March 2022 IDW Solicitations • Artist's Edition Index

With publishers leaving Diamond for Penguin Random House (PRH), the days of a neat and tidy solicitation from all the publishers are gone. Individual publisher’s listings will be posted on a monthly basis as I discover them. Links for pre-ordering the books will come later, so please watch this post of the main Index.

IDW and PRH have updated their solicitations, and three new AE format books have been listed.

Alex Toth’s Bravo For Adventure Artist’s Edition (New Printing)

Of every comic story Alex Toth ever drew, the only one that he kept the complete original art to was Bravo For Adventure. This Artist’s Edition is a virtual “how-to” course in drawing comics the Toth way. We see how he would draw all the detail in a scene, only to black it out in order to focus the reader’s eye on what really counted. “Simplify, simplify, simplify,” he said.

Also included are variant versions of the Bravo saga featuring Noah Chance and the experimental aircraft called Condor, plus dozens of never-before-seen pencil roughs, preliminary drawings, and story fragments, as well as all 12 pages of Toth’s own colouring for an edition that never saw print, and—freed from storage after 40 years—all of the colouring for what was intended to be Bravo’s original 1975 first printing in France!

Publication date: September 27, 2022
ISBN 978-1-68405-948-5
12″ x 17″
136 pages
$125 USD
Order online: Amazon, Things From Another World, Forbidden Planet

Dan DeCarlo’s Archie and Friends Artist’s Edition

Dan DeCarlo was the preeminent artist of Archie from the 1950s to the 1990s. And while DeCarlo was not the first to illustrate America’s favourite teenager, he is certainly the artist most associated with him!

This book, like all Artist’s Editions, will present DeCarlo’s work as it has never been printed before—with each page scanned from the original artwork and presented in the actual size it was drawn. And while the art appears to be in black and white, each image is actually shot in colour, allowing the reader to see all the subtle nuances and details that make original art so special—gradients in the inks, corrections, blue pencil notations, and so much more.

This book will be crammed full of complete stories, covers and pin-ups, from what many consider to be DeCarlo’s finest period, the mid-1960s to early 1980s. And while there will be lots of Betty and Veronica, we’ve also managed to track down some gorgeous examples of Josie and Sabrina as well. If you are a fan of Archie and Dan DeCarlo, then this is the book for you. The only way to better view these rare gems is if you were looking over Dan DeCarlo’s shoulder as he toiled at his drawing board!

Publication date: October 11, 2022
ISBN 978-1-68405-949-2
Dimensions not provided
160 pages
$150 USD
Order online: Amazon.com

This was pulled very quickly and is no longer on the Penguin Random House website. In an interview, Scott Dunbier said there were issues.

The Best of EC Stories Artisan Edition cover

The Best of EC Comics Artisan Edition

The Best of EC Comics Artisan Edition collects 25 of the finest stories ever produced by the legendary comics company. Every page has been scanned from the original art in colour—and while the art APPEARS to be in black and white, if you look closely, you will notice that blue pencil notations, ink gradients, corrections, duo-shade, and so much more is clearly visible—all the little nuances that make original art so beautiful and unique.

The stories in this volume truly represent the very best of what EC published—Wally Wood’s My World, Al Williamson’s Food for Thought, Alex Toth’s Thunderjet, Joe Orlando’s Judgment Day, Harvey Kurtzman’s Corpse on the Imjin, Bernie Krigstein’s Master Race, Jack Davis’ Foul Play, and so many more classics of the form—truly the cream of the crop, the best of the best.

And in the groundbreaking Artist’s Edition style, readers will be able to experience them as never before!