Dean Mullaney

Last updated
Dean Mullaney
Dean Mullaney Steve Gerber.png
Dean Mullaney (left) with comics writer Steve Gerber in 1982
Born (1954-06-18) June 18, 1954 (age 68)
NationalityAmerican
Area(s)Publisher
Notable works
 Eclipse Books
The Library of American Comics
EuroComics
Awards2008, 2010-11 Eisner Awards
Spouse(s)
​
​
(m. 1987;div. 1993)​

Dean Mullaney (born June 18, 1954) [1] [2] is an American editor, publisher, and designer whose Eclipse Enterprises, founded in 1977, was one of the earliest independent comic-book companies. Eclipse published some of the first graphic novels and was one of the first comics publishers to champion creators' rights. In the 2000s, he established the imprint The Library of American Comics of IDW Publishing to publish hardcover collections of comic strips. Mullaney and his work have received seven Eisner Awards.

Contents

Biography

Dean Mullaney and his brother, rock musician Jan Mullaney, are the sons of early electronica musician Dave Mullaney of the band Hot Butter. [3] The brothers founded Eclipse Enterprises in Staten Island, New York City, New York, in 1977, [4] [5] and the following year published one of the first original graphic novels, Sabre: Slow Fade of an Endangered Species . Written by Don McGregor and drawn by Paul Gulacy, Sabre was additionally the first graphic novel sold through the new "direct market" of comic-book stores. [6] Eclipse went on to publish the anthology magazine Eclipse and the color-comic anthology Eclipse Monthly , the first of an Eclipse Comics line that eventually included such titles and creators as The Rocketeer by Dave Stevens; Zot! by Scott McCloud; two Detectives Inc. graphic novels by McGregor and artists Marshall Rogers and Gene Colan, respectively; the graphic novel Stewart the Rat by writer Steve Gerber and artists Colan and Tom Palmer; and the U.S. reprints of Miracleman by Alan Moore. [7] Eclipse also brought out graphic novels featuring opera adaptations, such as The Magic Flute by P. Craig Russell, and children's literature such as The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. [8]

In 1980 Mullaney moonlighted as co-editor of the brand-new hobbyist publication Comics Feature , produced by Hal Schuster's New Media Publishing, but left after one year to focus on Eclipse. [9]

In the early 1980s, Mullaney met writer-editor Catherine Yronwode, who was working for cartoonist and entrepreneur Will Eisner. Yronwode recalled that Eisner and his wife Ann "hosted a party for me with all these comic book men I was flirting with. All these men came up; they all wanted to meet Will. One of them was Dean Mullaney, the co-owner of Eclipse Comics, a small independent publishing house. He was the most flirtatious." At some point afterward, once Yronwode finished her work organizing Eisner's archives, she and Mullaney became engaged and moved to California, where they were married. [10]

By the late 1980s, Eclipse was selling a half-million comics a month, and was the third largest comics publisher after Marvel Comics and DC Comics. [11]

In 1986, Eclipse lost most of its back-issue stock in a flood. [12] This event, along with the repercussions of Mullaney's divorce from Yronwode, by then his partner at Eclipse, and the mid-1990s collapse of the direct market distribution system, caused the company to cease operations in 1994 [13] [14] and file for bankruptcy in 1995. [15] The company's intellectual property rights were later acquired by Todd McFarlane. [16] Mullaney also attributed the company's demise to a problematic contract with the book publisher HarperCollins. [17] Eclipse's last publication was its Spring 1993 catalog, which was a complete bibliography of its publications.

In the mid-2000s, Mullaney approached IDW Publishing with a proposal to publish hardcover reprints of American comic strips. This became the IDW imprint The Library of American Comics, which debuted with the 2007 book The Complete Terry and the Pirates, Vol. 1: 1934-1936, by Milton Caniff. As Mullaney described, "Terry's always been my favorite strip, and I was going to publish it in the early '80s (through Eclipse Comics), but Terry Nantier at NBM beat me to it. Luckily, I've lived long enough so that 25 years later I'm in a position to release new editions of Terry." [18] With Mullaney as its creative director, the imprint has gone on to publish collections of strips including Dick Tracy , Little Orphan Annie , Bringing Up Father , Family Circus , and Bloom County . [19]

In 2014, Mullaney added another imprint at IDW, EuroComics, in order to publish new English translations of European comics, including Hugo Pratt’s Corto Maltese, Paracuellos by Carlos Giménez, and Alack Sinner by Muñoz and Sampaya.[ citation needed ]

In December, 2021 it was announced that LoAC and EuroComics would move from IDW to a new publisher, Clover Press. [20]

Awards

As creative director and editor of The Library of American Comics, [19] Mullaney has won seven Eisner awards and one Harvey Award. Eisner source unless otherwise indicated: [21]

Mullaney won a 2012 Harvey Award for Best Biographical, Historical or Journalistic Presentation for Genius, Illustrated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth. [24]

Additionally, Mullaney received the San Diego Comic-Con International's Inkpot Award in 2013. [25] The following year, he was inducted into editor-publisher Robert Overstreet's Overstreet Hall of Fame. [26]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Graphic novel</span> Book with primarily comics contents

A graphic novel is a book made up of comics with entertainment content in it. Although the word novel normally refers to long fictional works, the term graphic novel is applied broadly and includes fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work. It is, at least in the United States, typically distinct from the term comic book, which is generally used for comics periodicals and trade paperbacks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jules Feiffer</span> American cartoonist and author (born 1929)

Jules Ralph Feiffer is an American cartoonist and author, who was considered the most widely read satirist in the country. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 as North-America's leading editorial cartoonist, and in 2004 he was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame. He wrote the animated short Munro, which won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1961. The Library of Congress has recognized his "remarkable legacy", from 1946 to the present, as a cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter, adult and children's book author, illustrator, and art instructor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Milton Caniff</span> American cartoonist (1907–1988)

Milton Arthur Paul Caniff was an American cartoonist famous for the Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon comic strips.

<i>Steve Canyon</i> Comic strip

Steve Canyon is an American adventure comic strip by writer-artist Milton Caniff. Launched shortly after Caniff retired from his previous strip, Terry and the Pirates, Steve Canyon ran from January 13, 1947, until June 4, 1988. It ended shortly after Caniff's death. Caniff won the Reuben Award for the strip in 1971.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alex Toth</span> American cartoonist

Alexander Toth was an American cartoonist active from the 1940s through the 1980s. Toth's work began in the American comic book industry, but he is also known for his animation designs for Hanna-Barbera throughout the 1960s and 1970s. His work included Super Friends, Fantastic Four, Space Ghost, Sealab 2020, The Herculoids and Birdman. Toth's work has been resurrected in the late-night, adult-themed spin-offs on Cartoon Network’s late night sister channel Adult Swim: Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Sealab 2021 and Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law.

Eclipse Comics was an American comic book publisher, one of several independent publishers during the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1978, it published the first graphic novel intended for the newly created comic book specialty store market. It was one of the first to offer royalties and creator ownership of rights, and it was the first comics company to publish trading cards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catherine Yronwode</span>

Catherine Anna Yronwode is an American writer, editor, graphic designer, typesetter, and publisher with an extensive career in the comic book industry. She is also a practitioner of folk magic.

<i>Sabre</i> (Eclipse Comics)

Sabre, published in August 1978, is the title of an American graphic novel. Created by writer Don McGregor and artist Paul Gulacy, it was published by Eclipse Enterprises, whose eventual division Eclipse Comics would publish a spin-off comic-book series. It was one of the first graphic novels and the first to be distributed in comic book shops.

Tarpé Mills was the pseudonym of comic book creator June Mills, one of the first major female comics artists. She is best known for her action comic strip, Miss Fury, featuring the first female action hero created by a woman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ben Templesmith</span> Australian comic book artist and author

Ben Templesmith is an Australian comic book artist best known for his work in the American comic book industry, most notably the Image Comics series Fell, with writer Warren Ellis, and IDW's 30 Days of Night with writer Steve Niles, which was adapted into a motion picture of the same name. He has also created book covers, movie posters, trading cards, and concept work for film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sonny Liew</span>

Sonny Liew is a Malaysia-born comic artist/illustrator based in Singapore. He is best known for The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye (2015), the first graphic novel to win the Singapore Literature Prize for fiction.

Donald Duck: The Complete Daily Newspaper Comics is a series of hardcover books collecting the complete run of the Disney Donald Duck comic strip, a daily newspaper comic strip drawn by the American comic artist Al Taliaferro. The comic strip debuted on February 7, 1938, and within eight weeks became the fastest growing syndicated comic strip worldwide. The publisher behind the project is IDW Publishing and their imprint, The Library of American Comics. The first book of the series was released on September 2, 2015.

Library of American Comics is an American publisher of classic American comic strips collections and comic history books, founded by Dean Mullaney and Bruce Canwell in 2007.

The Complete Little Orphan Annie is a hardcover book series collecting the complete output of the American comic strip, Little Orphan Annie, written and drawn by Harold Gray from the strip's debut in 1924 to Gray's death in 1968. The newspaper comic strip title as a whole was published uninterrupted during 86 years straight (1924–2010) under the Tribune Media Services syndicate. A strip ranked as the most popular comics strip in its heyday according to a Fortune poll. The publisher of this book series is The Library of American Comics, the series' first volume was released in June, 2008.

The Complete Terry and The Pirates is a collection of the American comic strip, Terry and the Pirates. The strip was authored by Milton Caniff and originally appeared in newspapers between 1934 and 1946 by the Chicago Tribune Syndicate with over 31 million readers. The collection comprises six hardcover volumes and was published by The Library of American Comics between 2007 and 2009. The series' first volume won the 2008 Eisner Award in the category Best Archival Collection - Project - Comic strips.

Bloom County: The Complete Library is a book series published by The Library of American Comics which collects the complete comic strips Bloom County, Outland and Opus all written and drawn by Berkeley Breathed between 1980 and 2008. The first volume of this series was published in September, 2009, and also received the Eisner award in the category Best Archival Collection/Project - Strips in 2010; in November 2012, the final and seventh volume finished the series.

Superman: The Complete Comic Strips 1939-1966 is an unofficial umbrella name for the six following titles: Superman: The Golden Age Dailies, Superman: The Golden Age Sundays; Superman: The Atomic Age Dailies, Superman: The Atomic Age Sundays; Superman: The Silver Age Dailies and Superman: The Silver Age Sundays, all published by The Library of American Comics. These six series of books collects the complete run of the American comic strip Superman by DC Comics, which was originally distributed in newspapers by the McClure Syndicate between 1939 and 1966.

Sunday Press Books is an American publisher of comic strip reprint collections founded in 2005 by Peter Maresca. The company is known as a respected reprinter of comic strips and has to date won three Eisner Awards and two Harvey Awards. Since 2022 the company is partnered with Fantagraphics in distribution and marketing.

References

  1. ↑ Miller, John Jackson (June 10, 2005). "Comics Industry Birthdays". Comics Buyer's Guide . Archived from the original on February 18, 2011. Retrieved December 12, 2010.
  2. ↑ Dreifus, Claudia (November 22, 1991). "Despots & Crooks: Collect 'Em All". Entertainment Weekly . No. 93. Archived from the original on April 25, 2009. Retrieved September 13, 2011.
  3. ↑ Gulacy, Paul (2008). Untitled, unnumbered introduction page, Sabre: 30th Anniversary Edition (Dallas, Georgia: Desperado Publishing). ISBN   978-0-9801-4791-9.
  4. ↑ Mullaney, Jan; Mullaney, Dean (August 1978). "A Word from the Publisher". Sabre: Slow Fade of an Endangered Species . Staten Island, New York City, New York: Eclipse Enterprises. p. 1 (unnumbered).
  5. ↑ McGregor, Don (August 1978). "Afterword". Sabre: Slow Fade of an Endangered Species . Eclipse Enterprises. pp. Afterword 2–3 (unnumbered).
  6. ↑ Gough, Bob (2001). "Interview with Don McGregor". MileHighComics.com. Archived from the original on July 16, 2011. Retrieved September 13, 2011.
  7. ↑ Catherine Yronwode. "Eclipse Comics Index". luckymojo.com. Archived from the original on April 28, 2015. Retrieved 2007-10-31.
  8. ↑ Rockwell, John (April 5, 1990). "Conan in Comics? Yes. Hulk? Sure. But Fafner? Wotan?". The New York Times . Archived from the original on April 28, 2015.
  9. ↑ Bails, Jerry; Ware, Hames (eds.). "Dean Mullaney". Who's Who of American Comic Books 1928-1999. Archived from the original on May 11, 2007. Retrieved November 25, 2020.
  10. ↑ Andelman, Bob (2005). Will Eisner: A Spirited Life . Milwaukie, Oregon: M Press. p.  220. ISBN   1-59582-011-6.
  11. ↑ Overstreet, Robert M., ed. (2015). Overstreet Comic Book Marketplace Yearbook 2015-2016. Gemstone Publishing. p. 77. ISBN   978-1603601801.{{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)
  12. ↑ Yronwode, Catherine; Yronwode, Nagasiva (2002). "The Lesser Book of the Vishanti: A Companion to the Dr. Strange Comic Books". LuckyMojo.com. Archived from the original on September 13, 2011. Retrieved 28 September 2010.
  13. ↑ "Newswatch: Business News: Eclipse Copes with Divorce and Back Debt". The Comics Journal (165): 12. January 1994.
  14. ↑ "Comics Publishers Suffer Tough Summer: Body Count Rises in Market Shakedown". The Comics Journal (172): 13–18. November 1994.
  15. ↑ "Newswatch: Eclipse Files for Bankruptcy". The Comics Journal (174): 25. February 1995.
  16. ↑ "McFarlane Buys Eclipse Assets at Auction". The Comics Journal (185): 14–15. March 1996.
  17. ↑ MacDonald, Heidi (March 30, 2007). "Mullaney on Eclipse". "The Beat" (column), Publishers Weekly. Archived from the original on May 17, 2008. Retrieved September 13, 2011.
  18. ↑ Lorah, Michael C. (November 25, 2008). "Dean Mullaney on IDW's Library of American Comics". Newsarama.com. Archived from the original on February 7, 2009.
  19. 1 2 The Library of American Comics (official site). Mullaney listed as creative director at site's "About" page
  20. ↑ "Library of American Comics Teams w/ Clover Press". 7 December 2021.
  21. ↑ "2010s Eisner Award Recipients". San Diego Comic-Con International. 2 December 2012. Archived from the original on September 5, 2015. Retrieved November 18, 2015.
  22. ↑ "2000s Eisner Award Recipients". San Diego Comic-Con International. 2 December 2012. Archived from the original on September 5, 2015. Retrieved November 18, 2015.
  23. ↑ "Saga, Lumberjanes, Little Nemo Are Top Winners at 2015 Eisner Awards". San Diego Comic-Con International. 17 December 2014. Archived from the original on September 5, 2015. Retrieved November 18, 2015.
  24. ↑ Tree, Brad (September 9, 2012). "Congratulations to the Harvey Award Recipients!". Harvey Awards. Archived from the original on September 6, 2015. Retrieved November 18, 2015.
  25. ↑ "Inkpot Awards". San Diego Comic-Con International. 6 December 2012. Archived from the original on March 6, 2014. Retrieved March 13, 2014.
  26. ↑ "The Overstreet Hall of Fame: Dean Mullaney". Gemstone Publishing. 2014. Archived from the original on November 18, 2015. Retrieved November 18, 2015.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.