Book Production

I love working on these books! This weekend I've been pulling together the first Cisco Kid volume, seeing where I am material wise. The source for this volume consists of a combination of production proofs, newspaper clippings, and really dirty photo-copies. I've also been getting photo-copies and scans of a number of originals from collectors out there - for which I now give a heartfelt collective thanks!

So I've been working on pulling it together, scanning, cropping, cleaning, placing and just admiring the handywork of the masterful Jose Luis Salinas. For those of you who are unfamiliar with his work, you are all in for a real treat. His drawing is among the best that has appeared on the comics page, here and abroad.

What better way then to spend one's cold, wintry Saturday, listening to my favorite tunes and working with the likes of this:


The daily is from June 30, 1951 - and - as you can see, it's in the process of being cleaned (note the right side of the strip, along the wagon wheel. If any of you out there have a replacment - I'd love to see it.

Til next time.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

I'd like to wish all of you a happy and prosperous New Year! Ain't it grand that 2009 is finally over! In 2010 we'll be bringing you Volumes 7 and 8 of On Stage, the third volume of Juliet Jones dailies, and the first volume of John Cullen Murphy's Big Ben Bolt dailies, with an introduction from Murphy's son, Cullen.

We've also begun putting together the first volume of Jose Luis Salinas' The Cisco Kid. The Introduction for Volume 1 will be by Sergio Aragones!

I've also been thinking a lot about what I want to do with this blog. Beginning now I'm going to open it up a bit, talk about things that interest me, review a book or two, perhaps introduce a few of you to some new and interesting art.

Speaking of interesting art:

If any of you have read the credits for almost all the books published by Classic Comics Press you will have noticed the name Dominic Bugatto. Dom has the honor of taking Leonard's mockups for the On Stage books and cleaning them up a bit (to Leonard's specs). At one point Dominic mentioned he felt working with Leonard's image was like polishing the lens of David Lean.

He's also helped me with the covers for the Jones book, and did a marvelous cover for the upcoming Big Ben Bolt:

At some point I'll post the process on how we do the covers, but for now this is about Dom.

Occassionally Dom sends me samples of what's he working on and I'm always blown away. Here's one he sent me a while back that I can't get enough of:

Dom's a hell of an artist. Check out his website at http://www.dominicbugatto.com/ and his blog at http://theleadsled.blogspot.com/

The Cisco Kid/On Stage Slipcase

The Cisco Kid
Some of you have contacted me to ask about The Cisco Kid so I thought it would be a good time to let you know a bit more about the project.

The Cisco Kid ran in American newspapers from January 15, 1951 to August 5, 1968 (roughly 17 years) as a daily only. Though the good graces of 4 collectors, I have been lucky enough to gain access to the entire run of the strip in 3 formats - original art, Production Proofs, and clippings.

So the books are going to be a mix, using the best available format available for each day's strip. Development of the first book is currently under way and should be available sometime in Spring/Summer of 2010, with plans to reprint the entire run of the strip in roughly 6 volumes, at the rate of 2 per year.

On Stage Slipcase
A lot of you have asked me why I'm not reprinting Leonard Starr's Mary Perkins On Stage in Hardcover - the answer is quite simple - money. And a couple of you have even asked me about the possibility of a slipcase for the books. I've been thinking a bit more about it and now that I have the series locked down to 15 volumes I feel the best approach is to produce slipcovers for Volumes 1-5, 6-10 and 11-15.

I'll be looking into this further in the next couple of months and post more details on the website and this blog as plans come together. I've already discussed this with Leonard and what we plan to do is design a nice end piece for the slipcase related to the volumes in that particular case. We'll do our best to keep the price within reason and though I can't give you an exact date, you can expect to see something by the end of this year.

And now for our Strip of the day - One of my favorite Sundays from 1957. Pay attention to what Mary says in the first panel and how Pete echos it in the last. How the meaning changes just by placement of emphasis. One of the countless things I love about this comic strip.

Sunday - March 22, 2009

In comic strips, the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

I find it both exhilarating and startling that the art form know as the Great American Comic Strip is perhaps hotter than ever. How did this happen? Is it just all of us aging boomers looking back? Are we having an impact on some of the youngsters out there?

I mean, Guys! We are finally going to see a full run of Alex Raymond's Rip Kirby in fine fashion from Dean Mullaney and IDW. Thank you Dean!!! And now Sam's Strip from Fantagraphics, a redo of Prince Valiant. Buck Rogers, and The Phantom from Hermes. As a local DJ in Chicago likes to declare: "It's great to be alive!"

I, like most in the independent book field, have a day job. On the publication of On Stage volume 1, I gave a copy to our young Administrative Assistant. A couple of days later she came into work, walked into my office and declared - "You know that Leonard Starr? He is a genius! I never knew comic strips could be that good!"

Another time - I was sitting next to Lon Allen at the Eisner Awards in 2007. Some Jim Morrison type by the name of Paul Pope was on stage, reading off the nominations for best archival edition, while I tried to act cool as he continued to read. When he got to Mary, he actually said '...and my own personal favorite Leonard Starr's Mary Perkins On Stage.' Hot damn!

Of course we, didn't win. An honor to be nominated, right? And anyway - Who needs to win an Eisner when folks like Paul Pope, Maggie Thompson, Walt Simonson, Howard Chaykin, Eddie Campbell, Jim Steranko, and the like are really getting into what you're doing? Just makes me want to do even more.

A couple of weeks ago I got an email from someone in Sweden who was worried that Classic Comics Press might not make it in these troubling times. Honestly who knows for sure? Times are indeed tough, sales are steady but slow, bills are due, strips need to be scanned, rights have to be looked into, and each night I pray to the computer gods that Vista doesn't crash while I'm cleaning up a particularly nasty clipping, trying to figure out how good it'll look in print.

Here's the strip of the day: The Heart of Juliet Jones - 04/19/1957