Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates | Tagged: Comics, HRL

Bringing Back The Floppy Comic For The Battle Of Dunkirk

Drew Ford writes for Bleeding Cool:

I have involved myself in a comic book experiment! In the past, both through Dover Publications and my new imprint IT'S ALIVE!, I have put together collections. Whether it was comic books or graphic novels, I found a way to edit the work together into new collections, giving old fans a chance to revisit their old favorites, and new fans to the ability to discover the work for the first time. And I think I've done a decent job of picking stuff to put back on the shelves. The response from both fans and the press has been very positive, and I even received two Eisner Award nominations along the way. But there's been something I wanted to do for a long time now, which I haven't had the chance to do: I wanted to publish actual floppy comic books!

Now, like a few colleagues I shared this idea with early on, you are probably thinking that I have set my reprints aside to work on new comic books. But that's simply not the case. My plan is to take a select group of comic books from many decades ago, and put them back in readers' hands. Not in collections, however, but as good ol' floppy comics!

The idea came from time spent reading through gobs of old Sam Glanzman comics. I was sitting there, flipping through them, thinking how well they work as floppies. And I started thinking how cool it would be to see an actual Sam Glanzman comic book back on the shelves of my local comic shop. The collections are important, and I am so grateful to have been able to get them made and in the stores, but at the end of the day, Sam Glanzman started out making comic books, and it made me sad that so many readers from this and future generations would never get a chance to experience his work in its original form. And although Sam sadly passed away recently, I had discussed this idea with him and his wife in previous months, and they both gave me the thumbs-up.

The idea kept kicking around in my head, but I wasn't sure if anyone else would feel the same. Then one day, I was talking to a retailer who told me about some online conversation that took place involving a bunch of retailers. They were all wishing that publishers would put out floppies that had stand alone stories, so you wouldn't have to read ten other comics to understand what is going on in the one you are reading. They also hoped for comics longer than 20 pages. And they claimed it would be OK to put a premium price on something like that (as long as it had nice paper and thick covers), because — and this was the biggie — this type of comic book has a much longer shelf life than the monthlies that come and go so quickly. So I hit him up with this idea of mine, and he was completely on board! Of course, his support wasn't a guarantee by any means, but I did feel like I was on to something…so I gave myself permission to make it happen!

Therefore, a few days ago, I launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds necessary to publish an issue of Sam Glanzman's COMBAT, that has been out of print since the 1960s! Never one to miss an opportunity for extra press, I decided that the first issue of COMBAT I would bring back into print is the one that contains the story of Dunkirk. Yes, I am aware that a movie by the same name just came out from heavy-hitting director Christopher Nolan. And if it causes a few extra people to pay attention to a Dunkirk comic book, that's great! Remember, this is an experiment. I'll take any shot at extra exposure I can get.

Back to the comic book! This issue of COMBAT, featuring the story of Dunkirk, is of course a true story from WWII. All the stories in issues of COMBAT are from WWII. The story itself is just shy of 30 pages, and you even get a four-page back-up story, along with two more one pagers. Then there's an essay about a key player from the battle of Dunkirk, and a few surprises not found in the original comic from the 1960s.  Of course, we will include the original cover art (in the back of the book), and I've even threatened to include a letters column (several hard core war comic fans, and Glanzman fans, have told me they would love to write letters for a column, for this new issue of COMBAT.

Oh, and if all that wasn't enough, we are lucky enough to have a brand-new cover for this Dunkirk issue of COMBAT, illustrated by Walter Simonson! For each issue of COMBAT, we will produce a new standard cover using Glanzman's interior art (seen here and on the campaign page), and what you might call a variant cover by another artist. The variant is very limited, as to encourage fans to pick it up from the Kickstarter. We are only printing 150 copies of the Simonson cover, and he will only sign 50 of them. So if you want one of these, I would encourage you to go grab one sooner than later from the Kickstarter page.

Future issues of COMBAT (if the initial Kickstarter is funded, and the experiment proves to be a success) will sport limited edition variant covers by a variety of artists, including Russ Braun, Timothy Truman, Billy Tucci, Dave Dorman…and living legend Russ Heath!

Just so everyone knows, I will be cleaning up the artwork on every page of COMBAT: Dunkirk. Each panel will be color and text corrected, and it will be printed on matte paper to give it a really nice look and feel.  It's important to present these comics in a way that will excite and even wow people. So that's what I am shooting for. Take a look at this sample of a page that has been cleaned up and color corrected. Original is on the left, cleaned-up version on the right.

There are 26 issues of COMBAT in total, and Sam Glanzman illustrated every last one of them. I am hoping that the idea of a standalone story about WWII, with brilliant, gritty art from a master like Glanzman, and a new cover by Walter Simonson, will be enough to encourage a few of you to throw us a pledge. And if enough of you do this, we can publish the Dunkirk issue of COMBAT. And if even more of you do this, we can eventually republish all 26 issues! But I guess I shouldn't get ahead of myself. Let's try and get this first issue published, and see where it takes us!

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