Wayne Markley

by Wayne Markley

I thought I would do something different with this week’s blog and talk about things I wish would change in the world of comics, if I had three wishes. Some of these are completely blue sky ideas that will never happen and it is not even reasonable to expect them to ever happen. Others are possible and are things I would like to see. I decided to write this because it is a great time to be a comic book reader or fan. There is an amazing amount of quality and diverse material out there, in terms of content and creators. I would like to hear from the readers of this blog about what you would like to see. What would you see as the ideal of comic books? Be it specific characters or certain creative teams on your favorite character, I want to know.

BOOM! Studio’s Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories Archives Vol. 1

One thing I have always wanted to see, and I almost got to, is a complete reprinting of Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories. BOOM! announced a plan to reprint all of these classic comics, and they got out the first volume reprinting the first two issues of WDC&S, but then they lost the Disney license. I want to see this not because of the best know reason, Carl Bark’s duck stories. These ten page Donald Duck stories have been completely collected in sequence already by Gladstone (and most of these are out of print) and Fantagraphics is currently collecting them in a series of hardcovers, which are beautiful and still in print. But there is so much material not collected. Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories was an anthology title which not only featured Barks’ Ducks, but also Paul Murry’s Mickey Mouse, Scamp by Al Hubbard, Chip and Dale, Gremlins by Walt Kelly, and tons of other minor characters from the Disney universe. Reading these stories in order is less important than it is in reading Marvel comics in sequencew history, but it would be nice to read the stories in order for historical reasons. Plus,the Mickey Mouse stories tended to run in three part arcs. Recently, IDW announced they would bring back Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories, along with Mickey Mouse, Uncle Scrooge, and others. Would it be too much to hope that they might also pick up BOOM!’s attempt to reprint the complete WDC&S? I hope they do.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #5

I would also wish that he big two publishers, Marvel and DC, would focus on telling good single issue stories and not epic tales that go on for years, or at least six months, so they can be collected. Marvel has been slightly better at this with recent titles like The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and even the recent Spider-Man spin off, Silk. They both feature solid storytelling that is fun and stand alone. DC is launching a number of titles this summer and they are promising these will be fun and story driven. I hope so, but based on recent history and talking with a number of creator friends that still work at DC, I have my doubts. In this same vein, I wish Marvel and DC would drop the huge massive crossovers, such as Spider-Verse or the up-coming Secret Wars, etc. As I wrote last time, I love a tight continuity as much as anybody, but a tight universe does not mean you need these overly padded and bloated crossovers. I have little to no hope you will see the big two drop these events, even if it for a limited time.

X-9: Secret Agent Corrigan Vol. 1

I have long been a huge fan of newspaper strips and I think IDW (and Fantagraphics) deserves high praise for their efforts to reprint classic newspaper strips. IDW has issued collections of Noel Sickles’ Scorchy Smith, The Complete Terry and the Pirates by Milton Caniff, the complete Secret Agent Corrigan by Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson And they are going back and reprinting the earliest Secret Agent X-9 strips by Alex Raymond which eventually became Secret Agent Corrigan. I hope they someday reprint all the strips between Raymond and Williamson, that would be a ton of material but it would be great to see. The ongoing complete Rip Kirby collections have reprinted all of Alex Raymond’s stories and now they are working their way through John Prentice’s amazing work. They have also done a number of reprints of Archie newspaper strips and they are currently reprinting all of DCs Newspaper strips, having done Wonder Woman: The Complete  Dalilies and they are working through the Batman and Superman strips through the decades. All of IDWs collections are beautiful and well designed. Almost all of these books have been done under the watchful eye of Dean Mullaney. I cannot sing his praises high enough. Alas, and this is where my wish come in, there are hundreds of newspaper strips out there that are lost to time or have been long forgotten about. I realize that it is not economically viable to reprint all of these strips, but I would love to see a website where you could access all of the newspaper strips over the years in one place and could print them out for your reading pleasure. I would love to see strips like Dragnet, Ellery Queen, and numerous strips I cannot even begin to list. I envision this site as a pay sight, with a monthly fee, but it allows (through a gate keeper?) fans to scan and contribute their own collections to the site. I have a number of friends who have clipped and saved 1000s of strips over the years, but you will only see them by visiting them at their homes. It is such a shame. There is such a wealth of material out there that has no way to be seen by a broader audience. While technically I think this is a fairly simple idea, I do not think it will ever happen because for it to become reality you would have to deal with a huge number of licensees and copyright owners, and the desire for money over the joy of sharing the art. Also, there is the issue of the time it would take for all the fans to contribute to the site and get it going. Perhaps I am the only one that would love to see this, but I can dream can’t I?

These are just a three of my wishes for the world of comics. I think each of these ideas has various degrees of becoming reality, but I do not have high hopes to see any of them in my lifetime.

All of these wishes are mine and in no way reflect the thoughts or opinions of Westfield Comics or their employees. I am sure the Westfield staff would have their own wishes for the comics industry. I welcome and encourage you to share what you would like to see in an ideal world. Please post comments below or on Facebok. You can contact me at MFBWAY@aol.com with questions or suggestions. I hope you enjoyed reading this and as always,

Thank you.