EVERYTHING BUT IMAGINARY #175: LOOKING TO THE PAST, POINTING FORWARD

[Blake Petit]

Last week the comic world was abuzz with the news coming out of the San Diego Comic Con, and while that little event did provide us with a lot of grist for the mill, one of the more interesting announcements of the week came after the con, in my opinion. IDW comics let loose with the news that they’re going to soon begin producing a series of high-quality hardcover volumes reprinting the entire Dick Tracy comic strip series by Chester Gould.

If the only place you ever saw the character was in Warren Beatty’s movie, you didn’t get half of it. Tracy was the star of one of the best crime strips ever, and while some of his villains may have tended towards the ridiculous, their schemes did not. The strip lasted for decades, eventually passing into the hands of other writers and artists (including Max Allan Collins, who is notable for some crime comics of his own – ever heard of Road to Perdition?). So yes, I’m very happy that he’s going to get his own archival series.

The interesting thing, though – I’m not even that big a Dick Tracy fan. Oh, I like the character enough, and I’ve enjoyed the old strips whenever I’ve read reprints, but it’s not like I was sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for a collection of his adventures. But I met this announcement with the same excitement I had when Fantagraphics announced their Complete Dennis the Menace hardcovers – which is to say, not as much as I was excited for The Complete Peanuts, but still pretty excited. I’m a comic fan, friends – not just a fan of comic books, but also of great comic strips, because the two genres have so much in common. And what’s more, I deeply believe in having the proper respect for our history, something that far too many people don’t seem to believe in these days.

I make no secret of my deep, abiding love for Peanuts. I think it’s the greatest comic strip of all time, and the minute Fantagraphics announced they would reprint the entire 50-year run of the strip in 25 volumes I knew I would have to find shelf space for them. By contrast, I haven’t purchased a single Dennis the Menace volume yet, but I’m glad to know that it’s available. It may not have been the greatest comic strip ever, but it’s hard to argue that it has an important place in the history of the medium, and for that reason if no other, it should be treated with respect. I’m a big fan of these archival editions, and I’m just as happy that Dennis is getting this treatment as I am that archival editions are available for more modern gems like Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side.

There have been archival editions of comics available for some time as well. There’s the Marvel Masterworks series, that reprints the great Marvel comics of the past, and there’s the DC Archives, which coincidentally reprint classic DC comics. But DC goes a little further. From nearly the beginning, the DC line has included archives for those titles originally published by other companies that DC acquired over the years – Plastic Man Archives, Shazam Archives and Shazam Family Archives collecting the exploits of the original Captain Marvel, Blackhawk Archives and Action Heroes Archives for the former Charlton heroes like Captain Atom.

Then a few years ago, DC expanded the line even further, including comics that they don’t own the copyright to, but that they’ve agreed to reprint regardless because they know there’s a demand. That’s why we’ve now got archive editions of ElfQuest, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and Will Eisner’s groundbreaking The Spirit. A quick glance at DC’s website shows that there are currently 149 Archive volumes available, with more announced. The uber-fanboy in me wants to own them all. The realist has decided to concentrate on the Spirit and Legion of Super-Heroes archives until I win the lottery.

Now Dark Horse comics has entered the fray, with archival editions of comics from the defunct Western Publishing (Gold Key and Whitman) – Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom, Magnus: Robot Fighter and Tarzan, for example. They’ve also begun archival series for comics they’ve published in the past, like Mike Baron and Steve Rude’s Nexus. Without Dark Horse, the chances of some of these classics seeing the light of day in an Archival edition is slim. Fortunately, they put the same care into their Archives as Marvel and DC, and comics are richer for it.

And then there’s the icing on the cake – Gemstone Comics, best known at the moment for holding the license to print Disney comics, will soon begin a series of EC Comics archives, collecting the classic horror, science fiction and other tales that are still favorites today. Beginning in October, Gemstone will begin with archival editions of (in order of release) Weird Science, Shock Suspenstories, Tales From the Crypt and Two-Fisted Tales. Gemstone has also done a lot of work with the Disney comics, releasing collections of Don Rosa’s The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, two volumes collecting all of the Carl Barks stories that inspired episodes of the TV series DuckTales and, just last week, a Walt Disney Treasures volume collecting some of the rarest comics from Disney’s 75-year publishing history. All of these collections are welcome, but they don’t quite go far enough for me. Once the EC Archives take off, I’d love to see archival editions of Uncle Scrooge, Donald Duck and Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories.

When Marvel put out their first Masterworks volume in the early 90s, I don’t think they realized how that idea would grow and spread. It’s thanks to that book that we now have so many excellent archival projects going on at once. You’d have to be Bill Gates to collect them all, but most fans will be able to pick or choose a few favorites to follow – and for cheaper editions, there are the Essential paperbacks from Marvel and DC’s Showcase series. There’s no color, but you can get upwards of 500 pages of comics really cheap, and when you want to just read the stories, that’s just as good.

So what’s the point of all this? Why am I going through all of this today? Because, friends, the past is important. There are a lot of excellent comics being published today, but every one of them owes a debt to the classics. Charles Schulz, Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, Stan Lee, Carl Barks, Steve Ditko, William Gaines, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster… these are the creators that took an artform in its infancy and proved you could use it to do great things. Too many people today don’t realize that. They don’t understand how important their contributions are. I’ve seen some people go so far as to be downright hostile towards the progenitors of the medium (and I don’t mean people angry about their personal lives or business practices – as irrelevant as that may be to their work, that I could at least understand).

A great many of the problems in the world today could have been avoided if people simply had the proper respect for and understanding of the past. That goes for comics too. I’ve got a dream of someday having an enormous library with every Marvel, DC, Dark Horse and EC archive, every complete comic strip series that’s been released, the one-volume edition of Jeff Smith’s Bone, and a full run of Essential and Showcase paperbacks for easy access. I want to be able to find every great work of comics at my fingertips. I want to be able to point to a book and tell people why that series matters, because I’m tired of people who don’t understand that on their own. It may be a pipe dream, but we’re talking about stories full of guys from other planets and doused with radiation – what’s wrong with a crazy dream?

Just as long as you know where those dreams are coming from.

Favorite of the Week: July 26, 2006

This week was kind of a tough call for me, but in the end it was my love of the Captain Marvel family that gave the “Favorite” trophy to 52 #12. We got to see what’s been happening to Captain Marvel since Infinite Crisis ended, and it’s not pretty. Meanwhile, Black Adam added a new(ish) member to his own little family. This was a great read that’s just got me more excited for the upcoming Trials of Shazam series.

Blake M. Petit is the author of the superhero comedy novel, Other People's Heroes, the suspense novel The Beginner and the weekly “Think About It” humor column at Think About It Central. His new comic, Evertime, is coming soon from Tightlip Entertainment. E-mail him at Blake@comixtreme.com and visit him on the web at Evertime Realms.

[Eric Barrett]

Dick Tracy! I loved the comics. I am not a big fan of detective stories, but I always liked reading Tracy's adventures.

[Blake Petit]

Here's a nice little addendum to the column -- courtesy of "zodarzone" :

Originally Posted by zodarzone

Rebellion Studios has also been releasing archive books of Judge Dredd, the first time they have been collected in chronological order from the beginning.

I'm really glad to hear that. I focus more on American comics here simply because I don't really have a lot of access to British comics, but anyone who's archiving the classics deserves some respect.