Comic Art

Casa Editrice Comic Art

Biographical information
Founded:	1974
Country:	Italy
Website:	[1]

History

The origins of Comic Art actually date back to 1963 when Rinaldo Traini worked on a project to create a monthly children's magazine. The magazine was to be called Comic Art, and would feature comics such as "Terry and the Pirates" by Milton Caniff (as well as George Wunder's), "Dick Tracy" by Chester Gould, "Little Orphan Annie" by Harold Gray, "Captain Easy" by Roy Crane, and others.

This project was not realized, however, but some of the material was used when Traini, together with two partners, formed the publishing house Comic Art and published the first "Alley Oop" hardback album in spring 1965. The album was followed by four paperbacks featuring Vincent T. Hamlin's "Alley Oop" with backup titles like "Captain Easy" and other humorous characters. The financial results were disappointing, and the following year the three friends decided to suspend publication.

Traini restarted the publishing house Comic Art in 1974 with the title "Avventura in Kandelabra", the first title in the "Wash Tubbs & Cpt. Easy" series. The releases were in limited edition and sold through specialized bookstores and mail order sales through the Comic Art Club.

The publications were issued under the main titles: "Yellow Kid", "Reprint", "New Comics Now", "Special Mongo", "Gertie Daily", "Autori", "Ristampe", "Croce del Sud", "Del Saggio", "Comics Oggi" and "Perodici per l'Edicola". Most of these titles are divided into subseries, which reflect the character that the release is about. In 1984, the publication of the monthly magazine "Comic Art" began. In 1988 "L'Eternauta" passed under the Comic Art banner, it was initially published by E.P.C. up to issue 60.

At the end of 2000, Traini announced that the publishing house was bankrupt.

(About Comic Art history, see: [2])

Mandrake publications published by Comic Art

Title	Year(s)	Issues
Comic Art	1984- ?	1 (of total 181)
Mandrake		55
Mandrake Speciale	1993 - 1994	4
New Comics Now	1980 - 1998	87
Magic Moments	early 1990's	1 (of total 6)

Mandrake the Magician Memorabilia

Comic Art Games

Comic Art also made 4 Comic Art Games; "Flash Gordon", "Mandrake", "L’Eternauta" and "Yellow Kid".

Giveaway

In 1997 "TIM", in collaboration with "Comic Art", made a 12 pgs promotional comic book. The 20,5 x 27 cm giveaway "Mandake, Straordinarie scoperte" was made using original strips with Mandrake, with new text.

Reference catalogs

Several years in a row Comic Art has published annual catalogs summarizing its publications, plus a more substantial book (150 pages) entitled «Comic Art Book» in September 1987.

Comic Art Book / 1987
1984 catalog
1986 catalog
1987 catalog
1989 catalog
1990 catalog
1990 catalog / inside page about New Comics Now collection
1991 catalog
1992 catalog
1993 catalog
1997 catalog