I wrote this long essay in 2011 for The Comics Journal’s online version/presence/blog, and it’s still retrievable there–but I’ve tinkered with it somewhat, and updated it here and there. It stands primarily as my awed homage to the many publishers who’ve been reprinting classic newspaper comic strips and comic books in archival editions, and especially to the editors and scholars who’ve contributed their Introductions and Afterwards. But it’s also my attempt to deconstruct editorial front and back matter, to discover its patterns and points of concentration, and to suggest some critical approaches to, and ways to critique, an often-overlooked but very important element of comics-reprint books.

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