Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune: The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips Vol. 2 (1936-1937)
by Roy Crane

144-page full-color 10.5" x 14.75" hardcover • $39.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-391-0

Ships in: June 2011 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now

This second of four volumes reprints in full color the rare Captain Easy Sunday pages from the 1930s. Roy Crane’s Soldier of Fortune, Captain Easy, fights for gold in the frozen north, is mistaken for a bandit, protects a formula for artificial diamonds, is stranded on a desert island, visits the tiny Balkan country of Kleptomania, and faces a firing squad. Captain Easy hobnobs with millionaires and bums and beautiful girls (of course), and winds up in the middle of a full scale war. In short, it’s another rousing series of adventure and humor encapsulating the gallantry, derring-do, and rough-and-tumble innocence of a bygone era and a bygone genre, written and drawn with panache, and practically painted in a vibrant spectrum of colors that you have to see to believe.

Special features of this volume include a foreword by series editor Rick Norwood, an illustrated introduction by fellow cartoonist and Crane aficionado Paul Pope, an essay by the late Bill Blackbeard, and a gallery of rare Captain Easy comic book covers.

Long before the first superhero, Roy Crane’s courageous, indomitable, and cliff-ganging rough guy served as the template for characters that later defined comic books, and set the aesthetic standards for the newspaper strip. Crane’s mastery is why Peanuts creator Charles Schulz said of him (circa 1989): "A treasure. There is still no one around who draws any better."

Download a 10-page PDF excerpt (5.6 MB).

Video & Photo Slideshow Preview (view in new window):

Exclusive Savings: Order Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune Vols. 1 and 2 together and save 20% off the combined cover price!

Our weekly strips from Kupperman & Weissman, plus links to other strips from around the web:

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Up All Night by Michael Kupperman (view at original size):

Barack Hussein Obama by Steven Weissman (view at original size):

And elsewhere:

Amazing Facts... and Beyond! with Leon Beyond by Kevin Huizenga:

Belligerent Piano by Tim Lane:

Ectiopiary by Hans Rickheit:

Maakies by Tony Millionaire:

Mugwhump the Great by Roger Langridge (at Act-i-vate):

Smashing Crayons by Steve Brodner at SlateV:

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Review: "21: The Story of Roberto Clemente brings together comics and baseball, two of America's most popular conveyers of epic mythology. Author Wilfred Santiago also incorporates elements of classical and avant-garde jazz in his sinuously illustrated narrative of Clemente's life. It takes an imagination as rich as Mr. Santiago's to tap into various mythological languages to tell the Pittsburgh Pirate's iconic story... Instead of dwelling on sources of obvious resentment, Mr. Santiago defaults to illustrating Clemente's humanity. We're treated to close-ups of his most noble and ignoble moments. The artist refuses to treat him like a plastic saint, because a perfect Clemente would make boring reading, indeed. ...Wilfred Santiago has done as good a job as anyone ever has in reintroducing the longtime Pittsburgh Pirate to a new generation." – Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

• Review: "You’d be hard-pressed to find a more downright affable character than blithely blitzed Larrybear, the young female focus of Leslie Stein’s ongoing semiautobiographical comic [Eye of the Majestic Creature ], whose first four issues are collected here.... Stein gives us the slackerly, star-eyed alternative to a cadre of 'misanthropic, self-pitying comics about unappreciated cartoonists,' as Tom De Haven characterized it... But where the aforementioned Crumb-descended misanthropes have all more or less grown up, Stein’s Larrybear is a naïve woman on the verge of Whatever, a cute Candide floundering about in an increasingly complicated world. ...[T]his book [is] such a pleasure..." – Richard Gehr, The Comics Journal

• Review: "Lewis Trondheim is one of the world’s best cartoonists.... Approximate Continuum Comics is some of Trondheim’s earliest autobiographical work, dating mostly from 1993 and 1996. If you’re read his more recent slivers of life observations... then you already know the sublime wit and casual self-deprecation of Trondheim’s cartooning. Approximate Continuum Comics is where that [tack] begins." – Michael C. Lorah, Newsarama

• Review: "Love from the Shadows is a very strange story. Surreal is such an overused word, but it is the best description I can come up with to describe the tone of the work. There is a disjointed, dream-like progression to the narrative.... As with so much of Hernandez's work, it is beautifully illustrated. The art is suffused with emotion and atmosphere and eroticism. The work Hernandez does is a critical component to his examining all of the societal, psychological, and sexual issues. …Love from the Shadows [is] an intriguing, offbeat story that is open to examination and interpretation. …Love from the Shadows is an intellectually stimulating read. And the artwork is magnificent." – Benjamin Herman, Associated Content

• Review: "The Littlest Pirate King is a wonderful phantasmagoria, as likely to entertain a ten year old as a thirty year eight year old (and I say this having had the book pulled off my lap and spirited away by my own ten year old). There is a lovely innocence to proceedings, a seemingly uncalculated desire to thrill and chill and transport... that has had me flicking back through the book a good dozen times since I’ve read it. This is the kind of book that got me reading books when I was a wee nipper, and it’s the kind of book that keeps me reading now that I’m the furthest possible thing from a wee nipper." – Bookmunch

• Review: "Blazing Combat is a book I'm quite proud to have in my collection. It's a work of art, has a message that's strong even over 40 years after the material was first created, and I'll come back to this at least once every few years." – Philip Reed, BattleGrip

• List: Library Journal's Martha Cornog gathers recommended graphic novels dealing with themes of Health & Medicine, including:

Special Exits by Joyce Farmer: "An excellent alert for those new to the path (for themselves or for relatives) and a validation for those already familiar with this normal yet seemly so abnormal life stage."

Alex by Mark Kalesniko: "This exploration of depression, futile escapism, and the healing power of art has been described as a difficult read but very funny."

Giraffes in My Hair: A Rock 'n' Roll Life by Bruce Paley & Carol Swain: "Hanging out here and crashing there, Paley narrates vignettes of debauchery and daily life in a Woodstock version of American Splendor. Partner Swain's smudgy, black-and-white drawings carry his grimy, nostalgic account."

Mother, Come Home by Paul Hornschemeier: "An exquisitely written and beautifully drawn exploration of grief."

Rip M.D. by Mitch Shauer, Mike Vosburg et al.: "A 'full-color, all-ages adventure' with an animated cartoon series in development, and a promising bet for reluctant readers."

• List: Robot 6's Chris Mautner names "Six noteworthy debut comics," saying of R. Kikuo Johnson's Night Fisher "this tale of disaffected adolescence and drug dealing in Hawaii is certainly compelling and suggests that Johnson is an artist capable of producing great work. Unfortunately, he has yet to follow up on that initial promise. But Night Fisher still marks him as an artist to watch out for."

• Profile: Time Out Chicago's Web Behrens catches up with Paul Hornschemeier: "'It is one of those names: You’re destined to either be a writer or scientist,' says local author-artist Paul, the man both blessed and saddled with the brainy surname. 'You’re not going to be a rock star with a name like Hornschemeier.'"

It's been a while since we featured a fan tattoo here, and here's a good one: a somewhat-faded old-school Lloyd Llewellyn, surrounded by a more recent banner that reads "Commemorating 15 Years Of This Tattoo." That may be the first meta-tattoo I've ever seen. Thanks to Joe Garden, who works behind the scenes at The Onion, for sending this in.

Today's Online Commentary & Diversions:

• Plug: "Drawn in expressionistic black, white, and Pirates gold, this biography of the slugger and humanitarian [21: The Story of Roberto Clemente]... drives home the impact he had on fans and friends." – Dan Kois, Vulture — New York

• Commentary: At his Sekvenskonst blog, Joakim Gunnarsson examines Buz Sawyer Vol. 1: The War in the Pacific by Roy Crane from a production & restoration standpoint, and the book's editor Rick Norwood provides some explanation and context in the comments section

nadel | clowes from chris anthony diaz on Vimeo.

Our biggest Bay Area booster Chris Diaz has passed along this video for us to share with you: the Daniel Clowes spotlight panel at last year's Alternative Press Expo, with host/inquisitor Dan Nadel. It's an epic Dan-à-Dan! Chris has some more great clips up on his Vimeo page too. Thanks Chris!

Well here's a pretty sweet illustration gig: Paul Hornschemeier's cover for the super-buzzy book The F***ing Epic Twitter Quest of @MayorEmanuel, which collects the super-buzzy @MayorEmanuel Twitter feed. Paul talks a bit about it on his blog.

Zak Sally's Kickstarter project for his self-published, self-printed edition of Sammy the Mouse Vol. 1, collecting the first 3 Ignatz Series issues, has met its funding goal with plenty of time to spare! You still have 16 days to put in your pledge, and you'll be guaranteed a copy of the book and some great pledge incentives at various funding levels. Happy news!

We thought that the image on the inside covers of the new book by Jason & Fabien Vehlmann, Isle of 100,000 Graves, might make a spiffy desktop background image... and we were right! Things are about to get real interesting for this band of bored, presumably tipsy pirates. Just click on the size that matches your monitor resolution and the image will open in a new window; if you're on a PC, right-click the image and select "Set As Background"; if you're on a Mac, control+click and select "Set As Desktop Background." For lots more wallpaper selections, find recent ones here and older ones here.

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Isle of 100,000 Graves
by Jason and Fabien Vehlmann

56-page full-color 7.25" x 10.25" softcover • $14.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-442-9

Ships in: May 2011 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now

Five years ago, little Gwenny’s father found, inside a bottle, a map with instructions on how to reach the mysterious Isle of 100,000 Graves and its legendary treasures — and then he vanished. Now Gwenny, having stumbled across another bottle-shipped map, enlists the dubious help of a shipful of pirates, sets out to find the island, and her long-lost dad.

Little does she realize that the Isle comes by its ominous name honestly, as the location of a secret school for executioners and torturers, where apple-cheeked youngsters are taught the finer points of extracting information from prisoners… and then putting an end to their lives in a wide variety of gruesome ways. And they’ve reached the point in their studies where theory should ideally give way to practice, so an influx of uninvited visitors comes as a blessing to the faculty.

And yes, this story is a comedy. Albeit a dark one.

For the first time in his career, Jason has enlisted a writer: Fabien Vehlmann. (Vehlmann has written a number of graphic novels for the French and American markets, including an installment of the legendary Spirou series and the three-volume Green Manor continuity, of which two volumes have been released in English.) Vehlmann has managed to interiorize Jason’s deadpan style and wit perfectly, creating a uniquely smooth and successful collaboration.

Download a 6-page PDF excerpt (<1 MB).

Video & Photo Slideshow Preview (view in new window):

Exclusive Savings: To celebrate the new book from Jason and give some recognition his undersung regular colorist Hubert, we are pleased to offer 25% off all of Jason's other full-color books for the rest of the month! Browse all Jason books here.