white.

“In Terry and the Pirates,” wrote Jerry Robinson in The Comics, “all the storytelling techniques of the adventure strip fused and a classic style emerged. Caniff developed and integrated the narrative and its visual expression into a uniform aesthetic balance.” Jules Feiffer noted, “Before Caniff introduced the Dragon Lady to Pat Ryan, before Burma and Raven Sherman and Normandie Drake fell for our hero, there was not a hint of sex to be found in the American newspaper strip. Caniff changed all that.”

Terry and the Pirates provided the vehicle for Caniff’s maturation both as an artist and as a storyteller. He set the strip in exotic China, where historic events then occurring in the region during the 1930s provided the raw material from which he blended fantasy and reality to create an extraordinary graphic narrative. Howard Chaykin, who has written the introduction to Volume One, says, “It’s historically the first, and for my money, greatest example of what we do. The evolution of what Caniff did with Terry in his first year is unbelievable. It’s pure core storytelling.”

The first volume is scheduled to be published in July. It will feature 800 consecutive strips from October 1934 to the end of 1936. The book will be 368 pages and retail for $50.

Perhaps the best news of all is that “The Complete Terry and the Pirates also launches a new imprint for IDW: The Library of American Comics.” Outstanding!

[Newsarama: IDW to collect Terry and the Pirates]

There’s no othe way to say it: the comics aggregator is awesome!

The concept is simple: this site collates various web comics all into one convenient location where contents are updated constantly. Here’s a list of the strips currently available:

• Astronomy Picture Of The Day
• Bob And George
• Boy on a Stick and Slither
• Cat And Girl
• Clenched Fist Labs
• Diesel Sweeties (Syndicated Print)
• Diesel Sweeties (Web)
• Dilbert
• Dork Tower
• 8 Bit Theatre
• Extralife
• FoxTrot
• Get Fuzzy
• Goats
• General Protection Falit
• Irregliar Webcomic
• The Joy Of Tech
• Kevin and Kell
• Little Gamers
• Man-Man
• Megatokyo
• Mows
• natalie dee
• Olliver And That Other Guy
• Ozy and Millie
• Pearls Before Swine
• Penny Arcade
• Pengcognito
• Player Vs. Player
• Real Life
• Sabrina Online
• Sheldon
• Sinfest
• Slow Wave
• Sluggy Freelance
• Starslip Crisis
• Toothpaste For Dinner
• User Friendly
• xkcd

You can even customize the strips displayed. (I, for one, removed the painflily unfunny User Friendly — how this strip caught on, I’ll never know.)

The comics aggregator is a great idea.

Another report out of the New York Comic Convention is that Marvel will be pushing digital distribution of their comics. Newsarama has detailed coverage of the announcement.

Friday morning at the Comics Publishing: Review and Outlook panel at New York Comic Con, Marvel President and Publisher Dan Buckley confirmed that Marvel is working on, and will be involved in, the digital distribution of their comics. No date was given for a launch.

Buckely’s news about digital comics came at the end of the panel when moderator Douglas Wolk asked the assembled panelists (DC’s Paul Levitz, Del Rey’s Dallas Middaugh, Tokyopop’s Stuart Levy, and Viz’s Alvin Lu) what they felt about the digital distribution of their comics, and if it will be playing a role in their future. The question was initially greeted by silence from the panelists, with Buckley ultimately stepping in to answer for Marvel.

Buckley explained that Marvel already has roughly 200 issues available to read on Marvel.com; however, those are seen mostly as promotional and marketing elements which drive sales towards trades and collections of the arcs.

“[Digital distribution] is a very real thing that we’re all going to have to deal with, because whether we like it or not, our books are already on the internet,” Buckley said, just prior to confirming that Marvel will be directly involved in the distribution of digital versions of their comics.

In comparing putting comics online versus music companies putting music online, Buckley said that its not an apples to apples comparison, as the experience of reading comics online is different than reading the physical versions of the comics themselves. Because of that, Buckley noted that they are currently looking at alterations that could be made to the format of their comics to enhance the online reading experience.

Buckley said that he feels that with online distribution of the comics, the entire market could see growth similar to what was seen in the days of broad newsstand distribution, saying that he feels publishers will see their readership grow tremendously as a result.

This is an interesting — and inevitable — development. But having read several issues online, I can safely say that digital comics will never replace their paper parents. The experience just isn’t the same.

This is mostly irrelevant to me, however, since I buy 99% of my comics in collected editions.

[Newsarama: NYCC '07: Marvel 1st major publisher to confirm digital distribution]

Here’s news of yet another classic comic strip reprint book. I’m amazed at how fast and furious these are coming. Amazed and delighted. Publisher’s Weekly’s comics blog reports that NBM Publishing will collect strips from the early years of Mutt and Jeff:

The year 2007 is the hundredth anniversary of Mutt & Jeff, one of the longest-lasting and most popular comic strips. It’s also the 30th anniversary of NBM Publishing and a perfect time to reprint the strip as the first of a planned new series of deluxe-format reprints, FOREVER NUTS: Classic Screwball Strips — The Early Years of Mutt & Jeff reveals that the pioneering strip was odder, crazier, and funnier than most modern readers would expect.

FOREVER NUTS is a new series of reprints concentrating on very early, very goofy strips — early classics that have aged surprisingly well, with off-the-wall humor that remains fresh to this day. Each volume will present a different strip from the early 20th century.

Mutt & Jeff began as A. Mutt (the A stood for Augustus), a cartoon about a harried husband who escaped his wife by gambling at the racetrack. The brainchild of cartoonist Bud Fisher first appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle’s sports page on November 15, 1907. The strip’s popularity skyrocketed after March 27, 1908, when Mutt met Jeff. A pint-sized insane asylum inmate, Jeff insisted that he was boxing champion James Jeffries. The combination of Mutt (who was always trying to get rich and always failing) with Jeff (gullible and willing to try anything) became a sensation.

You can find more information at the publisher’s web site. (Now if only they’d print the fourth volume of Stephane Heuet’s graphic novel adaptation of Proust. That’s something I’ve been waiting nearly five years for.)

I’ve been pining for a Captain Carrot compilation from DC for years. With the advent of the DC Showcase line of books, I have hopes that the series I remember fondly from my junior high school years will finally get its due. In the meanwhile, there’s other Captain Carrot news to keep me content. According to this Newsarama thread:

As announced at New York Comic Con, DC’s best known superpowered rabbit will return this year in Captain Carrot and the Final Arc, a three-issue limited series written by Bill Morrison.

Artist Scott Shaw! will return to the characters he helped create with Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway in 1982, when the character first appeared in Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew, a free 16-page insert in DC’S New Teen Titans #16. Captain Carrot’s Crew then debuted in their own title a month after that insert, featuring characters like a speedster turtle named Fastback, the metallic-skinned Pig Iron, a dog with patriotic powers named Yankee Poodle, and martial arts expert Alley-Kat-Abra — all fighting beside Captain Carrot with his powerful cosmic carrots.

Captain Carrot was good, goofy fun, and a perfect compliment to the comics my friends and I were drawing for each other at the time. (I had several titles, including BUG, The Legion of Bugs, the Hare Force, and a group of non-ninja turtles back before I was aware of ninja turtles.)

I welcome any Captain Carrot-related publications.

[Newsarama forums: NYCC '07: Bill Morrison talks Captain Carrot]

When I was a boy, I loved MAD Magazine. I loved it for the parodies of movies and TV shows. I loved it for Sergio Aragonés. I loved it for Spy vs. Spy. But most of all, I loved it for Don Martin.

I thought Martin’s illustrations were hilarious. I loved the big goofy heads, the dangling tongues, the round eyes, the limp wrists, and, especially, the spittle flying everywhere.

I used to buy the MAD paperbacks at the local used book store, often seeking out the Martin-only books. Now comes word that The Completely MAD Don Martin will be published this October.

Running Press Book Publishers, an imprint of the Perseus Books Group, has joined MAD Magazine in announcing the October 2007 publication of The Completely MAD Don Martin, the first title in Running Press’s MAD’s Greatest Artists series. Weighing in at seventeen pounds with more than 1,000 pages and a foreword by Gary Larson, this oversized tribute to one of MAD Magazine’s most recognized and best-loved artists will be beautifully formatted as a deluxe two-volume slip-cased special edition and will include every single work Martin created for the magazine over the course of his 30-year affiliation.

John Ficarra, Editor of MAD Magazine, states “This is a wonderful book celebrating the art of one of the greatest cartoonists of the twentieth century. Don Martin’s work is a cultural touchstone for generations of MAD Magazine readers. Old-time fans will rediscover his genius; new readers will pick up this hefty tome and be instantly hooked.”

Martin’s twisted approach, displaying a love of absurdity and anarchic mayhem, influenced generations of cartoonists and comedians. As proof of his revolutionary work’s affect, The Completely MAD Don Martin includes letters and notes from prominent cartoonists such as Gary Larson and Jim Davis, as well as commentary from many of Martin’s fellow MADmen including Jack Davis, Al Jaffee, Sergio Aragonés, Mort Drucker, and many more.

Count me in!

[Earthtimes.org: Running Press to publish debut title of their MAD's GREATEST ARTISTS series, in conjunction with MAD Magazine]

Fantagraphics continues to promote the renaissance of classic newspaper comic strips. The company is already producing the Complete Peanuts and the Complete Popeye. It has just announced that it starting this fall it will also produce The Complete Pogo. From the Flog! (the Fantagraphics blog):

Fantagraphics Books is pleased to announce that it has acquired the rights to publish a comprehensive series comprising Walt Kelly’s classic POGO comic strip. The first volume of Fantagraphics’ POGO will appear in October, 2007, and the series will run approximately 12 volumes, reproducing roughly two years of dailies and Sundays per volume.

Each Pogo volume will be designed by Jeff Smith, the award-winning cartoonist and creator of the Bone graphic novel, and a lifelong admirer of Walt Kelly.

Walt Kelly (born Walter Crawford Kelly Jr.) was born in 1913 and started his career at age 13 in Connecticut as a cartoonist and reporter for the Bridgeport Post, his local newspaper. In 1935, he moved to Los Angeles and joined the Walt Disney Studio, where he worked on classic animated films, including ‘Pinocchio,’ ‘Dumbo,’ and ‘Fantasia.’ In the mid 1930s, he drew his first comics work for the future DC Comics. Kelly left Disney in 1941 rather than take sides in their bitter labor strike. He moved back east and began drawing comic books for Western Publishing Company and the Dell line of comics.

It was during this time that Kelly created the character Pogo Possum. The character first appeared in Dell’s Animal Comics as a secondary player in the ‘Albert the Alligator’ feature. It didn’t take long until ‘Pogo’ became the comic’s leading character. After the Second World War, Kelly became artistic director at the New York Star, where he turned Pogo into a daily strip. When the Star folded in 1949, the Hall Syndicate took ‘Pogo’ into syndication, so that the strip soon appeared in hundreds of newspapers. Until his death in 1973, he produced a feature that has become widely cherished among casual readers and aficionados alike as a classic comic strip.

Kelly blended nonsense, poetry, and political and social satire in making POGO an essential contribution to American “intellectual” comics. As the strip progressed, it became a hilarious platform for Kelly’s scathing political views in which he skewered national boogeymen like Joseph McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover, George Wallace, and Richard Nixon. Kelly was considered a sufficient threat that his phone was tapped and the US Government corresponded with a newspaper reporter who claimed that the eccentric patois Kelly created was a secret Russian code.) Pogo is well known for its elaborate and ornate lettering and for Kelly’s distinctive use of language and lush brushwork. It is one of the few comic strips that succeeded in blending humor and politics into an uncompromising and entertaining whole.

The consecutive run of Pogo has never before been systematically collected into book form. (Fantagraphics published a series of 11 softcover volumes reprinting five-and-a-half years of the strip in the ’90s.) This will be the definitive series collecting all of his Pogo strips from 1949 to 1973. “Walt Kelly is unquestionably in the pantheon of great newspaper strip cartoonists,” said Gary Groth, President & Publisher of Fantagraphics Books. “Our Pogo books will present Kelly’s work the way it should be published — in a beautifully designed hardcover format, with careful attention paid to reproduction quality, and with knowledgeable introductory material.”

I’m excited about this project, of course, but I’m more excited about the grand sweep of comic strip reprint projects currently under way. It’s outstanding!

The San Francisco Chronicle has a fantastic article on how vintage comic strips have seen a resurgence in popularity thanks to the combined efforts of progressive publishers and devoted collectors.

[Joe] Matt is not unique among collectors. Peter Maresca, whose day job is creative director of GoComics/uClick Mobile, self-published his own collection of “Little Nemo” Sunday tearsheets as “So Many Splendid Sundays.” Fantagraphics’ “Popeye” and “Krazy Kat” series are made possible by the archivist Bill Blackbeard, and IDW’s “Complete Dick Tracy” relies on a legion of fans, because no single run is known to exist.

Their compulsion to own an artist’s every strip — sometimes 15,000 or more — and to clip, preserve and organize them all, has helped rescue a disappearing corner of American popular culture. After decades in which comic-strip syndicates and libraries have been purging themselves of paper archives for microfilm, their collections are often all that’s left.

“We couldn’t do it without them,” said Kim Thompson, co-founder of Fantagraphics, the publisher of popular graphic novels like Daniel Clowes’ “Ghost World.” Fantagraphics began issuing “complete” projects in the 1980s, with multivolume collections of “Popeye” and “Prince Valiant,” and currently with George Herriman’s “Krazy Kat” (as “Krazy & Ignatz,” for licensing reasons), an improved “Popeye” and Charles M. Schulz’s “Peanuts.”

Thompson has resorted to making pleas on the Internet for rare strips, and fans turned up what he needed: “Even with ‘Peanuts,’ where Schulz maintained an archive, we have one fan, Marcie — yes, same name as the ‘Peanuts’ character — who compiled a database on her own that lets her plug in the date of any strip, and it tells her wherever that particular strip has ever been reprinted.”

The article notes that the recent archival projects are helped by the presence of big-name modern graphic novelists, who often design the books, or contribute historical essays. I am a huge fan of these books — they’re the highlight of my collecting right now. I purchase all of them that I can find: Krazy Kat, Little Nemo, Popeye, Dick Tracy, Peanuts, Flash Gordon, and, especially, Gasoline Alley. The Walt & Skeezix books are treasures.

[San Francisco Chronicle: Preserving best vintage comic strips - publishers introduce a new generation to newspaper genre]

Have you ever wondered when Marvel started publishing Tarzan? Curious about what the company produced in the 1950s? Scott Hollifield’s Timely-Atlas-Marvel Chronology is a handy reference to have bookmarked for such occasions:

In a nutshell, this is a complete publishing history of Marvel Comics’ periodic comic titles from 1939-1994.  The terms used in this list should be fairly self-explanatory.

Look at 1957: the year that Atlas/Marvel imploded!

[Silver Age Marvel Comics Cover Index: Timely-Atlas-Marvel Chronology]