Dean Mullaney of The Library of American Comics has informed ICv2 that IDW’s collection of legendary comic strip artist Noel Sickles’ Scorchy Smith strips will contain 40 pages of additional material plus three 22” x 11” foldouts.  Mullaney told ICv2: “Because we located so much never-before-seen bravura art work by Sickles in his archives at Ohio State and from individual collectors, I’ve added 40 pages to the book…and the introductory material has now mushroomed to 140 pages and includes over 200 examples of Sickles art…all at no increase in cover price."

Scorchy Smith and the Art of Noel Sickles ($49.99) includes all 900 Scorchy Smith daily strips.  Although largely unknown today, Noel Sickles was one of the most influential comic strip artists of the 1930s.  His cinematic storytelling, fluid line work and dramatic lighting effects had a major influence on his studio mate Milton Caniff (see “IDW to Publish Noel Sickles’ ‘Scorchy Smith’”).  Because of the discovery of so much new material about Sickles’ career, Bruce Canwell’s first-ever biographical essay on Sickles has grown to 32,000 words.  Famed comic book artist Jim Steranko has written an introduction, analyzing Sickles’s work from the perspective of the artist.