PAPERCUTZ Brings Back Classics Illustrated

Below are a series of press releases from the past year or so detailing Papercutz publishing's attempts to revive the Classics Illustrated series. They look like they're doing it up right too, but on to the official press release barrage:

Good News for Students:

Classics Illustrated returns after a 10-year hiatus -- just in time for the new semester

In January, kids will reluctantly return to school. Luckily, Classics Illustrated will join them. Generations of students have been introduced to the great classics by this legendary series of comics, their appetites whetted for the real thing.

These comic-book editions of great literature sold about 200 million copies from 1941 through 1998. Papercutz -- publisher of graphic-novel series such as The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and Tales from the Crypt -- is reviving the series in two formats. Classics Illustrated presents abridged versions of classic novels, while Classics Illustrated Deluxe features longer, more expansive adaptations.

The last few years have seen quickly growing recognition amongst librarians and especially educators of the power of comics to bring kids to reading and away from video, video games and the internet. Many publishers, including in the educational field, have successfully launched expansive graphic novel programs with widely varying degrees of quality.

The works from Papercutz are not for hire but loving adaptations by top artists. The line begins with Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, adapted by Michel Plessix. Later volumes will include Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations by Rick Geary, followed by Grimm’s Fairy Tales and The Invisible Man. Each adaptation will come from an artist with a special expertise in the book’s tone and topic. Great Expectations’ Geary, for example, is the writer-artist of the Treasury of Victorian Murder graphic-novel series and an expert in Dickensian England.The 144-page book is available in both hardcover ($17.95) and trade paperback editions ($13.95).

Plessix’s elaborately painted pages, precise storytelling, and style that can best be called “detailed impressionism” have earned shining reviews such as “adds dramatic flair to the beloved story” (Publishers Weekly), “brings to mind the best storybooks of our childhood” (Memphis Commercial Appeal) and “Excellent! Lively and fun!”(Children’s Bookwatch).

**F.Y.I., 2008 is The Wind in the Willows’ 100th anniversary!**

Classics Illustrated was the creation of Albert Lewis Kanter (1897-1973), a visionary publisher. Kanter believed that comics could introduce young readers to great literature. In 1941, he launched Classic Comics (changed to Classics Illustrated in 1947). For thirty years, Kanter produced more than 200 Classics Illustrated and Classics Illustrated Junior publications. They introduced young readers worldwide to fiction, history, folklore, mythology, and science --

In 1990, the Berkley Publishing Group and First Publishing revived Classics Illustrated as a series of graphic novels featuring new adaptations by such top graphic novelists as Rick Geary, Bill Sienkiewicz, Kyle Baker, and Gahan Wilson.

Papercutz will reprint many of these books. Papercutz has also obtained rights to new adaptations of the classics by some of the world's finest graphic novelists. Published under the Classics Illustrated Deluxe imprint, they devote three to five times as many pages as the previous series and more fully capture the depth of the original novels.

The Wind in the Willows: 6 ½ x 9”, 144pp., full color hardcover, $17.95, ISBN 978-1-59707-095-9, trade pb.: $13.95. ISBN 978-59707-096-6; publication: February ’08. Distributed by Macmillan.For more information please contact Papercutz publicist David Seidman at davidseidman@earthlink.net or 310-652-4369.