Writer/Artist/cover artist
V. T. Hamlin
Full Colour
128 pages
HC, 12” x 16”
Genre: Humor, Fantasy, Action/Adventure
Publication Date:
September 03, 2014
ISBN-10:1-61655-465-7
ISBN- 13: 978-1-61655-465-1
Price: $75.00
You can save 10% so the book costs $67.50 by ordering online
here:
Presenting the second in a series that collects, in chronological order, all
the full color Sunday pages of the classic newspaper strip! Go back in time to
the prehistoric kingdom
of Moo, and follow the
strange, hilarious and outlandish Stone Age antics of V. T. Hamlin’s intrepid
caveman, Alley Oop! This oversized volume collects every
Alley Oop
Sunday strip from 1936 through 1938!
* After over ninety years,
Alley Oop is still in publication!
* The strip has been commemorated in a hit song, a comics award statue, and
a US
postage stamp!
Whoah! This really is a big
book and the production on it is superb. Being British I never saw Alley Oop,
barring the odd glimpse of a US Army newspaper while in Germany as a
kid. Of course, the song “Alley Oop!” by
the Hollywood Argylles is a classic of the Rock ‘n’ Roll era…though thinking
through my senility I think I may
have mentioned that while reviewing volume 1!
This is not a super hero
book and for that reason, no doubt, some are going to ask “why” they should be
interested. Well, if that’s what you are
asking right now please leave.
As I’ve noted, I never
saw these Alley Oop strips though, after my review of volume 1, I did ask a
couple of people I know who are true comickers and collect newspaper
strips. They scanned (without cleaning
up) pages for me so that I could see the quality of the source as it were. Oh boy, grubby (we’re talking 1930s
newsprint) and very –VERY- “brittle” I was told. The pages were, coincidentally, the same as
some of those reproduced in this book.
What a difference –crisp and clean!
The problem is that if
you are a pop culture collector or just a newspaper strip collector getting
hold of original samples is going to cost you a lot of money! If you are a
comic fan/collector the same applies.
What the Dark Horse team has done is gather all the parts of the strip,
cleaned them to a near new quality and put them in a big volume that ought to
take pride of place in any collection.
Added to the first volume this has already become indispensible to comic
culture historians and $75.00 comes to around £46.00 so it might seem a bit
pricy but look at what you get!
Adding an extra shelf
with the space to put these is at your own expense –you can argue with your
wife or mum about where the shelf can go!
I’d highly recommend this
(and volume 1) to any collector.
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