Calling Dick Tracy…Again: Shaking Up the Reprint Game

Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy has been among the most reprinted strips of all time. The reasons are obvious, and I don’t need to rehash this site’s exegesis on my personal favorite. Tracy was the strip that turned me on to classic newspaper comics. Gould’s singular visual signature, his grisly violence, grotesque villains and deadpan hero made Dick Tracy compelling on so many levels. And now we get yet another packaging style from the same Library of American Comics group that finished its magisterial 29-volume complete Gould run, 1931-77. With new publishing partner Clover Press, LOAC has reworked some of its earliest projects, like the magnificent upgrade of Terry and the Pirates and the first six volumes of The Complete Dick Tracy. And now we get slipcased, paperback editions of prime-time Gould, 1941 through 1944. Much more affordable, manageable, and available than the original LOAC volumes, each of which covered about two years of comics, the four $29.99 books are also available as a discounted set from Clover. This new series started as a crowd-funded BackerKit project last year.

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2025 Comic Reprints: Rediscovering Lost Classics

We have already reviewed some of the major 2025 comic reprint releases from major publishers: the reissue of Sunday Press’s Society is Nix, the anniversary celebrations of  Peanuts, Hagar and Beetle Bailey as well as Cathy, and the resurfacing if Rea Irvin’s The Smythes. But this year saw a number of self-publishers bring back everything from Sky Masters of the Space Patrol to Milt Gross. I wanted to devote one round-up that highlights these laudable efforts and the often-obscure treasures they have unearthed.

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Shelf Scan: Celebrating Peanuts, Beetle Bailey, Hagar and Donald

Before Thanksgiving and the shopping season overcomes us, let’s make sure we start our annual Panels & Prose quick takes on recent books for comic strip fans. The pile of new releases is high and teetering, so let’s break this down into several posts this week and next. Today, we handle the celebratory and anniversary collections involving Peanuts, Hagar, Beetle Baley. For a hands-on look at these books, look for the video “Quick Flip” at the end.

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Shelf Scan 2024: Reviving Calvin, Nancy, Flash, Mandrake and Popeye…Again.

There are now generations of young adults who have no memory of daily newspapers, let alone that back page and Sunday section of comics. Without that experience, I wonder how that legacy survives and continues to inspire everyday readers and young artists. If the volume of classic reprints this year is any indication, however, we graying lovers of newspapers past can’t be the only market for decades-old dailies. Many essential strips enjoyed fresh or continuing reprint projects this year that keeps the likes of Popeye, Nancy, Mandrake and more on current store shelves. Even the most reprinted strip of the last generation got revisited in 2024.

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Shelf Scan 2024: Necessary Reprints – From Anita Loos to Betty Brown

Moving through this year’s  shelf of notable titles for comics aficionados, I wanted to call out several projects that revived forgotten or previously uncollected work. From a pharmacist heroine to an illustrated prayer, the ultimate 20s flapper to a pioneer of cartoon journalism, 2024 surfaced some real gems.

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