The National Cartoonists Society held their annual Reuben Awards weekend in Pittsburgh. This year the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Brad Anderson. Anderson, 89, is the creator of
Marmaduke, which he's written and drawn since 1955. While Anderson and I typically don't find the same things "doggone funny," he and his great dane are certainly legendary.
photo by Tom Heintjes. See all of Heintjes photos of this cartoonist-studded event here!
Dan Spiegle: A Life in Comic Art was released last month from TwoMorrows Publishing. Spiegle is a comic strip and comic book veteran whose legendary career spans from the Golden Age to the Modern Age. A little known, and rarely seen, chapter in Spiegle's career was the year (1996-97) he drew the mid-90s revival of the "Terry and the Pirates" comic strip.
In February of 2012, we told you about the upcoming "Steve Canyon: The Complete Comics: Volume 2" from Hermes Press. Then a year later we reported that it would not see print, but would be available soon as a digital download. According to Hermes Press, the electronic book should be available on Comixology in the late fall. This volume was to be a reprint of the Steve Canyon stories published by Harvey Comics.
This month was supposed to have been the release of another Hermes project - volume 1 of George Wunder's "Terry and the Pirates", reprinting the first two years of Wunder's strips. I was surprised to see that Amazon had updated the release to January. A representative of Hermes Press was cited a limited staff and "unexpected problems", likely arising from difficulty in finding good quality strips to reprint from. I know I'm eager to begin reading this rarely seen era of "Terry."
Dean Mullaney, creative director and founder of the Library of American Comics, will be a special guest at this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego. He will also be the subject of a one-hour "Spotlight on Dean Mullaney" program, moderated by IDW publisher Ted Adams. As all Caniffites know, Mullaney brought Caniff's "Terry and the Pirates" back into print and is doing the same with "Steve Canyon" (now on volume 3). Mullaney also edited "Caniff: A Visual Biography" and this year released volume two of the three-part art biography of Alex Toth, a vigorous Caniff acolyte. Mullaney was also a founder and publisher of Eclipse Comics, a strong independent comics publisher in the 1980s. Congratulations, Dean!
The June 2013 issue of Comics Revue is out (issue #325-326). This issue reprints the conclusion of a "Steve Canyon" storyline from 1973 in which the Reds are trying to foment the religious divide in Ireland, with Steve and Summer caught in the middle!
In addition to "Canyon," this issue has "Flash Gordon" by Mac Raboy, "Tarzan" by Russ Manning and a dozen other features. Ask your comics dealer today!
1 comment:
Had to comment on the planned reprint of Wunder's first two years of "Terry": A friend sent me photocopies of Wunder's first full adventure following Caniff's departure, so it is great to be able to read that immediately after reading the end of Caniff's run. You can see that Wunder kept it pretty faithful in the art then gradually fine-tuned the art into his own style. I know people complain about Wunder -- everyone seemed to have stiff necks and a lot of the faces (including the women) seemed the same -- but I have fond memories of his work because I grew up on it since I was raised in NY and we got the NY Daily News every Sunday. Obviously, by the time I was born and grew into adolescence, Caniff had long left the strip, but I learned the background through books in the library about the history of comics.
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