Posted in: Comics, IDW | Tagged: captain action, idw, Jim Shooter, scott dunbier, wally wood

How Captain Action Had To Make Its Own Fake Ads

Published Sat, 18 Dec 2021 11:11:15 -0600

Scott Dunbier, Director of Special Projects at IDW Publications has been showing off an upcoming Captain Action collection, as well as a solution to something from the comic books that he wasn't able to reprint.

The Captain Action collection is coming in May. The comics, five of them, were published in the late 1960s. Jim Shooter wrote the first two, Gil Kane 3-5. The Art on the first issue was all Wally Wood, 2-5 were drawn by Kane (with Wood inking three of those, the other Kane inked himself). This is the first time the series has ever been collected. Initially the book was going to use BW scans from Australian reprints, and then colored following the original coloring. But at the 11th hour (or maybe 10th), something extraordinary happened. An old friend reached out to tell me he had heard about the book and wanted to know if it would help if I had first generation stats of the original film (in essence, as good as the original art). To make a long story a little shorter, two days later I had the stats and scanned them. Those stats made Captain Action a much better book. The paper will not be a shiny gloss, and my friend Len O'Grady suggested adding a tint to the paper to closer approximate the look of a 1960s comic.

One more thing, a cool bit of process stuff—in that time period DC (and Marvel) would run half page ads throughout their comics. The five issues of Captain Action had a total of 11 of these. Rather than leave these spaces blank, or insert CA logos, I thought it would be a cool idea to create retro style ads. Michael Polis, of Captain Action Enterprises, dove head first into this and created 10 awesome fake ads, two of which I am showing here. The 11th ad is a real vintage ad from back in the day. Aside from all this, Mark Waid wrote a wonderful introduction for the series. Special thanks to Joe Ahearn and Ed Catto, also from Captain Action Enterprises. Last but not least, my designer Peter Carlsson did a terrific job on this project… It took a while but I think we got it right. Don't forget to let your retailer know if you want a copy!

Here's the Diamond listing…

CAPTAIN ACTION CLASSIC COLL HC
IDW PUBLISHING
DEC210508
(W) Larry Hama (A) Various (CA) Daniel Maine
The CAPTAIN ACTION comic, based on the classic action figure, has been out of print for more than 50 years. Written by Jim Shooter and Gil Kane, drawn by Kane and Wally Wood-a legendary roster of talent if there ever was one-and containing the origin of Captain Action and Action Boy and featuring their arch-nemesis, the diabolical Doctor Evil!
All five original issues are collected in this volume and have been meticulously scanned from crisp first generation stats, and painstakingly recolored (using the original comics as guides), beautifully representing a long-lost treasure!In Shops: May 18, 2022
SRP: $29.99

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