Attention libraries! Back in the days when comics media was on paper, there was the Comics Journal, the Comics Buyer’s Guide, and Comics Interview. Edited by David Anthony Kraft, in the magazine’s 150 issue run, just about anybody who was of note in the comics industry of the ’80s and early ’90s was interrogated. It’s a treasure trove of historical material long unavailable (unless you happen to be rootling through The Beat’s storage unit) but the revamped Comico is changing that with a POD reprint project that is available now for $34.95 — the whole project will run 11 books, and each volume will be offered in a regular and deluxe edition, as well as paperback and hardcover.
It’s also the first print endeavor of C02 Comics, a venture formed by former Comico publishers Gerry Giovinco and Bill Cucinotta.
CO2 Comics has entered into an agreement with David Anthony Kraft and Fictioneer Books Ltd. to publish the complete collection of all 150 issues of David Anthony Kraft’s COMICS INTERVIEW. The collection will consist of eleven huge volumes each over 600 pages in length released one at a time on a regular schedule.
Four editions of the volume are available; The Standard Edition featuring an updated platinum version of the traditional COMICS INTERVIEW logo is available in paperback and hardcover. A Premier Edition that is available only for a limited time features a platinum version of the original classic COMICS INTERVIEW logo that was constructed of type from various popular comic logos is also published in both paperback and hardcover. The Premier Edition will be pulled from the market at midnight on New Years Eve 2010. Each of the eleven volumes of David Anthony Kraft’s COMICS INTERVIEW: The Complete Collection will be released with a Premier Edition that will have limited availability. Paperback editions are now available and will list for $34.99 and Hardcovers will list for $54.99. Paperback editions are available now. The release of Hardcover editions will be announced soon.

Gerry Giovinco of CO2 Comics exclaims. “Bill Cucinotta and I are extremely excited and honored to be able to publish this collection of David Anthony Kraft’s COMICS INTERVIEW. We believe that Dave’s work is the most significant gathering of interviews of the greatest comic minds of the 20th century.” This work will be the greatest collection of interviews in the history of comic books”.
“David Anthony Kraft’s COMICS INTERVIEW, which was published from 1983 to 1995 featured interviews with creators, publishers, distributors, marketeers, fans and more. The timing of the original publications is significant because it allowed for interviews with comic legends from the dawn of comic books as well as interviews with young creators who are legends today. COMICS INTERVIEW effectively examined the mindset of the greatest talents responsible for the comics that we have come to revere over the last seventy years.”
“Because David Anthony Kraft is a writer editor himself he had the unique ability to interview creators from the position of a respected peer. This perspective is relevant throughout COMICS INTERVIEW where the subjects share their thoughts openly and frankly. ”
Dave was an editor at Marvel and writer on such features as The Defenders, She-Hulk, Captain America, and Creatures on the Loose. He has the distinction of scripting the very first story drawn by John Byrne for Marvel Comics: “Dark Asylum,” published in Giant-Size Dracula #5 and of being the editor of FOOM, Marvel’s popular, self-produced fan Magazine.
CO2 Comics is a web based comics publisher developed by former Comico publishers Gerry Giovinco and Bill Cucinotta. CO2 Comics has been growing in popularity since it first appeared on the web in the summer of 2009. About 700 pages of comics from twenty creators populates the site which is designed and maintained by Bill Cucinotta and features a popular blog by Gerry Giovinco that has been examining the history of Comico and comic book production.
Comico was the 1980’s Independent juggernaught that published such memorable titles as Grendel, Mage, The Jam, Elementals, Rocketeer, Robotech, Starblazers, Gumby, Space Ghost and Jonny Quest along with many other significant comics and graphic novels.
” David Anthony Kraft’s COMICS INTERVIEW: The Complete Collection Volume 1 will be our first work in print as CO2 Comics,” says Bill Cucinotta. “It’s publication as a POD (Print On Demand) product provided by Lulu.com will define our commitment to marketing direct to the customer through our web site with high quality productions that have always been our legacy. We plan to redefine how print comics are delivered to readers. We couldn’t have picked a better project than this one, that through its content outlines the history of the comics industry as we know it, to usher in what we expect to be the beginning of a new and successful model for the future.”
Giovinco reminisces, “Dave was there for us as a mentor when we began publishing as Comico, offering moral support, insight and inspiration. His willingness to trade ad space with us as fledgeling publishers allowed us to grow and establish a significant presence in the dawning days of the direct market.
His interview with us as Comico in issue #5 of COMICS INTERVIEW was a moment that signified to us that we had arrived as publishers of comics. It is only fitting that we come together again at the forefront of a new era for the comics market and the continual development of the foundation for CO2 Comics, the hottest new place to read comics on the web and, now, in print.
This is great news. I’m tired of hunting for tattered, yellowed copies of Comics Interview. They’re near impossible to find.
Oh. My.
I hope others follow their lead.
Poop! I’m only missing one issue of the series, so financially picking these up doesn’t make much sense. But having them in book form would be wonderful . . .
Looks like a good project, but I wonder if they have (or need) the permission of the individual copyright owners of each interview.
Interviews are almost uniformly work for hire, and if the interviewers didn’t sign WFH contracts and they wanted to go to court over this, my guess would be that any lawyer would tell them that the reasonable assumption would be that their work is WFH and to forget about it.
But then again, I’m wrong on a pretty regular basis.
DAK is the man.
I e-mailed him three years ago, asking him if he still had copies of Don McGregor’s prose books DragonFlame and Variable Syndrome, and he did. I bought them and I thought it was so cool to be the first owner of books printed over twenty years ago.
I really enjoyed their interview with Howard Chaykin– I don’t know how many they did with him, but there was one that he did just as he was transitioning to Hollywood that was fantastic, honest. Or I was really fond of the one they did with Brian Stelfreeze actually– they gave him this really lavish interview back when he was just a cover artist for a handful of Batman comics– very, very process oriented, which was unusual back then. There was also an excellent Kirby retrospective where they talked to Mike Royer and all those guys, but also Tony Salmons, just based on how he drew the Hulk for his Marvel Fanfare story.
Smart, exhaustive multi-topic interviews…