Classic GI Joe 1-15 + Yearbook + Special Missions 1-4 (digital-Empire)

English | CBZ | 20 Issues

Classic G.I. Joe Vol. 1-15, G.I. Joe Yearbook, and G.I. Joe: Special Missions Vol. 1-4
Publisher: IDW
Publication Date: January 2009 - July 2012

IDW Publishing began reprinting the Marvel era issues of G.I. Joe in January 2009 in two different trade paperback forms.

The first, which is titled Classic G.I. Joe, includes issues #1-155 of the regular series. The first 5 trade paperbacks are almost exact duplicate reprints of the Marvel trade paperbacks released in 2002. Although for the IDW version a few slight adjustments, corrections, recolorings, and of course the retitling are included in the books. After issue #50 of the Marvel run & Volume 5 of the Marvel trade paperbacks, IDW continues where Marvel left off with their own versions of these trades. Each trade contains 10 issues.

A variety of covers are used with many of the later issues having original cover art exclusive for the trades. But issues 6, 7, and 8 have covers that appeared on issues created when the G.I. Joe license was with Devil's Due Publishing (DDP). These 3 issues do not have DDP stories in them and those stories can be found reprinted in the G.I. Joe: Disavowed trade paperbacks also published by IDW (currently up to Vol. 7 as of March 13, 2013).

G.I. Joe: Special Missions are printed in trade paperback form, although without the Classic label. These four volumes collect all 28 issues of the Special Missions. Each volume contains an introduction from Mark Bellemo and original cover art exclusive to these trade paperbacks.

The second type is a Best of Series. These trade paperbacks include Marvel issues that are centered around one character. Generally, they cover a wide range of the characters history. With the exception of a couple of the Marvel Yearbook stories all of these stories are contained in the Classic or Special Missions trades.

An interesting story regarding the process that IDW developed to bring these books into the trade paperback form (Classic G.I. Joe Volume 6 - 15) . The below is a quote from Andy Schmidt then IDW's editor of G.I. Joe explaining this new process. It also explains why there are so many in errors with the lettering in Volumes 6 - 8.

"Back in the day, the art was literally photographed on film. That was the line art. Then the color was done on three different pieces of film so you would wind up combining four pieces of film to print one page. Each layer of film determined how much one particular color (black, yellow, blue, and red) would go on each page and where. To recolor the older books, one requires the "black plate" film. That's the one with the original line art. That can be re-shot and turned into a digital file for modern coloring.

Once a book is published, that film (which is huge) would typically go into a warehouse. Over time, film gets lost, thrown away because of space concerns, burned up in a fire, or gets damaged or often moldy--any one of which, would render the film unusable.

In the case of GI Joe, only the first 50 issues still exist. I was at Marvel when they did the original reprint collections. They didn't go further because the process to restore the books from actual comics beyond issue 50 was too expensive.

But that's what we've done. We found a way to get pretty close to the original line art and re color it without it costing hundreds of dollars per page. Still expensive, and it doesn't look quite as good as if we had the film itself, but it's pretty darn close.

It's a new system and after many a test, we're still working out the final kinks. But it's pretty exciting. It has the potential to open up a lot of doors for recreation and re-coloring on any number of older projects worthy of the treatment!

So, quick answers. We are aware of the errors in the most recent volume (#6). We are fixing the "glitch" going forward.

Andy"