| Parent company | Currently: 2021- Clover Press Previously: 2007-2021 IDW Publishing |
|---|---|
| Status | Active |
| Founded | 2007 |
| Founder | Dean Mullaney Bruce Canwell |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Headquarters location | San Diego, California |
| Distribution | Diamond Book Distributors[1][2] Penguin Random House |
| Key people | Dean Mullaney (Creative Director) Lorraine Turner (Art Director) Bruce Canwell (Associate Director) Kurtis Findlay (Online Communications Coordinator) |
| Publication types | Books |
| Fiction genres | American comic strips |
| Imprints | EuroComics |
| Official website | libraryofamericancomics |
Library of American Comics (abbreviated as LoAC) is an American publisher of classic American comic strips collections and comic history books, founded by Dean Mullaney and Bruce Canwell in 2007.
Dean Mullaney, the founder of the Library of American Comics, developed his interest for comics in his early youth and by the 1970s he was a so-called letterhack, regularly sending in letters of comment to the Marvel comic books' letter pages. His career in comics began in 1977 when he, together with his brother Jan Mullaney[3] as well as Don McGregor and Paul Gulacy, launched the publishing company Eclipse Comics,[4] famous for publishing the graphic novel Sabre. After some time at Eclipse Comics, Mullaney left the comics industry.
In 2006, Mullaney was thinking about making a return to comics, and he found an online article about Sabre written by Bruce Canwell, a former DC Comics and Marvel Comics employee. The article mentioned that Canwell remembered Mullaney as a once frequent letter writer to the Marvel comic books' reader pages which he read growing up, just as Canwell himself was. Mullaney contacted Canwell, and after discussing their future plans, they realized that their visions and ideas were aligned. They discussed going into business together, with the initial goal of bringing a complete hardcover collection of Milton Caniff's comic strip Terry and the Pirates to the public.[5]
Mullaney and Canwell launched the Library of American Comics in summer 2007, beginning publication of a definitive collection The Complete Terry and the Pirates.[6]
While writing as an animation blogger, Kurtis Findlay discovered a comic strip he had never heard of: "Crawford", created by the famous animator Chuck Jones. When Findlay checked the copyright status of the strip, he was connected by a worker of Tribune Media Services to Dean Mullaney of LoAC. When Findlay approached LoAC with the proposal of publishing a book about the strip, he learned that Mullaney was a fan of Chuck Jones' works; Mullaney was enthusiastic about Findlay's book idea, and Chuck Jones: The Dream That Never Was was eventually published by LoAC in December 2011.
Since then, Findlay has become the company's Online Communications Coordinator as well as editor for the For Better or For Worse collection published by LoAC.[7] [8]
From 2022, LOAC and EuroComics switched publisher to Clover Press. An agreement with IDW Publishing remains to continue publishing the ongoing series of For Better or For Worse.
The first new LoAC title to be published through the Clover Press partnership will be the enhanced reprint series Terry and the Pirates: The Master Collection in early 2022.[9][10]
LoAC create their output of books independently from their partner company Clover Press (previously IDW Publishing), but they share distribution network, printing facilities, and logistics with the partner company.
The team at LoAC is editorially fully responsible for book design, selection of content, essays, and production. Most research, compilation of supplemental material and feature texts, and original writing for the company's biographical books are done in-house, although occasionally there is also some freelance material.[5]
The goal of all Library of American Comics collections is to preserve classic American newspaper comics in definitive archival editions. Each frames a comic-strip series with informative essays to provide historical context, both in relation to other comic strips and to the historical events of their time.[4] Unfortunately, however, LoAC discontinued publishing many of the titles before being complete.
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Main article: List of The Library of American Comics publications |
All the books The Library of American Comics publish are hardcover, with sewn binding; the majority also come with a dust jacket and sewn linen bookmark. Book size and reproduction color depend on each series.
Eisner Award nominations
Harvey Award nominations
Harvey Awards[24]
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Main article: List of EuroComics publications |
Nominations
Nominations