Moovians

Sometime back I posted about the Alley Oop Reprint Books. There are two separate series, one for the Hamlin strips and one for the Graue strips. I'm pretty sure there will never be a Bender book or, heaven forbid, Lemon / Sayers. The first six Hamlin books ran from the beginning of the strip through 1938 while the first six Graue books ran from 1974 through 1979. For the next set of Hamlin books, Chris Arrufo decided to skip ahead to 1954, which I liked because I had never read these strips. I have to say that all of the Hamlin books look great, and the Sunday strip book which include mid-1939 through the end of 1941 Sundays is absoltuely spectacular. It is clear that Chris loves Alley Oop and has done a tremendous job in presenting the material. Recently, the Strippers Guide Blog ran three articles that explains the laborious process that Chris went through to produce these magnificent books. Even if you have not bought any of thes books, I think you will find the articles interes...

 Chris Aruffo has announced that next year there will be 12 more Oop books published, six Hamlin and six Graue books. The Hamlin books cover the years 1954-1959 while the Graue booksreprint 1984-1989. Aruffo also announced that The third volume of Alley Oop Sundays (the first two were published by Dark Horse Comics) will appear later this year. Here is a sample and the colors look spectacular: More info at:  http://www.aruffo.com/alleyoop

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 ...

 Rick Norwood, editor of the long-running Comics Revue , announced on Facebook that he is doing a two-pronged approach to reprinting Alley Oop strips, with separate series for both V.T. Hamlin and Dave Graue. Here is the announcement:

In today's wacky find, Deve Graue answers twenty questions. Who out there knew his first name was really Fremont? This item is being auctioned on ebay for $150 so be sure to get your bid in.

I stumbled upon this on a 1993 Dave Graue letter on Pinterest. I had had no idea he had worked on any strip other than "Alley Oop".

Here's a short video clip where Dave Graue discusses what it was like working with Hamlin. Thanks to Cartoonosaurus and Wootietoot for sharing.