The world of comic strip reprint collections has come a long way in recent years. Where it used to be that only the most famous and popular strips got significant reprint collections, the rise of print-on-demand technology has brought with it a number of small publishers eager to find interesting strips that have been overlooked by larger publishers. Now a group of those publishers have gotten together and made it easier to find these books by uniting behind a single website, StripReprints.com.
At the new website, readers will find a wide range of strip collections covering a century’s worth of material ranging from the pre-Popeye Thimble Theatre up to modern webcomics. Some of the strips are famous ones from mainstream newspapers, like the long-running Captain Easy, while others gather strips from less common sources – Black weeklies, trade papers, newsletters, etc. At launch, over a hundred different titles collecting over sixty different strips were listed on the site.
StripReprints.com is not a store. Instead, it’s a catalog where each book’s listing includes links on where to order it, usually from a print-on-demand service company like Lulu.com or Amazon. Volumes range from a $5.99 pamphlet up to big $80 hardcovers. Folks looking for some savings will find the current Lulu.com discount there, when available.
The initial publishers involved include About Comics, who have been issuing comics reprints since 1999; Classic Comics Press, who focus on runs of strips like Cisco Kid and Mary Perkins On Stage; Comic Strip Appreciation Group, who bring out complete collection series of classic strips like Oaky Doaks and Tailspin Tommy; JD Press, who recently launched with a reprint of a classic collection of Mopsy; Origin Comics, who have already announced a second volume in their Thimble Theatre reprint project; Smallbug Press, where cartoonist Charles Brubaker collects favorite strips from the last forty years; Homeworld Press which presents The Complete Annie by Leonard Starr; and Hogan’s Alley magazine has so far just issued one strip collection, The Complete Betty Brown, Ph.G.
The list of publishers and books is expected to keep growing. One of the advantages of print-on-demand publishing is the lack of “print runs”, which are the bane of strip book collection. Many a collectors start buying books in a reprint series only to find that earlier volumes are out of print, creating a situation where there’s enough demand to make the book quite expensive on the used book market, yet not enough to have a new printing done. While there are reasons why a print-on-demand book may be taken out of print at some point, by default books remain available. It only takes demand from one customer to print another copy.
