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Pop quiz: What was the first graphic novel to make the New York Times’ bestseller list?

Most people would guess MAUS, and although we don’t know exactly what book holds that honor, MAUS was predated by ALIEN: THE ILLUSTRATED STORY, by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson. First released in 1979 as a graphic “Album”, it was an unusually serious (for its time) movie adaptation with the usual stellar work by the great team of Goodwin and Simonson, who also collaborated on MANHUNTER. The book sold so well it did make the NY Times bestseller list at the time.

The book has been out of print for 30 years, but now Titan is rereleasing it this month in a new edition that’s been completely and meticulously restored using the original artwork from Walt Simonson’s studio. It’s also being presented in a ratio aspect true to the original artwork.

Here’s a few pages from this classic adaptation — click for larger versions.

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16 COMMENTS

  1. Captions! It has captions! Look at the third page shown above. The caption is used not just to establish setting, but mood as well. You can’t do that in comics today. Not allowed. When Stephen King started writing his vampire comic for Marvel he put in captions, and the editor made him take them out! After all, why would someone buy a Stephen King comic to read his words? And they wonder why comics seem so thin and are such a quick read today.

  2. Captions! It has captions! Look at the third page shown above. The caption is used not just to establish setting, but mood as well.

    >>
    Here. Here.

    Otherwise: Captions should always stands out against art .. Box@ left/top of second page gets totally (red on red) lost -did nobody even notice it was there? .. should get fixed before press.

  3. @James

    “When Stephen King started writing his vampire comic for Marvel”

    FYI, that was AMERICAN VAMPIRE for Vertigo, not Marvel.

  4. I read this book in its entirety in a bookstore when it came out. I was too scared to see the movie! I like that red caption and I don’t think you could miss it. (But “popping” is usually the rule.)I’m gonna buy this. Archie was one great writer and Walt Simonson…!!

  5. So awesome… I was just thinking of this the other day. Another treat from early Heavy Metal. Their original line of paperback releases were top-notch. When are we going to see a hardcover “Conquering Armies”

  6. @Steven Hoveke

    Yeah- can see it’s the original color -Interesting.
    As is, figure a lot of people would not notice the box at all– maybe the artists were down w/ that, as at this crucial moment, the box could be seen as disruptive.
    Somebody get Walt on the phone.

  7. Color here looks so much better than first print — so we will finally get to see what Alien was supposed to look like. I wish more reprints would use the original color. I was looking at the Neal Adams Supes Vs Ali reprint the other day and the guys at DC had had the whole thing recolored, adding all sorts of highlights that didn’t seem to work at all with Neal’s B&W — I suppose, back then, Neal carefully considered that he was inking for flat, pre-computer color, and now somebody just had to go and decide that they knew better–ugh.

  8. “Pop quiz: What was the first graphic novel to make the New York Times’ bestseller list?”

    Most likely Lyn Ward or Milt Gross.
    The New York Times has been PDF’d, but I believe Publisher Weekly has been charting longer.

    Pogo by Walt Kelly is another candidate. The first volume was reformatted into comic book pages so that the story flowed smoother.

    There’s a deluxe edition of this book:

    9781781161302 $75, $42.39 at BN.com
    “It collects Alien: The Illustrated Story b/w comic strip, scanned from from the artist’s original art boards, plus an in-depth interview with Simonson, the original script pages, colour tryouts and sketches.”

    http://titanbooks.com/alien-the-illustrated-story-original-art-edition-6329/

  9. This was the first graphic novel I ever read. I checked it out from our tiny public library in Lake Village and simply devoured it. For a ten year old kid, this book was gold. I can’t wait to get my hands on this.

  10. Yeah, I still got my original version. With the cover that has these green warty tentacles (wrapped around a space ship) that don’t look like they belong in the “Alien” universe. But great book everyone should have- hope Walt gets some reprint money.

  11. Before my time.

    h2world says ” I suppose, back then, Neal carefully considered that he was inking for flat, pre-computer color, and now somebody just had to go and decide that they knew better–ugh.” On the other hand, inking is becoming dying artform these days among many of today’s comic’s artists.”
    Some artists have stopped having their work inked, have stopped spotting blacks and have left that work of spotting blacks and cleaning up the art up to the colorist. The colorist doesn’t spot blacks much either and the whole thing results in a flat image with limited optical depth, a lot of kewl gradients, and unfinished-looking art. IMHO.

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