Wednesday, October 06, 2004

Classics Illustrated Returns

I was just ruminating to myself the other day that gee, someone oughta revive Classics Illustrated as a series of manga-style paperbacks.

And lo and behold someone has. Byron Preiss & Penguin/Puffin are teaming up to do just that. Well, sort of. Hamlet will be in manga-style, while other titles will be done in other styles (I'm particualrly interested in seeing June Brigman do Black Beauty). (thanks to Rampage! for the link.)

I myself have fond memories of the the revived Classics Illustrated from First Comics ca. 1990-1991. These were comic-sized in what was then called 'prestige format', glassy squarbound 48-page books. Some of the adaptations it featured were: Moby Dick by Bill Sienkiewicz; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mike Ploog; The Secret Agent by John K. Snyder III; The Invisible Man by Rick Geary; Cyrano de Bergerac by Peter David & Kyle Baker; and The Jungle by Peter Kuper. Yeah, they weren't the same as actually reading the book, but they did make for a good summary of what the book was about and provided some excellent artwork. It will be interesting to see what comes of the the new Classics Illustrated, especially if they're being done with a longer page count and modern comics pacing.

Tonight I'm going to ruminate about getting $1,000,000. Wish me luck!

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