© 2004-2007 About Comics

 

For info, contact Nat Gertler, email: nat@aboutcomics.com, phone: (805) 499-4091 (That's California, folks)

The Rat is Back!

Gerber/Colan graphic novel to be reprinted

Stewart the Rat, a graphic novel written by Steve Gerber and pencilled by Gene Colan in the wake of their ground-breaking work on Howard The Duck, returns in December in a value-priced edition. "Gerber took the same cynical, frustrated sense of humor that made his work on Howard a classic and applied it to this tale of a walking, talking rat who faces the craziness of the Southern California lifestyle," explains Nat Gertler, publisher of About Comics. "With the amazing Gene Colan pencils being handled by Tom Palmer, the best inker for Colan's detailed realism, the artwork is lovely. Since it was drawn for black and white, it shows the two collaborators at their best.

In an unusual move, the publisher has decided to price the new edition at significantly less than the original 1980 edition. "When Eclipse published Stewart in 1980, they took advantage of the novelty of graphic novels to put this in an oversized, squarebound format with a cover price of $6.95, and that was at a time when a typical superheor comic book cost fifty cents," Gertler explained. "By putting the same material in a standard comic book format instead, we can put it out for a mere $3.95 for a full 48 pages."

While this graphic novel has never been as well-known as the work Gerber and Colan did for the big two publishers, the true fans never forgot it in the decades since it was published. In a 1999 poll, Colan fans named Stewart the Rat their favorite graphic novel and Tom Palmer their favorite inker.

With the recent popularity of Gerber's new Howard the Duck miniseries and the Essential Howard the Duck TPB reprinting Gerber and Colan's classic work, the time seems right for this book. "Steve Gerber is one of the most unusual and vibrant writing voices in comics, and Gene Colan is a uniquely wonderful visual storyteller," said Gertler, "and it's an honor to be able to bring their collaboration back into the public eye."

Stewart the Rat is a 48 page black-and-white Mature Readers comic with a color cover. It ships in January from About Comics.

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