Scouring the Archives: Publishers Bringing Back The Good Old Days Through the Magic of the Reprint

In the last two weeks alone, popular comics writers J.M. DeMatteis and Grant Morrison and artist Phil Hester have all seen some of their older, out-of-print work return to print through publishers who acquired the rights. In the case of Hester, it’s particularly notable in that his miniseries Holy Terror (no relation to the 2011 Frank Miller graphic novel of the same name) had an issue which had never before seen the light of day.Meanwhile, critical darlings from decades past like Major Bummer, Chase and Resurrection Man have returned to print in the form of omnibus collected editions that were never made when those comics were actually being published and distributed to the direct market (although Resurrection Man is back as part of DC’s New 52 and Cameron Chase is presently a recurring character in Batwoman, her second ongoing DC title since the end of her solo book).”In our case the hiatus was prompted by nothing more than day jobs and paying gigs getting  in the way of finishing up the final issue,” said Jason Caskey, writer of Holy Terror, a wrestling/superhero mashup book drawn by Phil Hester. “It took us a while to whittle-away at it before we finally were able to complete it. In the end I think the time Holy Terror was first out of the public eye has been a good thing, as our readership has been a mix of new readers who didn’t pick it up when it was [at] Image and others who remembered it and were happy to see we were back.”