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IDW Launches A New Premium Format – The Artisan Edition – For Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1

Published Tue, 01 Nov 2016 09:00:42 -0500

Last updated Wed, 02 Nov 2016 18:06:04 -0500

Scott Dunbier launched the Absolute Edition at DC Comics to republish the Authority comics by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch in a manner that outdid the then-impressive European oversized collections of the material. DC have published many Absolute Edition volumes since, and it was copied by all the big publishers as well.

When he was fired from DC Comics over issues related to the League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier book, he moved to IDW, where he innovated the Artists Edition format, reprinting original comic book pages of stories as close to the artwork as possible. Again, after many volumes at IDW, this was copied by everyone else.

And I detect his hand behind IDW's latest premium format, The Artisan Edition. Smaller in size, in a cheaper format, and at a $50 price point, it's made a more affordable original art version for the EC Work of Wally Wood and DC first issues of Jack Kirby.

And now, republishing just one issue of a comic book in the original art size format, but also including layout pages and other extras.

And the first comic to get this treatment? Why, it's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1, and out in May next year, 144 pages of it. Here's the listing.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Artisan Edition – Hardcover – May 30, 2017
by Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird $50

This book reproduces all the original art to the first issue of one of the most important comic book phenomenons of the last 35 years — The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Scanned directly from the original art, mimicking the experience of the original hand drawn page, and also collecting all the layouts (also hand drawn) by the creators of what has been called this generation's Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.

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