More Barnaby Coming!

The Barnaby comic strip by Crockett Johnson (Harold and the Purple Crayon) is amazingly creative. Fantagraphics began bringing this 1940s classic to modern readers in 2013. As I said in my review of volume 1 (which reprints strips from 1942-1943),

Barnaby is a typical boy who’s visited by the world’s strangest Fairy Godfather. Mr. O’Malley wears a hat and trenchcoat and is never seen without his cigar (which he calls his magic wand). It’s unclear, at times, whether he’s really a magical creature, a con artist, or a figment of Barnaby’s imagination (which would have to be rather odd to dream up this guy).

Volume 2 (1944-1945) came out in 2014, and Volume 3 (1946-1947) in 2016. I had figured that the project hadn’t done so well, since we’d heard no more about it, or maybe even ended. Since the strips were classic reprints, I was in no rush to read them, even though they were great. (I like having a treat saved for that proverbial rainy day.) But now I’m eager to dive back into the series, because Fantagraphics has offered Volume 4! It can be ordered with Diamond code OCT20 1391.

You can reorder the previous volumes as well: Volume 1 (OCT20 1392), Volume 2 (OCT20 1393), and Volume 3 (OCT20 1394). If you haven’t seen the strip, you should check them out.