Ms. Tree Returns
- Posted by Johanna on September 27, 2007 at 9:50 pm
- Category: Comic News
Ms. Tree, last published in comic form by DC in the early 1990s, is returning in prose.
Her writer, Max Allan Collins, is bringing her back in a novel from Hard Case Crime. Deadly Beloved is due at the end of November. Her illustrator and co-creator Terry Beatty provides a new cover painting for the book. The publisher says:
Over the course of 15 years, MS. TREE became the longest running private eye comic ever and her creators were nominated for the Eisner Award. But she’s never previously appeared in a (non-graphic) novel. Collins had a blast doing a “Casino Royale”-style reboot, preserving enough of the character’s history to please long-time readers and throwing in plenty of new twists to bring her story up to the present.
From the little information I could find online, the series sounds too hardboiled for me to enjoy it, but it’s a good example of creator-driven cross-media product development. By owning the rights, Collins and Beatty were able to take their creation elsewhere.
September 28, 2007 at 1:19 AM
I was just reading some Ms. Tree comics today. She’s hard-boiled, but the series isn’t graphic or anything. (I’m not sure what about the boil bugs you.) Thanks for letting us know about the novel.
September 28, 2007 at 2:29 AM
This isn’t Ms. Tree’s first foray into prose; there are several short stories, one of which is reprinted in the book Comics Prose.
September 28, 2007 at 5:53 AM
You’re right that there have been a handful of Ms. Tree short stories over the years — but this is the first-ever Ms. Tree novel. (Non-graphic novel, that is.)
September 28, 2007 at 7:57 AM
I just don’t care much for hardboiled — the grimness, the settings, the tough decisions that usually involve some kind of violence or pain. But I’m sure we have some of the comics around here somewhere, I should give them a try.
September 28, 2007 at 9:31 AM
That is really cool. I’m a fan of both, and this is just the kind of crossover I can get behind.
September 28, 2007 at 1:32 PM
Fantastic!! And–well, they’re pretty hardboiled. If by hardboiled, you mean, stabbing, explosions, killing of all the boyfriends . . .
The cover looks AWESOME.
September 28, 2007 at 9:06 PM
I am really enjoying the Hard Case Crime series. There has been at least one other Collins novel in the line that I can recall — Two For the Money.
This should be a great addition.