IDW Publishing's Library of American Comics, in conjunction with DC Entertainment, has announced plans to archive and collect the daily and Sunday color newspaper comic strips of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.
Arriving in July, the first volume in this new series will be Superman: The Silver Age Newspaper Dailies, Vol. 1: 1958-1961. With nearly 800 strips, this collection includes the iconic and classic, black and white Superman illustrations of Curt Swan, Wayne Boring, and Stan Kaye. At 288 pages, the 11"x8.5" hardcover retails for $49.99.
While fans have seen Superman dailies previously collected and reprinted, these earlier editions were nowhere near comprehensive. First appearing in 1939, the Superman newspaper comics ran for over 25 years, ceasing publication in 1966. The Library of American Comics is currently envisioning three major categories for the dailes--The Silver Age, The Atomic Age, and finally, The Golden Age. Furthermore, as the dailies and Sunday color strips had distinct stories, they will be released as separate, deluxe hardcover editions.
Unlike the Man of Steel, however, Batman and Wonder Woman did not fare nearly as well. Batman ran sporadically as both a daily and Sunday color strip. Entitled Batman and Robin in the 1940s and early 1950s, the strip saw a brief resurgence during the 1960s through the mid 1970s due in part to the popularity of the Adam West television series, and later again between 1989 and 1991 per the success of Tim Burton's first film adaptation. Although Batman maintained some longevity, Wonder Woman did not, and her strip ceased publication after only one year in 1944.
Covers for the Superman collections are being done by Pete Poplaski, who designed the covers for the original Kitchen Sink Press and Sterling Publishing paperback and hardcover editions of the Superman and Batman strips released in the 1990s and early 2000s. Tom DeHaven, author of Our Hero: Superman on Earth, is writing the foreword, while Sidney Friedfertig provides introductions to the strips.
In addition to its varied lineup of the multivolume biographical series Alex Toth: Genius Illustrated, collected editions of Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon strips, and numerous others, the Library of American Comics recently collected the Star Trek comics of the 1970s and 1980s (see "'Star Trek' Strip Collections").
--Nathan Wilson
