Library of American Comics Essentials HC (2012- IDW) comic books 2013-2015

Volume 2 - 1st printing. "Sidney Smith's The Gumps: The Saga of Mary Gold!"

Story and Art by Sidney Smith.

In the late 1910s, Sidney Smith developed a formula of the daily strip that would make The Gumps one of the most popular comics of the 1920s and himself one of the richest cartoonists of his day. By the end of the decade Sidney Smith's The Gumps had secured a huge and loyal audience with a decade of melodrama, adventure, mystery, and comedy. So devoted were his readers, in fact, that they regularly wrote in to offer advice for his characters' love lives and business decisions and they generally treated the characters as friends and family members. In 1928-29, with the launching of what would be his most famous story, "The Saga of Mary Gold," Smith's relationship to his readers would be tested as never before. Its heartbreaking conclusion would change comics forever. Here for the first time since the story made headlines across America in the spring of 1929 we reprint the saga that Hogan's Alley magazine called "One of the Ten Biggest Events in Comics History"-a tale that has lost none of its power to captivate readers in the 21st Century.

Hardcover (Horizontal Format), 11 1/2-in. x 4 1/2-in., 336 pages, B&W.

Cover price $19.99.

Volume 3 - 1st printing. "Polly and her Pals!"

Story and Art by Cliff Sterrett.

By the early 1930s Cliff Sterrett had transformed Polly and Her Pals into the world's premier surrealistic comic strip. Sterrett's Sunday pages (also being published by The Library of American Comics) have long been hailed as individual masterpieces, but his daily strips-due to their rarity-have eluded archivists for the past ninety years. The strips reprinted here-the complete year of 1933 dailies-show Sterrett at his most inventive!

Hardcover (Horizontal Format), 11 1/2-in. x 4 1/2-in., 336 pages, B&W.

Cover price $24.99.

Volume 4 - 1st printing. "1939: Alley Oop: The First Time Travel Adventure!"

Story and Art by VT Hamlin.

In 1939, Vincent Trout Hamlin had been writing and drawing the successful Alley Oop for more than five years. In Alley Oop, Hamlin created a unique concept, marrying his fascination with dinosaurs and prehistoric times to a rollicking style of storytelling and drawing that was simultaneously serious, fantastic, and loaded with slapstick. The series was set in the kingdom of Moo and starred Alley Oop, the club-wielding caveman, his girlfriend Ooola, friends Dinny the dinosaur and Foozy, and more! This volume features Oop's final Moo adventure, followed by his trips to the 20th Century and ancient Greece. Hamlin would send his characters everywhere and everywhen - but the classic Alley Oop begins with the stories contained in this volume.

Hardcover (Horizontal Format), 11 1/2-in. x 4 1/2-in., 336 pages, B&W.

Cover price $24.99.

Volume 5 - 1st printing. "1930: The Bungle Family!"

Story and Art by Harry J. Tuthill.

Art Spiegelman called The Bungle Family "the most underrated comic strip in our history." Bill Blackbeard wrote, "There has been nothing like it in comic strips since." Hogan's Alley magazine proclaimed, "The Bungle Family was about as wholly an adult comic strip as the field has ever known." Yet only sporadic examples of Harry J. Tuthill's masterpiece have been available to modern readers. Until now! This volume-collecting the complete 1930 dailies-remedies that situation.

Hardcover (Horizontal Format), 11 1/2-in. x 4 1/2-in., 336 pages, B&W.

Cover price $24.99.

Volume 6 - 1st printing. "1917: Baron Bean!"

Story and Art by George Herriman.

The New York Journal of Books says that the first volume of LOAC Essentials (Baron Bean 1916) "sets the standard for archival and reprint quality." The Washington Times writes that it's "beautiful. It showcases Mr. Herriman's developing style and his move toward a combination of absurdity, surrealism, and art deco." Volume Six presents the second year of George Herriman's much-lauded pre-Krazy Kat masterpiece.

Hardcover (Horizontal Format), 11 1/2-in. x 4 1/2-in., 328 pages, B&W.

Cover price $29.99.

Volume 7 - 1st printing. "1929: Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan of the Apes!"

Story and Art by Hal Foster and Rex Maxon.

The first 300 daily Tarzan comics ever produced, all in one place! LOAC Essentials brings you all of Hal Foster's first comics work, reproduced from ERB's syndicate proofs. In addition, this book includes "The Return of Tarzan," "Beasts of Tarzan," and "Son of Tarzan," each drawn by Rex Maxon.

Hardcover (Horizontal Format), 11 1/2-in. x 4 1/2-in., 328 pages, B&W.

Cover price $29.99.