I haven't heard anything in the way of release dates yet, but Dean Mullaney at IDW is putting together a complete collection of Jack Kent's great comic King Aroo. I really don't have a lot to say except that Kent's work is really charming and it WORKS so well. Completely unpretentious but very smart.
Here's a Sunday from the mid 50s:
And here's a daily I was lucky to get off of ebay (scanned in color so you can see Kent's blue line work):
King Aroo lasted from 1950 through the mid 60's--a pretty long run by today's standards, but when talked about historically it's always considered a strip that got cut off in its youth. Only one reprint book ever came out during its run--covering much, but not all, of the first year. Rick Marschall's NEMO reprinted a fantastic surreal run of dailies in the 80s, and Tom Devlin edited a collection of Sunday's for an oversize Comics Journal special a few years ago (using Sundays from my collection, I'm collector-proud to add.) But all that adds up to a small fraction of the run of the strip.
I haven't used this spottily updated blog to plug anything until now, but if you like good cartooning, you should really check out this reprint series when it comes out!
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
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