Library of American Comics Essentials HC (2012- IDW) comic books

Volume 1 - 1st printing. "George Herriman's Baron Bean: The Complete 1916 Comics!"

Story and Art by George Herriman.

Introducing a new series that will reprint early daily newspaper strips that are essential to the history of comics. Each volume will contain a full year of dailies. By reproducing the strips one per page in an oblong format, it allows us to have the experience of reading the comics one day at a time. The inaugural volume of Library of American Comics Essentials features Baron Bean by one of the greatest of all comic strip stars: George Herriman. The creator of Krazy Kat drew Baron Bean for three years, beginning in 1916.

Hardcover (Horizontal Format), 11 1/2-in. x 4 1/2-in., 328 pages, B&W.

Cover price $19.99.

Volume 2 - 1st printing. "Sidney Smith's The Gumps: The Saga of Mary Gold!"

Story and Art by Sidney Smith.

In the late 1910s, Sidney Smith developed a formula of the daily strip that would make The Gumps one of the most popular comics of the 1920s and himself one of the richest cartoonists of his day. By the end of the decade Sidney Smith's The Gumps had secured a huge and loyal audience with a decade of melodrama, adventure, mystery, and comedy. So devoted were his readers, in fact, that they regularly wrote in to offer advice for his characters' love lives and business decisions and they generally treated the characters as friends and family members. In 1928-29, with the launching of what would be his most famous story, "The Saga of Mary Gold," Smith's relationship to his readers would be tested as never before. Its heartbreaking conclusion would change comics forever. Here for the first time since the story made headlines across America in the spring of 1929 we reprint the saga that Hogan's Alley magazine called "One of the Ten Biggest Events in Comics History"-a tale that has lost none of its power to captivate readers in the 21st Century.

Hardcover (Horizontal Format), 11 1/2-in. x 4 1/2-in., 336 pages, B&W.

Cover price $19.99.

Volume 3 - 1st printing. "Polly and her Pals!"

Story and Art by Cliff Sterrett.

By the early 1930s Cliff Sterrett had transformed Polly and Her Pals into the world's premier surrealistic comic strip. Sterrett's Sunday pages (also being published by The Library of American Comics) have long been hailed as individual masterpieces, but his daily strips-due to their rarity-have eluded archivists for the past ninety years. The strips reprinted here-the complete year of 1933 dailies-show Sterrett at his most inventive!

Hardcover (Horizontal Format), 11 1/2-in. x 4 1/2-in., 336 pages, B&W.

Cover price $24.99.

Volume 4 - 1st printing. "1939: Alley Oop: The First Time Travel Adventure!"

Story and Art by VT Hamlin.

In 1939, Vincent Trout Hamlin had been writing and drawing the successful Alley Oop for more than five years. In Alley Oop, Hamlin created a unique concept, marrying his fascination with dinosaurs and prehistoric times to a rollicking style of storytelling and drawing that was simultaneously serious, fantastic, and loaded with slapstick. The series was set in the kingdom of Moo and starred Alley Oop, the club-wielding caveman, his girlfriend Ooola, friends Dinny the dinosaur and Foozy, and more! This volume features Oop's final Moo adventure, followed by his trips to the 20th Century and ancient Greece. Hamlin would send his characters everywhere and everywhen - but the classic Alley Oop begins with the stories contained in this volume.

Hardcover (Horizontal Format), 11 1/2-in. x 4 1/2-in., 336 pages, B&W.

Cover price $24.99.

Volume 5 - 1st printing. "1930: The Bungle Family!"

Story and Art by Harry J. Tuthill.

Art Spiegelman called The Bungle Family "the most underrated comic strip in our history." Bill Blackbeard wrote, "There has been nothing like it in comic strips since." Hogan's Alley magazine proclaimed, "The Bungle Family was about as wholly an adult comic strip as the field has ever known." Yet only sporadic examples of Harry J. Tuthill's masterpiece have been available to modern readers. Until now! This volume-collecting the complete 1930 dailies-remedies that situation.

Hardcover (Horizontal Format), 11 1/2-in. x 4 1/2-in., 336 pages, B&W.

Cover price $24.99.

Volume 6 - 1st printing. "1917: Baron Bean!"

Story and Art by George Herriman.

The New York Journal of Books says that the first volume of LOAC Essentials (Baron Bean 1916) "sets the standard for archival and reprint quality." The Washington Times writes that it's "beautiful. It showcases Mr. Herriman's developing style and his move toward a combination of absurdity, surrealism, and art deco." Volume Six presents the second year of George Herriman's much-lauded pre-Krazy Kat masterpiece.

Hardcover (Horizontal Format), 11 1/2-in. x 4 1/2-in., 328 pages, B&W.

Cover price $29.99.

Volume 7 - 1st printing. "1929: Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan of the Apes!"

Story and Art by Hal Foster and Rex Maxon.

The first 300 daily Tarzan comics ever produced, all in one place! LOAC Essentials brings you all of Hal Foster's first comics work, reproduced from ERB's syndicate proofs. In addition, this book includes "The Return of Tarzan," "Beasts of Tarzan," and "Son of Tarzan," each drawn by Rex Maxon.

Hardcover (Horizontal Format), 11 1/2-in. x 4 1/2-in., 328 pages, B&W.

Cover price $29.99.

Volume 8 - 1st printing. "1934: Krazy Kat - King Features Essentials: Book 1!"

Story and Art by George Herriman.

Much attention has been paid to Herrriman's Sunday full-page comics, yet it is in the daily Krazy Kat strips that the cartoonist most frankly illustrates many of his major themes, especially the shifting nature of social identity. The 1934 strips reprinted in this book fit anyone's definition of "essential." They show Krazy Kat at top speed, ever-changing, endlessly inventive, with language that sparkles with double meanings and more in lines such as "his malady drills me to my sole." The year includes homages to old jokes and bricks, followed by playful references to sex, drink, and even drugs. The daily Krazy Kat strips are often Herriman's most personal works and standouts in this year include Krazy Kat's attempt to write a memoir and the Kat's quietly waiting for the last leaf of "ottim" to fall (a tender scene that finds echoes in Charles Schulz's drawing Linus admiring the last autumn's leaf stubborn spirit). It could also be argued that the daily is more accessible to the new reader. Herriman biographer Michael Tisserand provides an insightful introduction.

Hardcover (Horizontal Format), 12-in. x 4-in., 328 pages, B&W.

Cover price $29.99.

Volume 9 - 1st printing. "1933: Tyler's Luck - King Features Essentials: Book 2!"

Written by Lyman Young. Art and cover by Alex Raymond.

These never-before-collected strips represent an essential transition point that would forever change the direction of adventure comics. Lyman Young's Tim Tyler's Luck was a successful series set in exotic locales before Alex Raymond signed on as Young's assistant. It's in these 1932-1933 strips, as Raymond assumed greater and greater responsibility for the drawing, that he developed the prototypes for Flash Gordon, Dale Arden, and Jungle Jim, and the style for which he became famous a year later.

Hardcover (Horizontal Format), 12-in. x 4-in., 392 pages, B&W.

Cover price $29.99.

Volume 10 - 1st printing. "1933: Detective Dan, Secret Operative 48!"

Story and Art by Norman Marsh.

Considered the first comic book with original material ever produced, 1933's "Detective Dan, Secret Op. 48" was a landmark. It only lasted one issue before morphing into the Dan Dunn newspaper strip. A blatant copy of Chester Gould's Dick Tracy (Norman Marsh had been an art assistant to Gould), Dan Dunn was a rough and tumble Secret Service agent who exacted violent retribution on any criminal who dared cross his path. This book reprints the entire first year of daily comics.

Hardcover (Horizontal Format), 11 1/2-in. x 4 1/2-in., 344 pages, B&W.

Cover price $29.99.

Volume 11 - 1st printing. "1945: Cap Stubs and Tippie!"

Story and Art by Edwina Dumm.

Collecting the works of one of the most important female cartoonists of all time, Tippie will appeal to comics readers, students of women's studies, and dog lovers. Edwina Dumm was the country's first female full-time editorial cartoonist, and one of its first female syndicated comic strip creators. Tippie is truly a Library of American Comics Essential, providing a crucial reading experience and offering perspective on the early work of women in the field. LOAC Essentials reprints, one year at a time, the daily newspaper strips that are essential to comics history, in a format that preserves, as closely as possible, the original reader experience.

Hardcover (Horizontal Format), 11 1/2-in. x 4 1/2-in., 384 pages, B&W.

Cover price $29.99.

Volume 12 - 1st printing. "1918: Baron Bean: The Complete Third Year!"

Story and Art by George Joseph Harriman.

Reprinted for the very first time, these century-old strips comprise a key early work from the creator of Krazy Kat, perhaps the most lauded cartoonist of all time. This book concludes a three-volume LOAC Essentials sub-series by presenting the final year of Baron Bean, one of Herriman's richest and funniest creations, second only to Krazy Kat, whose citizens occasionally grace these panels.

The New York Journal of Books said that the first volume of LOAC Essentials (Baron Bean) "sets the standard for archival and reprint quality."

Hardcover (Horizontal Format), 11 1/2-in. x 4 1/2-in., 328 pages, B&W.

Cover price $29.99.

Volume 13 - 1st printing. "1938: Charlie Chan: The First Year of Comics from the Creator of Kerry Drake!"

Story and Art by Alfred Andriola.

As a famed hero of the mystery novels by Earl Derr Biggers, Inspector Charlie Chan reached even greater heights in a series of popular movies. As actor Sidney Toler was preparing to replace Warner Oland as the wily police detective in 1938, Alfred Andriola was tapped to create a newspaper strip version of the character. The pride of the Honolulu Police Department uses his intellect more than his fists to solve cases of international intrigue, and the syndicate's initial promotion called Charlie Chan "a new mystery strip, totally devoid of guns and gangsters" to separate it from Dick Tracy and his many hard-boiled imitators. Featuring the first complete year of daily strips, from October 1938 to November 1939, this volume offers readers exciting adventures, snappy dialogue, and arresting art.

A key early work from the creator of the long-running detective series Kerry Drake presented in a format that is as close as one can get to experiencing it as a daily comic.

Hardcover (Horizontal Format), 11 1/2-in. x 4 1/2-in., 328 pages, B&W.

Cover price $29.99.

Volume 14 - 1st printing. "1928: Barney Google for President and Other Classic Comics from the Roaring '20s!"

Story and Art by Billy Debeck.

Reprinting four classic Barney Google stories that define the strip! Barney and his horse Spark Plug get involved in all sorts of hijinks and schemes when they enter the Million-Dollar Cross-Country Marathon, decide to swim the English Channel, and when Barney joins the Secret and Mysterious Order of the Brotherhood of Billy Goats (in DeBeck's send-up of secret societies and fraternal lodges), culminating in Barney Google's historic run for President of the United States in 1928! Library of American Comics (LOAC) Essentials reprints, in yearly volumes, the daily newspaper strips that are essential to comics history, strips that are unique creations in their own right, while also contributing to the advancement of the medium. Available in December.

Hardcover (Horizontal Format), 11 1/2-in. x 4 1/2-in., 352 pages, B&W.

Cover price $29.99.