Steranko’s Chandler Returns
This month’s Previews featured a full page ad for a new printing of Steranko’s classic Chandler: Red Tide. Originally published in 1976, Chandler: Red Tide is sometimes referred to as the first graphic novel. At the time it was published, Steranko called it an illustrated novel. I think a more accurate description is the one used by Dark Horse in the press release:
After emerging as Marvel Comics most controversial superstar, Jim Steranko tackled his greatest artistic challenge: creating an entirely new medium, the visual novel -not an illustrated novel or novel-length comic book, but a seamless fusion of interdependent graphic and prose narratives forming a powerful and original new method of telling stories.
But why stop there? Let’s go on… Chandler: Red Tide is an…
… artistic tour-de-force, Red Tide is hard-boiled detective fiction in the bare-knuckle tradition of Hammett, Cain, and Chandler, as well as the dark, atmospheric milieu of film noir.
Although I own an original printing that’s been in my collection since it was first published, I will be picking up the Dark Horse edition since it…
has been remastered with state-of-the-art digital colors by Eisner Award-winner Dave Stewart, in a collector’s quality hardcover edition.
