Hot on the heels of our exciting Dick Tracy announcement, we can now unveil the schedule of Library of American Comics releases planned for 2023.
We’ve had previous inquiries from some readers on this topic, and it’s fair if you’re thinking, “It’s taken three-plus months to publish your release schedule?” We’ve always been a small shop, and as you know, these days we’re a small shop partnering with two different publishers. That’s a “win-win-win” scenario for us all, but it does mean two sets of logistics to coordinate, and two sets of details to manage in order to insure a smooth flow of titles moving through both channels. But everyone involved thinks we have it right, so we’re ready to push aside the curtain and reveal …
Springing into Booksellers: Partnering with our long-time friends at IDW, March saw the release of the first-ever softcover edition of the second book in our award-winning Alex Toth trilogy, Genius, Illustrated:
A Midyear Hotbed of Crime and Criminals: As we recently announced in conjunction with Clover Press, the summer months will see the first two volumes of The Complete Dick Tracy, by Chester Gould, going on sale in their new, reformatted editions! This will put the first four years of Gould’s hard-hitting comics masterwork — 1931 through 1935 — into the same size books as Volumes 7 through 29, which were published after LOAC took over production of the series starting in 2009 (egad! Really? So long ago?). Fans who have longed to have the entire Tracy run in fully-uniform editions are on the way to getting their wish granted. Be on the lookout for these two dustjacket covers below:
Autumn Brings Something Old, Something New: By the time the leaves are turning, baseball is enmeshed in its playoffs, and the NFL regular season is underway, we expect to again team with IDW to offer the seventh volume of Lynn Johnston’s consistently excellent For Better or For Worse, with wedding bells the order of the day …
… As well as the new paperback version of Genius, Animated, the concluding chapter in our examination of the life and career of master craftsman Alex Toth:
Rolling in Clover Throughout 2023: Certainly we haven’t forgotten Terry and the Pirates: The Master Collection! Clover Press and LOAC are continuing their joint project to showcase Milton Caniff’s enduring classic as it’s never been showcased before! Volumes 4 through 6 of this ambitious undertaking are scheduled to be available throughout this year, spanning material originally published in newspapers during the period 1938 – 1940, and introducing new characters such as April Kane, Dude Hennick, and Raven Sherman, who play key roles as the series continues to unfold:
Dick Tracy’s reformatted Volumes 3 and 4 should also both be available by the time the leaves are falling and (in some areas, at least) snow is blanketing the ground.
All in all, many nifty items to choose from, and it’s definitely a good idea to eliminate the risk of having to pay rare-book prices later by buying those items of interest when they become available. We’ll be plenty busy producing this output — and laying the plans for 2024, too!
Great news. Looking forward to all of these. Are there plans for the next Little Orphan Annie volume? And is it true the next one will gd the last? Thank you
Thanks for your note and your support, Carson!
Little Orphan Annie Volume 17 is still in the plans, though as you can tell from the schedule above, it’ll slate in as a 2024 release, reprinting Annie’s adventures from July 1953 through January 1955. The good news is, that will represent a full thirty years of L.O.A. we’ve managed to bring back into print. The less-good news is, based on current conditions it does indeed appear our “Annie” series will end with Volume 17, though conditions can change, and if they do we’ll be overjoyed to keep reprinting the exploits of America’s Spunkiest Kid!
Is there any possibility of a volume 2 for Red Barry? I recently finished reading the first volume and was disappointed to read that the second volume had been canceled. Hopefully, Clover Press might consider giving Red Barry the concluding volume for the great strips.
Hey, David — No plans for Red Barry Volume 2 at present, but we’d gladly offer it if conditions allowed! After Volume 1 appeared, we had a contact put us onto sources of additional research that proved mighty interesting. Was there a real-life copper whom Will Gould used as a template for Red Barry? Sure seems that way …
Dear Bruce, are there any plans to continue the Donald Duck Newspaper (b/w plus color sundays) and Silly Symphonies series? It’s been a while and because I love them and own them all, it would be devastating if they wouldn’t be completed. Best, Sid
Dear Sid — For now, at least, it looks like our Disney series is standing pat where it is. We love this stuff, too (I’m on record as being a great fan of Al Taliaferro’s Duck!) , but a handful of factors have our Disney efforts on hold at the present time.
Hey Bruce, any news on if we’ll get Polly and Her Pals Sundays volume 3/4? I’m assuming not, since with 2023 it’ll be 7 years since the last volume. It’s a shame those amazing Sunday pages didn’t get finished.
Hi, Brent (part 1 of 2!) — Your crystal ball is accurate, I’m sorry to say, because there are no current plans for “Polly.” And “I’m sorry to say” that because I’m a !B*I*G! Cliff Sterrett/”Polly” fan. I did a piece featuring some new Sterrett info in this space in mid-March (http://libraryofamericancomics.com/rust-never-sleeps-neither-does-loac/), and I went to Maine to do research at the Wells/Ogunquit Historical Society in order to write the text feature for our “LOAC Essentials” collection of 1933 “Polly” dailies (http://libraryofamericancomics.com/product/loac-essentials-vol-3-polly-and-her-pals-1933/). So if conditions ever allow us to present more “Polly,” we definitely will, I promise!
Also any news on Corto Maltese reprints?
Hi Again, Brent (part 2 of 2!) — There are “Corto” plans percolating, but all the particulars and logistics aren’t final, so they’re not yet ready to be announced. As soon as The Powers That Be give us the green light, we’ll let folks know what they can expect from us on the “Corto Maltese” front.
Thank you. I hope a reprint does end up happening. I missed out on them and i’m a big fan of adventure stories, I have never read these and I happen to be getting more and more into european comics, so it’s such a shame I learned about this series too late.
Hope we continue the Superman newspaper strips in 2024!
Thanks for dropping a line, Matthew! We hope to continue “Superman,” too, but as we’ve noted before, these strips weren’t widely preserved, which means getting source material for future editions that is of reproducible quality is one of the logistical challenges that affects this series. For what it’s worth, Dean has told me, “The completist in me would love to finish ‘Superman,'” so we keep our fingers crossed and keep the Man of Steel on our radar screen for possible future breakthroughs.
Any chance of reprinting Hugo Pratt’s “The Secret Rose” (Corto Maltese series)? I can’t find a copy ANYWHERE! It’s the only book I need to complete my series….
Hiya, Nat — As we mentioned to Brent up above, we’re forming more “Corto” plans, and “The Secret Rose” will almost surely be included in them. At this moment, though, we don’t have all the logistics locked down, so we can’t reveal what we see as the road ahead until we’re confident we have something traffic will be able to move on (how’s THAT for a strained metaphor?). “Keep watching this space, and our social media sites, for future details” is the best advice I have to offer right at this moment.
Hiya, Any plans to continue Jean-Pierre Gibrats’ Matteo series, we got two lovely hardbacks but there seem to be several more that haven’t seen English translations. Also a reprint of Alack Sinner Volume 1 would go down a treat!
Always nice to hear from another member of the “Gibrat Pack!” (ho-ho) We’re obviously big fans of J-P. G.’s work, but have no immediate plans to publish more. Notice that word “immediate” … Again, lots of logistics to sift through, so it’s impossible to make promises at this stage, but if the Fates are kind and we _can_ do more Gibrat, you can bet we _will_ do more.
Where will the books be sold? Particularly the For Better or For Worse and Dick Tracy. For earlier volumes, some of which aren’t available anymore, would you be doing reprints? Thank you.
Good day t’you, Jess — all our upcoming releases will be sold at the outlets that have retailed our books since our inaugural TERRY AND THE PIRATES release in 2007: many comic shops either carry our titles or can order them for you if you make a request to the manager or owner. (To find a comics shop near you, go to https://comicshoplocator.com/); many brick-and-mortar bookstores will do the same. Of course, the major on-line booksellers (you know their names!) regularly list our new books for sale as they come available. As to reprints, we hope marketplace conditions will adjust in the future to make that feasible, but as we discussed in a February 16th post (see http://libraryofamericancomics.com/fomo-equals-bntbs/), right now, unfortunately, there are no plans to send out any sold-out LOAC books for new printings. Several series are having full or partial releases in different formats — DICK TRACY Vols 1-6, the softcover editions of the Alex Toth GENIUS trilogy, and the Master Collection TERRY AND THE PIRATES — but right now that’s what the current economics dictate.