Alley Oop, Book 1

Yesterday I received the first book in the new Alley Oop reprint series titled "Book One - Dinny". It prints the first version of the strip that was syndicated by Bonnet-Brown Syndicate and ran for 20 weeks, 120 strips, from December 5, 1932 to April 24, 1933. That syndicate folded but fortunately the much bigger NEA syndicate picked it up and the rest is history. The first NEA strip is dated August 7, 1933 and Hamlin begins the story over with a slightly different slant, much like "Pogo" had two  different starts with its first syndicate folding and Walt Kelly starting over.  The reproduction is top notch and there had to been a lot of effort on the BB strips but they are crystal clear. A very good start to this series but I have a few quibbles; 1) the first volume is only 104 pages and that includes the title page, contents page and house ad. If you buy the first six books at $85, you can get the price down to $14 / book which is sort of okay. Personally, I would have preferred a bigger book with more pages at a higher price. 2) The BB strips come before the NEA which seems odd, given that they occurred first. But, overall, it is a welcome start to what will hopefully be ta complete reprinting of Hamlin's work.

I did not buy the Graue reprint but I'm sure it has the same quality.