IDW has released a collection of DC Comics’ Superman comic strip Sunday pages, entitled The Atomic Age Sundays, Volume 3, 1956-1959.
This is the latest volume in the ongoing series of hardcover reprints, collecting the weekly color Superman Sunday comic strips. Previously collected volumes began with the year 1943.
Featured in this hardcover are 13 stories, continuing weekly from the years 1956-1959. All strips are illustrated by Wayne Boring, a veteran Superman comic artist since the 1940’s. Boring continued drawing Superman until the late 1960’s, then worked at Marvel Comics for a short time. While his art style seemed stiff and the poses repetitive in his later years, the work in this volume still shows some spark, with interesting figure compositions and poses.
The stories as printed here were paralleled in the monthly comics, as Mark Waid relates in his foreword… at times, a monthly comic story was simply redrawn to be presented in the weekly full page comics. At other times, it appears that the Sunday strip was the genesis for a story in the monthly comic.
Some of the stories were written by Batman co-creator Bill Finger, making these strips, though dated, interesting reading from a historical perspective.
Reproduction of the comics, in full color, is top notch. It doesn’t appear that the artwork was generated from simply scanning old newspapers. The colour is bright and clear, and registration on the colour is correct.
These are entertaining tales of magic, genies, and power-hungry politicians, intermingled with the antics of Lois Lane, who was determined to prove that Clark Kent was indeed Superman. Ah, it was a more innocent time, when Kryptonite was green, bad guys looked evil, and comic strip stories could have happy endings.
Also included in this volume is a short Cover Gallery, featuring the work of Wayne Boring.
IDW, The Atomic Age Sundays Volume 3, 1956-1959 HC $49.99 for 188 pages
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