The latest on when one of the year’s most anticipated books will be released…
Just a quick post to update you on the status of the much-ballyhooed 1982 DC Comics Style Guide reprint hardcover, coming from Standards Manual under license from DC Comics.
The book’s latest street date of Sept. 25 has been pushed back for roughly five weeks. This is the second official delay, but again the reason remains a good one: final, quality control tweaking. The publishers, knowing full well what fans are expecting, want to make things just so.
“The last part of the production has been printing the cover, which has had us stuck in a holding pattern while we try and get it perfect,” said Standards Manual co-founder Hamish Smyth. “The image processing and using a custom ink on the cover was itself a much more difficult process than expected, and caused the first delay.
“The cover was then printed, but we had to reject it,” he added. “The color of the cover prints did not match the proofs or meet our quality standards.”
They did more testing, hit the mark and now the book is scheduled to go to press as early as Friday.
Lunar Distribution, which is handling the book for comics shops, has a street date of Oct. 2 listed but that’s just a placeholder.
“The new print looks fantastic and worth the extra delay,” Smyth said. “Once the printing is complete we will have an updated schedule. I would expect another five weeks at least. We know it’s frustrating but we can’t deliver a subpar product.”
The decades-awaited 1982 DC Comics Style Guide famously features the art of Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Dick Giordano and others. There is an introduction by former DC chief Paul Levitz and an EXCLUSIVE interview with Garcia-Lopez, conducted by yours truly.
If you haven’t ordered yours yet — get it on it! Or get it on your holiday list! The high-end, coffee-table book lists for $95 and you can click here to order.
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MORE
— EXTREME CLOSE-UP: Dig the Incredible Detail of the Upcoming DC COMICS STYLE GUIDE Release. Click here.
— OUTSTANDING! 1982 DC STYLE GUIDE Reprint Will Include Pages From Later Editions. Click here.
