Hey Kids! Comics! Hot August Books
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Below are some comic strip and cartoon books scheduled for August 2026 release (or so).
Images and links from a variety of publishers and outlets,
though ordering through your local comic shop or independent book store is a good idea.
The Lost Forest Companion – A Field Guide to Ed Dodd’s Enduring Mark Trail Newspaper Comic Strip by Bernard A. Drew
From his first appearance in a syndicated comic strip in 1946 to his latest published panels today, Ed Dodd’s MARK TRAIL has entertained and educated newspaper readers as to the dangers of environmental excess. It took a 47-year courtship, but the lanky woodsman married feisty Cherry Davis and helped her father Doc Davis turn Lost Forest into a thriving nature preserve. Mark Trail has pursued poachers, confronted illegal tree harvesters and exposed land swindlers. He has rescued his St. Bernard Andy from greedy dognappers and Andy has rescued him from dangerous waterfalls.
This book is a quintuple biography of the creator and four other artists. It looks at radio programs, magazine appearances, promotional contests, even affectionate parodies.
I would guess that the “four other artists” are Tom Hill, Jack, Elrod, James Allen, and Jules Rivera the only other artists other than Ed Dodd who have signed the strip.
THIMBLE THEATRE by E. C. Segar: “The Saga of Cylinda Oyl” Vol. 1 paperback (or hardcover)
In honor of the 100th anniversary of the wedding of Castor Oyl and Cylinda in August 1926!
This is the first of three volumes collecting “The Saga of Cylinda Oyl,” a gripping, hilarious, and moving series of stories unfolding over the course of more than two years, bookended by the entrance and exit of the beautiful and mysterious Cylinda.
Featuring a 12-page, richly illustrated historical introduction (over 3,600 words) with new insights into the social world that shaped Segar, along with unearthed archival treasures never printed outside of Segar’s hometown over a century ago!
Discover America’s greatest cartoonist as he masters long-form continuity storytelling in comics in his final major storyline in the daily newspapers before introducing his beloved Popeye to the world!
The Artist: The Portfolio Edition by Anna Haifisch (preview) (author interview)
Breakdown Press are excited to bring Anna Haifisch’s The Artist back to print in a new omnibus edition, collecting both the original 2016 graphic novel and it’s 2019 follow-up, The Circle of Life, along with additional strips including the brand new Bird Opera. Now readers can experience the whole story in one hilarious and heart-wrenching volume, exposing the absurdity of the fine art world as experienced by a young artist.
…
Based on Haifisch’s own experiences as an illustrator in both Germany and the USA, The Artist is a sharp and self-deprecating comedy that will resonate with anyone who has ever tried to make art. In The Artist, Haifisch has exposed the very nerves of what it means to be an artist in a world of ever shifting rules and complications, to hilarious and insightful ends.
It’s Only a Game – The Complete Color Edition by Charles M. Schulz and Jim Sasseville (new edition)
As some of you know, the color collection of Schulz’s late-1950s newspaper feature It’s Only a Game that I published in 2013 is a bit weird — namely, the book’s spine is not on the left, as with a normal English book. No, the spine is on the top, and you have to turn pages by flipping them up from the bottom, like a calendar.
Well, I’ve finally managed to publish a less-weird edition of this material… it’s the same comics, the same commentary by Schulz’s assistant on the series Jim Sasseville, but the spine is at the left, like nature intended. This is a wide paperback, 11.69″ x 8.27″, so you’ll need a couple feet of table space to open it up.
This new edition is not available through Amazon. It’s only for sale in the US, and you order it directly from me.
A Sensual Cesspool of Iniquity Comics and Censorship in 1950’s Ireland by James Bacon (review)
Comics were banned in Ireland.
The Censorship of Publications Board prohibited comics. The Gardai, the Irish police, seized comics under warrant, investigated them and even borrowed comics to see what was available. There was a litany of complaint, objection and outrage about comics in the 1950s.
Comics historian and fan James Bacon shares his research into the unique and singular Irish experience during the moral panic about comics during the 1950s in Ireland.
Comics initially were just regarded by some as more of the British demoralizing influence during the time of the Committee on Evil Literature. Ireland had a functioning censorship system from 1929 that was adept at banning thousands of publications, yet less than twenty comics were banned in Ireland.
The Phantom: The Best of the Sy Barry Years 1961-1994 by Lee Falk and Sy Barry
Collects 12 of the best Daily and Sunday story arcs illustrated by Sy Barry! Limited to 1,000 copies. Recommended. The Phantom: The Best of the Sy Barry Years—1961-1994 contains twelve complete Phantom story arcs — nine daily continuities and three Sunday continuities — all featuring the art of master Phantom artist Sy Barry! And to celebrate Sy’s 97th birthday as well as the end of his tenure on the daily version of the strip with Volume #36 of Hermes Press’ complete reprint of the Phantom dailies (with still more to come from Sy with their reprints of his Sundays!), they have produced this deluxe volume featuring special cover art created by Sy exclusively for this edition. Hermes Press, 2026. Due: Aug.
This is from Hermes Press, meaning there is no guarantee it will be issued on time – or even this year.
Popeye the Sailor: The 1960s TV Cartoons by Fred M. Grandinetti
Following the surprising popularity of the theatrical Popeye cartoons on television in the mid-1950s, King Features Syndicate quickly went into production on new made-for-TV cartoons to capitalize on that success. Under the supervision of Producer Al Brodax, 220 new cartoons were created by six different animation studios, including one overseen by former Disney animator Jack Kinney, and Paramount Cartoon Studios (whose staff had worked on the theatrical Popeye cartoons). They appeared on television beginning in 1960.
Many of these cartoons featured excellent (though limited) animation, imaginative storytelling, and even occasional self-referential humor. Several stories were adapted from E.C. Segar’s Thimble Theatre newspaper comics, and characters that had first appeared there (such as The Sea Hag, and Alice the Goon) would make their animation debut. The best-known voice artists from the theatrical Popeye cartoons — Jack Mercer, Mae Questel, and Jackson Beck (now playing Brutus, instead of Bluto) — each reprised their roles.
However, several of these cartoons were poorly animated, with errors and inconsistent character designs, and too reliant on reused animation. This has given the series a reputation — perhaps unfairly — of poor quality. While casting a critical eye, this book will encourage appreciation of the better films of the series.
These new made-for-TV Popeye cartoons were a terrific success and continued to appear on television for more than 30 years. They remain a beloved memory of childhood TV viewing.
Prince Valiant Vol. 31: 1997-1998 by John Cullen Murphy and Cullen Murphy
On its sixtieth anniversary, the strip looks back on Prince Valiant’s eventful life as many threads begin to come together in a climactic and fateful series of events that will change the face of Camelot. Dire times are ahead for Prince Valiant and his companions, as a three-way war erupts between Arthur’s British kingdom, the Picts, and the Jutes; Aleta, Maeve, and Ingrid are thrown into prison by Lord Hussa; Camelot falls to a barbarian army; and King Arthur makes a last stand. Plus: Galleries of the best images from Prince Valiant by its creator Hal Foster chosen by artist admirers and comic-strip experts.
Guardians of Being by Eckhart Tolle and Patrick McDonnell (new edition)
More than 15 years after its original publication, Guardians of Being has returned in a new hardcover gift edition from New World Library on August 11, 2026.
This beloved collaboration pairs Patricks’ MUTTS artwork with the words and lessons of spiritual teacher and bestselling author Eckhart Tolle. At its heart, this book celebrates something our animal companions seem to understand naturally: how to be fully present. This book invites us to pause, notice, play, and find wonder and joy in the simple moments we share with the animals we love.
This gift edition includes a bookplate that has been hand-signed by Patrick McDonnell (a MUTTS.com exclusive offering).
Welcome to Wackyland: The Wonderful World of Bob Clampett by Ruth Clampett and Darrell Van Citters
Forty years in the making! Ruth Clampett’s long-awaited book on her father, animator Bob Clampett. Covering his entire life and career from his Warner Bros. years to creating the puppet show Time for Beany to the animated series Beany and Cecil.
This is a gorgeous book with over 450 images, many from Bob’s personal collection of art and photos.
The book is an animation fan’s dream. Filled with never-before-seen artwork, animator’s drawings, model sheets, storyboards, layouts… just the kind of stuff that makes one’s heart flutter.
The text is breezy and revealing, full of anecdotes about the many animators, directors, and producers that Clampett worked with and alongside.
The Amazing Spider-Man Classic Newspaper Comics – 1980 by Stan Lee and Larry Lieber with Frank Giacoia
The fabulous fourth year of Spider-Man’s newspaper adventures! Written by Stan Lee, this volume features the final year of artwork by the legendary John Romita and presents the very first strips illustrated by Larry Lieber. The action-packed strips are reprinted just as readers experienced them nationwide, with the full-color Sunday pages integrated with the dailies!
1980 begins with Peter Parker in the midst of a crisis of conscience as he gives up his life as Spider-Man! When Aunt May’s life is threatened, he must find a way to save her without his costume. The challenges keep coming as the Kingpin is released from prison and clashes with Spidey once more, and a new adversary emerges in the form of the Protector!
The New Old Style: Anachronism in Contemporary Comics by Matthew LeVay
The New Old Style explores how the deliberate use of cartooning styles that mimic those of the early twentieth century has paradoxically become one of the most significant vehicles for formal experimentation in contemporary comics. Dubbing this phenomenon “the anachronistic aesthetic,” Matthew Levay argues that what can initially appear to be a nostalgic affinity for outmoded drawing styles is in fact a complex and holistic movement in contemporary comics with profound consequences for how artists and audiences might understand the critical possibilities and historical legacies of the medium itself.
The phenomenon of anachronism as an aesthetic mode is visible in North American comics as early as the 1970s, but it rose to prominence in the 1990s. Since then, multiple artists have drawn in ways that reference cartooning styles of the distant past—those of early twentieth-century newspaper comics, early American animation, and midcentury comic books for young children, to name a few. The New Old Style characterizes these cartoonists’ use of anachronism as a mode of critical engagement that reveals how comics, as a medium, can simultaneously interrogate its history—and the violence, misogyny, and racial stereotypes that pervade it—while opening up new ways of addressing its aesthetic conditions. A work of comics history as well as theory, The New Old Style traces the uses of anachronism in comics published from the 1970s to the present and, via a focused set of case studies, argues that those uses represent a wide-ranging critique of the politics of the past, the material culture of the present, and the aesthetic possibilities of the future.
Tom the Dancing Bug vol. 1: Secret Origins by Ruben Bolling
Back to the beginning, where it all started. Volume 1 of Tom the Dancing Bug collects the comic strips from 1990 to 1994!
Tom the Dancing Bug is the wildly popular, groundbreaking comic strip that has won multiple awards, including the Herblock Prize, the Berryman Award, and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, as well as being a two-time Pulitzer Prize Finalist
That completes The Complete Tom the Dancing Bug series until the 2024 to whenever book comes out.
Filial Lines: Art Spiegelman, Alison Bechdel, and Comics Form by Emmy Waldman (review)
This is the first book to place the autobiographical projects of canonical comics authors Art Spiegelman and Alison Bechdel alongside each other, focusing on new and neglected works (and with an epilogue on the Pulitzer Prize-winning tour-de-force debut of Tessa Hulls). The book offers a lively cast of five formal tropes-boxes, spirals, tic-tac-toe, mirrors, and webs-through which to model fundamental elements of the comics grammar and its material processes. Built around rich close readings, it shows what makes the comics form particularly suited to negotiate complex familial and creative inheritances and manage layered, relational identities. Interweaving accounts of Jewish identity, female embodiment, legacies of modernism, and feminist practice, the book traces how contemporary graphic memoirists visually work and rework their filiations and affiliations through form, situating the medium as a privileged site and staging ground for arguments about the enabling possibilities of form now.
Tad Dorgan’s Indoor Sports 1913-1914 by Thomas Dorgan
Tad Dorgan’s Indoor Sports is a forgotten classic. Written and drawn by one of the giants of early twentieth century cartooning, Tad’s keen observations of daily life, mixed with his unique brand of slang and humor, helped shape the modern American vernacular. Unseen for decades, CSAG is proud to present the first of a multiple volume series collecting the dailies of Tad Dorgan’s masterpiece.
Oaky Doaks 1943- 1945 Dailies by R.B. Fuller
Princess Elaine and Morgana Le Fay rival for Oaky’s affections! Morgana tries to get the upper hand by using a love potion, but it turns out to be the opposite! Oaky becomes a menace to all women of the kingdom and has to be cast out, but is saved by Elaine, for whom he has real affection. Then, off to another tournament where the prize money is stolen! Oaky goes to recover it, but it is in Pentagon Castle, a fearful place ruled by the Lady Godiva. Oaky deals with a butter shortage, makes a new friend like Manny Horace, fights new enemies like the Witch Hazel and the Duke of Dunk, but his greatest trials are sitting for a group family portrait with the king and getting psychoanalyzed by Merlin! R. B. Fuller is at his peak during these war time stories of this unjustly forgotten newspaper strip!
Ken Stuart 1947 – 1949 Newspaper Dailies & Sundays by Ken Borth
Ken Stuart is a sailor for hire who is captain of the Barracuda, and with his two-man crew, embarks on various adventures off the Atlantic coast. From big game fishing to finding lost treasure, Ken and his crew have to navigate through treacherous situations, such as dealing with devious smugglers, ex war criminals, native tribes, underwater creatures, and mysterious and beautiful women. This short-lived strip, spanning just over two years in the late 1940’s, is remarkable for the strong illustrative work of Frank Borth. Discover inside the amazing adventures of Ken Stuart!
Tailspin Tommy 1928-1932 Newspaper Sundays by Glenn Chaffin and Hal Forrest
The high-flying adventures of Tommy Tomkins, Betty Lou Barnes and Peter “Skeeter” Mulligan appear in a separate Sunday series filled with high adventure, drama and incredibly detailed art work. The Sunday strips cemented Tailspin Tommy as one of the finest newspaper strips of its time. Never seen in its entirety until now, follow Tommy and his friends as they fly off to foreign lands, featuring the incredible adventure in the Lost City of Tepenac!
feature image by Cole Closser
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