Hermes Press has announced its publication of complete reprints of all of the classic Irwin Allen TV show comic book adaptations starting with a deluxe hardcover, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea: The Complete Series Volume One in February of 2009.  In July of 2009 Hermes will publish a trade paperback collecting the two issues of The Time Tunnel comic book.  The second volume of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea comics is slated for December of 2009 along with The Fantasy World of Irwin Allen, a coffee-table style art book detailing the behind-the-scenes production designs, special effects, and histories of Allen’s classic TV science fiction series (including Lost in Space).  Hermes will complete its series Irwin Allen-based comic reprints in February of 2010 with the release of a hardcover edition of The Complete Land of the Giants comic books.

The 208-page Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea: The Complete Series Volume 1 ($49.99) is a deluxe 8.5”x11” hardcover (with dust jacket) that reprints the first eight issues of the Gold Key comic book series featuring Admiral Nelson, Captain Crane and the Seaview.  The volume also includes documentary material about the TV show including production designs and information on the special effects (especially that rocking stage effect that shook the Seaview and crew during almost every episode).  The comics themselves have been digitally remastered to show off the artwork to great effect—and the books featured some excellent Silver Age talents such as cover artist George Wilson and pencillers Mike Sekowsky, Don Heck, George Tuska, and Alberto Giolitti.

AmericanLife TV, the cable network devoted to courting the baby boom generation, has been showing Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants in a Thursday night science fiction block (see “American Life to Air Classic Sci-Fi Block”).

Note that Hermes Press did not announce that it would be reprinting the Lost in Space comic book series that was published in the 1990s by Innovation and written by Bill Mumy, who play Will Robinson in Lost in Space.  The 18-issue Innovation series was set years after the end of the TV series and featured older characters.  There was a Gold Key comic book series named Space Family Robinson, but it was published prior to debut of Lost in Space so it was not a spin-off (though to further complicate matters once Lost in Space was a hit on TV Gold Key managed to work out a deal to add “Lost in Space” to the Space Family Robinson comic as a sub-title).