Lost and Found Dept. (Rediscovered Comics)
Skip to commentsComics Beat has a fascinating article on the recent
San Diego Comic-Con panel “Graphic Novels: Lost and Found.”
Panelists Gary Groth, Shannon Wheeler, Sean Michael Robinson, and Carson Grubaugh gathered virtually with moderator Rob Salkowitz to discuss their participation in stewarding these now “found” graphic novels to publication. In two cases, the modern creators actually finished the novels themselves in the spirit of the original creator’s vision.
Discussed are a couple books now available and a couple in the making.
New Yorker cartoonist and graphic novelist Wheeler was part of a creative team, including co-author Josh O’Neill and artist Gideon Kendall, who took the legendary Harvey Kurtzman’s concept of Marley’s Ghost and completed it.
Robinson, a publisher and creator, and Grubaugh, an artist and teacher, brought another lost graphic novel called The Strange Death of Alex Raymond to completion, this one from a still-living creator, Dave Sim.
The acclaimed Barry Windsor-Smith … began work on a graphic novel called Monsters in 1985, then worked on it continuously over 35 years.
Groth also discussed the unearthing and upcoming publication of the work of an unknown artist named Frank Jones, who lived from 1912 to 1978, and secretly drew 35 notebooks worth of comics, over 1800 pages! … Fantagraphics is distilling them down to the best 800-900 stories, to be called Wally World.
I have The Strange Death on order and still plan on getting Windsor-Smith’s Monsters,
but that last undiscovered-until-recently by an unknown cartoonist comic has me intrigued.
Kerry Vineberg for Comics Beat has the details.
Kip Williams
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