Crowdfunding Spotlight: “Red Range” by Joe R. Lansdale & Sam Glanzman

By John Freeman on June 18, 2016

If you haven’t already, then please do check out Drew Ford‘s latest Kickstarter appeal to get the positively stunning Western comic Red Range by Joe R. Lansdale (By Bizarre Hands) and by Sam Glanzman (A Sailor’s Story) back into print.

Combining an unusual mix of racial unrest, odd ball characters and strange happenings, Red Range is a unique take on “The Western”…

Featuring glorious art from Glanzman, the project is now heading into “stretch goals” territory having gained $15,000 in backing to bring the story back into print.

Stephen Bissette has written a special introduction for this new edition and Rufus Dayglo has donated three sketches, for this stunning project, telling me Sam Glanzman is one of his childhood heroes – and he’s thrilled to be able to get his work back in print.

Red Range was originally published in 1999 by Mojo Press. Unfortunately, Mojo went out of business that same year, and the book has been out of print ever since.

For the last two years, Drew Ford has been busy acquiring, editing and (working closely with production and marketing) bringing over 24 graphic novel reprint collections to market through another American publisher. One of those collections was even nominated for an Eisner award, The Puma Blues by Stephen Murphy and Michael Zulli.

“Recently, I decided to leave my position at that publisher, and launch my own publishing imprint…IT’S ALIVE!”

Red Range is the first of hopefully many new collections from this imprint.

“In the past, I have worked very closely with both Sam Glanzman and Joe R. Lansdale to put some of their more important out of print works back on the shelves. For Glanzman, I put together the A Sailor’s Story collection, the U.S.S. Stevens collection, and the ATTU collection. For Lansdale, I resurrected his first award-winning short story collection, By Bizarre Hands.”

Regular downthetubes readers may recall my praise for A Sailor’s Story on its re-release – and Red Range is another amazing Glanzman-drawn book deserving new publication.

For this book to be published, and for Drew’s new imprint IT’S ALIVE to continue its vital mission of saving lost and forgotten comic books and graphic novels, he truly needs your support, so please consider pledging, and you can also help Drew tremendously by telling everyone you know about the exciting stuff Drew and his team are hoping to accomplish.

• Take a look and if you like what you see, give Red Range a boost to its first stretch goal of $20,000!

More About IT’S ALIVE Press

John Freeman

The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.

He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.