An Old Nerd List From When I Was A Somewhat Younger Nerd

I found this in a file of old unpublished (and generally unfinished) reviews, essays and notes intended for my old Live Journal site. This little chunk of cartoonist OCD is a wish list of comics-related reprints I wanted to see get published. I described these as mostly "pipe dreams", never dreaming there would someday be a reprint boom that would see a lot of these published. 

Another indication of how old this list is -- there are several entries that I'm no longer all that enthusiastic about in (although I wouldn't throw a free copy out of my house). Having read more old comic strips in the years since typing this, I don't really need a complete series of Bringing Up Father (lovely to look at, repetitive as comics) or Alley Oop (I do have the DHC Sundays editions, which, come to think of it, I did get for free). One well-edited Smokey Stover volume is all the world likely needs, if even that (Smokey Stover was the worst-selling statue in Dark Horse's old comic strip line, by quite a number. Foo!). And while I respect Pogo and Walt Kelly's art, I can't say I'm really a fan after reading more of it. I had more than one conversations with Tom Spurgeon where he asked me what my opinion was on Pogo -- and we both made a face that sort of said that we didn't enjoy saying we didn't like it that much. Or at all, in Tom's case. He kept making the face while I hemmed and hawed about Kelly's art. It's hard to bash an influential cartoonist of stature that you don't hate as a person (or in fact, rather admire, politically or whatever). He drew beautifully...but the jokes just don't really land, and the contrived dialect dialog can just drag things out to the point where I lose interest. It hasn't dated all that well. But I'd still love to have all of Kelly's Animal Comics work, and even some of that has been published in anthologies. 

Anyway, here's the list. I don't make fanboy wish lists anymore. I wonder why. I still want a lot of old stuff. I still want some of this old stuff. 

I added some notes and comments to the list, in italics. 

COMIC COLLECTIONS I’D LIKE TO SEE IN PRINT.   
Yes, I know many of these listings are pipe dreams.
 

1) Early Moon Mullins 

2) EC’s Moon Girl   

3) More volumes of Tezuka’s Blackjack * (dream come true, via Vertical, at the time there were only two Viz volumes and a Kodansha bilingual language instruction series)

4) Tezuka’s Princess Knight * ( another dream come true from Vertical)

5) Nice editions of the Phantom  * (didn't like the Hermes editions, and the early strips were...not so good) 

6) Planet Comics material * (complete from PS Art Books)

7) Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein comics *  (complete from PS Art Books) 

8) Walt Kelly’s Animal Comics work 

9) Jingle Jangle Comics *

10) Harvey’s Black Cat Comics by Lee Elias 

11) Uncollected/translated Yves Chaland material *

12) Moomins * (D&Q)

13) Nice editions of Johnny Hazard  * (didn't actually like the Hermes editions)

14) a re-do of Thimble Theater/Popeye. Complete, to boot. * ( FBI and Sunday Press)

15) A nice, complete (to a point) Little Orphan Annie * (IDW/LAC)

16) Complete Barnaby * (FBI, still unfinished, apparently a disappointing seller)

17) A collection of Crockett Johnson’s strips and magazine work 

18) Crockett Johnson’s Barkis 

19) Complete Little King by O. Soglow * (IDW volume of curated/available strips)

20) Some Smokey Stover volumes 

21) Re-worked Complete Pogo * (FBI)

22) Some volumes of White Boy, if not a complete run * (Sunday Press)

23) More Otto Messmer Felix the Cat    

24) Complete Virgil Partch comics 

25) Jack Cole’s Midnight 

26) The Black Terror 

27) Non-EC 50’s horror/crime comics (FBI published anthology collections, PS Art Books went in hard on this with Harvey, ACG and Fawcett, et al)

28) Best of Nickelodeon Magazine comics/panels 

29) Marvel Family Archives (DC ran weak early work in their Archives, canceled a Monster Society of Evil volume, and basically shrugs at anyone who brings this up)

30) a collection of Kurtzman/Help/Trump/Humbug etc * (unfortunately, Humbug and Trump are more interestingand great-looking than good reading)

31) The Art of Johnny Craig 

32) The Art of Brian Bolland (I think someone did this, maybe PS. And I still admire Bolland's work, but don't feel a need to own a book of it anymore)

33) A collection of old Marvel/Timely girl character comics (Sun Girl, Namorita, etc) 

34) The Complete Bat-Mite (Sort of a * -- I listed this as a bit of a joke, but a lot of the old stuff has been collected, of all things unexpected)

35) A new Hernandez Bros sketch/art book * (Jaime got one, Gilbert needs one)

36) A collection of cartoonist’s childhood comics and drawings

37) Some volumes of The Bungle Family  * (one curated volume, IDW/LAC)

38) A Not Brand Ecch trade 

39) Alley Oop (I missed out the first time) *

40) Any un-translated Junji Ito material * (who knew how big Ito would blow up beyond the Direct Market)

41) The rest of Yann and Berthet’s Pin-Up (only translated up to vol 3) 

42) Complete George McManus Bringing Up Father/Maggie and Jiggs 

43) Milt Gross’ Count Screwloose   

44) Milt Gross’ Nize Baby (hell, all Milt Gross' comics work) 

45) Dave Breger’s Private Breger/Mr. Breger 

46) More Feiffer collections 

47) Nice editions of the early Dick Tracy  * (IDW/LAC, their first classic strip reprint)

48) New, affordable editions of Wash Tubbs & Captain Easy *(FBI did the Easy Sundays)

49) Complete Beyond Mars by Jack Williamson and Lee Elias * (IDW and some special edition from SF/Horror/Pulp publisher Haffner Press)