Scorchy Smith Question

[Slam_Bradley]

Anybody know if Scorchy has been reprinted since the Nostalgia Press books in the late 70s?

I didn a super quick search and didn't find anything. But I have a ton of court and my web-fu sucks.

Any help greatly appreciated.

[Rob Allen]

This was in my "fun links" thread:

On the subject of future projects, since we've already sent the solicitation info to our book distributor, I can announce that in June 2008, I will release an oversized, 11" x 11" hardcover: SCORCHY SMITH AND THE ART OF NOEL SICKLES through IDW. It will contain the complete Sickles Scorchy for the first time ever, plus about 60 pages of Sickles's magazine and other illustrations.

[Slam_Bradley]

This was in my "fun links" thread:

That's outstanding, Rob. Appreciate it.

I was going to bid on some Nostalgia Press books...now I'll just wait for this one.

[TheHistorian]

The only other spot for significant reprints was some of Kitchen Sink's Steve Canyon magazines.

But yeah, at this point, just wait for the new book.

[DJ Sloofus]

You can actually get some Scorchy Smith reprints from Big Fun comics, which puts out about an issue a year or so. You can get it from Ken Pierce: http://www.kenpiercebooks.com/bigfun.htm, which is a great place to get tons of old strip reprints. I'm currently working my way through the Smilin' Jack and Kerry Drake reprints.

The stories reprinted in Big Fun are the very last of Sickles' work for the strip, I think. They are the only ones I've read, so I wouldn't be too sure. Regardless, that is great news about the upcoming book. I can't wait for that! Will this book reprint the entirety of Sickles' run? I really wasn't sure how long he worked on it.

[TheHistorian]

Yes, I believe it will reprint the entire Sickles run of three years.

[Ryan K]

My copy of Scorcyh Smith and the Art of Noel Sickles from IDW's Library of American Comic came in the mail yesterday, and it is absolutely gorgeous!

http://www.raggedclaws.com/home/images/amazon/scorchysmith.jpg

It's 11x11 and from what I can tell the same quality as IDW's Terry and the Pirates books (in other words - awesome).

As advertised, the book comes with a "biographical essay" on Sickles by Bruce Canwell. They're stretching the definition of essay here. It's 140 pages with 8 chapters! It's practically a whole other book! Included in those 140 pages is "the art" portion of the above title. Tons and tons of examples of Sickles' magazine work and more. Hell there's even a half dozen or so fold out pages so the art can be presented large scale! Just beautiful stuff.

Then you have the 230 odd pages of Scorchy Smith. All of Sickles' run (plus a couple pages of John Terry and Bert Christman's Scorchy Smith - Sickles predecesor and successor respectively, for comparison's sake).

I probably spent and hour and a half yesterday just pouring over the art in the "essay" portion of the book and reading the introduction and preface. I want to finish the volume of Terry and the Pirates I'm reading before jumping into this book, but already I can tell you that if you're even remotely interested in this book, it's well worth the price. And at $31 on Amazon, it's a steal!