Huge Simon-Kirby omnibus on the way

Titan Books, publisher of the recent "Best of Simon and Kirby," has announced an upcoming 480-page volume that will reprint the duo's complete superhero comic output--minus comics they did for DC and Marvel.

That means a huge batch of stories featuring Fighting American, Lancelot Strong, The Fly The Stuntman and more.

Details:

The Simon and Kirby Superheroes will be released in summer 2010 in the special 11″ x 7-1/2″ oversized format, making it possible to reproduce the comic book pages in their original printed size. “Comics were larger in the Golden Age of the medium,” explained series editor Steve Saffel, “and we wanted to be able to give readers the full experience of these brilliant stories.” As with The Best of Simon and Kirby, the stories will be fully restored by Kirby historian Harry Mendryk, presented on quality matte stock paper in vivid color.

The edition will begin with the mysterious costumed hero The Black Owl from Prize Comics in 1940–the year Simon and Kirby first joined forces. It will include the big-top swashbuckler known as Stuntman, the Runyonesque adventurer The Vagabond Prince, the entire run of the cold-war patriot The Fighting American, and The Fly and Private Strong—the final Simon and Kirby collaborations before Jack Kirby moved over to help launch the Marvel Universe.

“What’s more, we’ve got some amazing surprises in store,” Saffel added. Restoration wizard Harry Mendryk will take the groundbreaking 1953 adventures of Captain 3-D and convert them to their original line art. These classic stories also feature artwork by Mort Meskin and a young Steve Ditko–who went on to co-create The Amazing Spider-Man at Marvel–and will be published in full color for the first time.

“Plus, with a little help from our friends, we’ve located a bunch of never-before-published pages starring Stuntman,” Saffel revealed. “Many of the pages are in the hands of private collectors, with others coming directly from the Joe Simon archives. As a result, we’ll be able to pull together nearly the entire story, ‘Stuntman Crowns a Jungle Lord,” and offer up other exciting features for the readers.”


Future volumes collecting Simon and Kirby's detective, horror and romance tales are also on the horizon.

You can learn more about Titan's ongoing Simon and Kirby projects here.

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