This week's comic shop shipment is slated to include the following new titles. It's a great week if you like classic comic strips with adventure on the high seas! Read on to see what comics-blog commentators are saying about our releases this week, check out our previews at the links, and contact your local shop to confirm availability.
Buz Sawyer Vol. 1: The War in the Pacific
by Roy Crane
240-page black & white/color 9.25" x 9.25" hardcover • $35.00
ISBN: 978-1-60699-362-0
"Beginning another vintage reprint project for Fantagraphics, this time focused on Roy Crane’s post-Wash Tubbs/Captain Easy series, an initially Naval-themed strip he was given the opportunity to own for himself. I believe this 9.25″ x 9.25″ package is primarily dailies-based, with a selection of the strip’s more comedy-focused Sundays presented as fold-out images." – Joe McCulloch, Comics Comics
"A $35 Fantagraphics hardcover, collecting the first few years' worth of the daily incarnation of Roy Crane's oh-brother-I'm-a-buzzboy newspaper strip, 1943-1945." – Douglas Wolk, Comics Alliance
"Any extra money I find under the couch would go toward another comic strip collection, Buz Sawyer Vol. 1 by Roy Crane. I really enjoyed the first volume of Crane’s Captain Easy that Fantagraphics published last year, and am eager to experience Crane’s other big strip." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6
"It's a gorgeous collection of daily newspaper strips from the World War II-era." – Benn Ray (Atomic Books), Largehearted Boy
"…Roy Crane's Buz Sawyer HC Volume 1: The War in the Pacific… is more amazing stuff from the guy who brought you Captain Easy. […] This volume collects all of the dailies that were published during the War — in which Buz serves aboard an aircraft carrier, flies combat missions, crashes behind enemy lines and gets nabbed by a Japanese submarine — along with a selection of the best Sundays as fold-out pages. […] He also meets a bunch of beautiful women along the way, obviously." – The Gosh! Comics Blog
Popeye Vol. 5: "Wha's a Jeep?"
by E.C. Segar
168-page black & white/color 10.5" x 14.75" hardcover • $29.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-404-7
"Also in reprints, the latest in Fantagraphics’ line of huge E.C. Segar hardcovers." – Joe McCulloch, Comics Comics
"Thirty bucks gets you the penultimate volume of the huge, sturdy collections of E.C. Segar's final decade of Thimble Theatre, from Fantagraphics. […] I'll gladly pay you tomorrow for a Popeye book today, etc." – Douglas Wolk, Comics Alliance
"The most obvious choice (and easily the pick of the week for me) is Wha’s A Jeep, volume five of the classic E.C. Segar comic strip." – Chris Mautner, Robot 6
"Fantagraphics’ latest collection of E.C. Segar’s original Popeye strips is another gorgeous… tome, featuring Pappy, Swee’Pea and The Jeep." – J. Caleb Mozzocco, Newsarama
"If you've been hankering for some classic cartoon strips then Fantagraphics have just the ticket: Firstly, there's Popeye HC Volume 5: Wha's a Jeep? which means their spines along our shelves will now spell out POPEY as opposed to POPE — adjective; meaning 'Pope-like, or -ish' rather than just the dude himself." – The Gosh! Comics Blog
On both:
"Two handsome collections of very strong work by outright cartooning masters. The only reason you shouldn't be buying them today is because you pre-ordered them somewhere." – Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter
[Added more links/blurbs on 3/8.]