WonderCon 2019: The New Artist Editions Coming From IDW
by Gary Catig
IDW is known for their large artist edition books highlighting the work of some of the industry’s best creators. On Sunday afternoon, at WonderCon, the publisher revealed their current and future plans with regards to the oversized art books. It was a good mix of showing samples of previously announced titles and some new announcements.
Berkeley Breathed will be receiving an artist edition based off of his comic strip, Bloom County. This is the second time IDW created an artist edition for a comic strip, the first being Peanuts. There will be two strips per page but unfortunately, it will not contain all of Breathed’s work. He only owns about a third of his own collection with the remaining being sold at galleries long ago.
Bernie Wrightson will have a new printing of his artifact edition.
Fans of Wrightson can get a double dose of his work with an edition on his Frankenstein work, which hopefully be out at the end of this year.
Walter Simonson’s Star Wars work will also be collected with an expected release date before SDCC.
David Cockrum’s X-Men work will be collected in a new artifact edition that came from 60 -70 different sources. There was difficulty tracking down the art so there are no complete stories.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula from Roy Thomas and Mike Mignola will be rereleased and this time with colors. It will be smaller than typical artist editions and will be standard comic size.
The Hildebrandt Brothers will have a collected edition of their Marvel art including trading cards and posters. The publisher is hoping to release this book around NYCC.
They are also working closely with the Roy G. Krenkel estate to reveal a ton of his art that has never before seen. This book is expected to be out in time of SDCC.
IDW has plans to release six Marvel art books and at their panel they announced two of them. They will be rereleasing Daredevil by David Mazzucchelli and Thor from Simonson. These books will be smaller, 8” by 12”, and cheaper than the previous editions.
Speaking of Simonson, he will have a new Ragnarök series out this July.
They will also release one massive hardcover with over 450 pages of Stan Sakai’s Grasscutter. It will be comprised of scans from the original artwork and be 9” by 13”. Expect this book in time for SDCC.
The publisher has more plans for Simonson and Sakai as the #1 for their books will be out in the same time this July. Both artists will be doing a cover for the first issue of the other’s series. The covers will connect and have characters in the background of each series. The two creators will also be the special guests at the IDW dinner this summer during SDCC.
