A full-colour retrospective and historical collection of comic strips, King Of Comics, 100 Years of King Features is available from IDW.
This volume has it all; First printed in August 2015, it introduces us to the very first published comic strips, and provides in-depth essays of the evolution of comic strips from 1915 to 2015, the hundredth year of King Features Syndicate.
Syndicated comic strips are pretty much taken for granted today, but when they first appeared, comic strips were enormously successful and influential in forming public opinion. The first appearance of Krazy Kat! Popeye! Flash Gordon! Beetle Bailey! Blondie! Prince Valiant! Hagar the Horrible! Barney Google and Snuffy Smith! Baby Blues! Mutt & Jeff! Zits! Juliet Jones! Buz Sawyer! Steve Canyon! Bizarro! Hi & Lois! Maggie & Jiggs! Johnny Hazard! and many more are documented here.
The volume contains sooo many comic strips to read that it would take you weeks to read through them all. Suffice to say that this is a valuable reference book, one that historians and comic strip fans will appreciate. Editor Dean Mullaney has assembled some really top notch material here. Many of the strips are reproduced from printed material, but there are examples of original art from time to time too.
IDW, King of Comics, 100 Years of King Features, $39.99 for 308 pages. All ages
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