Four Color Comics

Some great news today for strip collectors, and additional evidence that we just might be living in the golden age of comic strip reprints.

Beginning in September, Fantagraphics will be reprinting the complete Popeye appearances from Thimble Theater. Straight from the horse’s mouth:

Six volumes, hardcover. Same size, more or less, as the original Fanta books from long ago (the big Sunday ones). Each book contains half dailies (six to a page) and half Sundays (in color), except for the first which is 3/4 dailies (because Popeye was a co-star in the dailies for more than a year before he showed up in the Thimble Theatre Sundays). Dailies in the front of the book, Sundays in the back (since there is no cross-continuity.) One every six months. We’ve got all the Sundays for the first volume scanned and are working our way through the dailies even as I speak. Introduction and annotations by Bill Blackbeard. A later book will contain a non-strip Segar POPEYE sequence that so far as I know has never been reprinted.

When this series enters print, comic strip collectors will be enjoying Complete Krazy Kat, Complete Peanuts, Complete Dennis the Menace, and Complete Popeye from Fantagraphics. Rumor has it a Complete Pogo is in the works. And don’t forget that Drawn & Quarterly is reprinting the complete Gasoline Alley.

One of the best features of these new reprint series is all of the DVD-style commentary and extras. I love it. It’s a great time to be a comic strip collector.