ComicVine News

We can now officially announce one of the things Fred has in the works.  Bless Image Comics for pulling all this together.  I cannot wait.  February 2008?  Argh.  He's even offering autographed copies at cover price.  He mentioned in his blog that he'll probabl even do a character sketch for a small, to be determined, price.  Hey, this is your chance to get a groovy Hembeck drawn G-Man.  Seriously, check out his site.  He frequently puts up art on ebay and will do commissions of characters (not real people, I was an exception) or the cover re-dos. 

Here's a bit of info on the upcoming book:

Come February, 2008, Image Publishing will be gearing up to release THE NEARLY COMPLETE ESSENTIAL HEMBECK ARCHIVES OMNIBUS, featuring over 900 (!) pages of material written and drawn by cartoonist Fred Hembeck (who, in this particular instance of shameless self-promotion, is the actual individual typing in these very words), culled from the past three decades.

And all of this fun stuff will cost you (get ready) LESS THAN TWENTY FIVE BUCKS!!

(A single solitary penny less, true, but still, I'm thinking, a pretty gosh-darn good deal!...)

So, what exactly do we have to offer you in this massive volume?

Well, how about every single Dateline:@#$% strip EVER?

That's how this whole thing started out, y'see--my old buddy (and veteran comics embellisher) Al Gordon's suggested I put together a collection of each and every one of those old cartoons, including all the ones that had never been reprinted in a more permanent format previously. Al then proceeded to get his pal--and Image Publisher--Erik Larsen interested in the notion, and once things got rolling along, Erik encouraged me to expand the scope of the book to include a wide variety of additional material as well, some of which had never been seen before and some of which had turned up only in the most obscure of places.

For the specifics of what will be inside (including mention of the Thing wearing a thong!) go to: www.hembeck.com/More/HembeckOmnibusInfoPage.htm

You can even pre-order it at amazon. 

And if you haven't read my interview with him, what the heck are you waiting for?  www.comicvine.com/fred-hembeck/40571/