Staff Picks (November): Kelly Green — The Complete Collection HC

Growing up, the comic section of the Atlanta newspaper had a fairly good mix of comics, from adventure strips like The Phantom, Dick Tracy, Steve Canyon, and Buz Sawyer (dailies) and the soap opera strips like Judge Parker, Heart of Juliet Jones, and Mary Perkins on Stage. In most cases, while the stories may not be to a young boy’s liking, the artwork was well done.

Years later the creators of two of these strips, Leonard Starr of Mary Perkins on Stage and Stan Drake from The Heart of Juliet Jones, teamed up as writer and artist on a series of crime/mystery stories  for the French publisher Dargaud.  This series, Kelly Green, featured a more mature graphic content, highlighting the artistic abilities of Stan Drake and storylines not confined by the regulations imposed by newspaper syndicates.  This is like taking a character limited by network TV and allowing them the freedom of cable; the absence of limitations empowered the creators to do their best work.

Classic Comics Press has now collected the four previously published Dargaud graphic albums: The Go-Between; One, Two Three, Die...; The Million Dollar Hit, and The Blood Tapes as well as the previously unpublished in English The Comic Con Heist.

Kelly Green: The Complete Collection reproduces all of these stories in the original black and white format with much of the art shot from the originals. There is also an additional 16 pages in color to show to full effect Starr and Drake's complete control of the medium.

I lucked out and was able to buy the original Dargaud editions at San Diego Comic Con and have them next to my Modesty Blaise strip collection. In a 8 ½ x11 hardcover format, this edition is a long overdue addition to my bookshelves and, like all Classic Comic Press titles, well done and produced with love for the creators and their work.

—Steve Leaf

Publisher: Classic Comics Press Item Code: NOV151233 Release Date: 1/20/16 SRP: $59.95