The schoolkids’ best friend is back and getting rave reviews from the mainstream press
“Dazzling.” “Wonderful.” “A visual masterpiece.”
That’s how NEWSWEEK'S Malcolm Jones describes books from Papercutz’s new CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED imprint. The magazine’s March 31 issue, on newsstands now, features “Everything Is Illuminated,” a three-page overview of comics based on classic literature.
CI’s THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS, drawn by Michel Plessix, receives Jones’ highest praise: “Every frame is drawn and colored with meticulous care. Every elegant page is composed with a dual purpose: to enchant the eye and to further the various narratives.”
Jones also covers Papercutz’s version of Charles Dickens’s GREAT EXPECTATIONS (by Rick Geary, best known for his TREASURY OF VICTORIAN MURDER series for NBM Publishing) and previews the upcoming edition of Lewis Carroll’s THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS by Kyle Baker (TALES FROM THE CRYPT, WHY I HATE SATURN, PLASTIC MAN). “CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED always had the goods,” Jones concludes. “Looks like it still does.”
NEWSWEEK’s piece is only the newest in a stream of praise and attention that mainstream news outlets have paid to CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED. Under the headline “Revised ‘Classics’ Illustrate New Interest in Quality,” Scripps-Howard News Service’s Andrew Smith says, “Papercutz is certainly putting its best foot forward. . . . [with] a roster of talented European and American artists” and adds that CI “promises comics adaptations that any sort of reader can enjoy.” He calls GREAT EXPECTATIONS “riveting” and says of THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS, “Mr. Toad and company come to life in a heart-stoppingly beautiful ride through a fantasy world loved by children worldwide.” In Canada’s national newspaper, THE GLOBE AND MAIL, Nathalie Atkinson calls CI’s books “excellent,” points out that they “will lure both adults and children,” and praises THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS for its “page after page of lush detail.” From THE WASHINGTON TIMES and the MEMPHIS COMMERCIAL APPEAL to THE BUFFALO NEWS and the SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN, publications all over the country have paid flattering attention to CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED.
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 Baker, Geary, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Gahan Wilson. Papercutz will reprint many of the Berkley-First 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.
