leveret1 wrote:
Pimp My Shelf wrote:

Hasn't the response to Terry and the Pirates been phenomenal enough to convince them to continue that series into its George Wunder years?

Canwell comments:
The response to TERRY has been phenomenal enough to convince us to do CANIFF and
STEVE CANYON, but no immediate plans to do the Wunder TERRY (although anything
is possible, eventually). Reasons being: [A] Dean, Lorraine, and I are major
Caniff fans, so getting Milton’s work collected is a priority for us, and [B]
while I’m probably prejudiced, I believe the visual/narrative drop-off from
Caniff-to-Wunder on TERRY is far more noticeable than the same drop-off from
Raymond-to-Prentice on RIP.

Re: possibility of inexpensive trades, more Blondie or more modern strip reprints:

POINT THE FIRST: We released our first Library of American Comics (LOAC)
paperback — THE BEST OF DICK TRACY — earlier this year, and we’re watching its
performance very carefully. Even before BEST OF TRACY, we’ve talked about the
possibility of doing a batch of LOAC paperbacks, as well as trying out some
experimental formats (how’s that for a tease? Can’t say any more about
“experiments” right now, but …). We continue to have those discussions. One
problem is, there are only so many assets — time, money, staff members — to be
expended, so our ability to launch projects has its limits (already, our motto
is: “Sleep is overrated!”).

What you wrote makes me think you may be assuming a correlation between
BLONDIE/format/sales and coming to a potentially-misleading conclusion. BLONDIE
Volume 1 sold nicely for us (and continues to sell); we expect Volume 2 to
perform just about as well. Our plans from the outset were to do two BLONDIEs,
then pause and decide where to go from there. As you know from Volume 1, the
original BLONDIE material is so different from the “familiar” BLONDIE everyone
knows, we wanted to make sure the market was there for The Great Old Bumstead
Stuff. So we’ll release Volume 2 (which I found great fun, by the way — I’d
never read much of that material before the book started coming together!), then
we’ll take a look at sales. If the signs all look positive, BLONDIE could go on
from there, much in the same way we’re doing a BRINGING UP FATHER companion
volume next year because the first one did so well.

POINT THE SECOND: An excellent question about more modern strips and whether
they’d sell enough in paperback format to make them viable. Right now, WIZARD OF
ID and BEETLE BAILEY have started appearing in hardcover from a non-LOAC
publisher (I bought my copies straight from Westfield, where I’ve been a
customer for *mumble-mumble* years!). I think the “more modern” strips aren’t
getting full attention right at this moment in part because there is so much
amazing older stuff that urgently needs and deserves the best treatment we can
provide it. I’d bet this doesn’t mean strips like B.C. and HI & LOIS won’t
get their day in the sun, in one format or another — but they _will_ have to
wait their turn.

I was the one who actually posted the original question over at Westfield's site and much appreciated Mr. Canwell's response.

Blondie is (and has been) a hugely popular comic strip and a favorite of mine for many years.  It's never really had any sort of regular reprint line, and I was really hoping that LOAC would be continuing on with the strip into it's more "familiar" era rather than ending it with two volumes of just the "classic" material (as is currently planned).

Some comic strips, like the more "familiar" Blondie, I think would be better served by lesser-expensive trade paperbacks that could appeal more to a mass audience.  Blondie is a popular strip, but I don't really see many casual fans of the strip buying expensive hardcover reprints, when other humor strip reprints like Garfield, Mutts and Get Fuzzy are being done in lesser expensive trades.  And I think that's the type of audience that would appeal to a reprint of the more "familiar" Blondie. 

The hardcover format worked rather well for Bloom County/Outland/Opus, but that was an unusual case.  The Family Circus reprints, for example, (R.I.P Bil Keane) might have been better served as a series of trade paperbacks as opposed to the current hardcover format.   At $40 (list price) a volume, the Family Circus reprints have a tough time competing with the Garfield, Mutts and other reprints that are its main competition in the marketplace.  Even with Amazon discounts, the Family Circus reprints are still twice as expensive as a Garfield or Mutts volume.

This is why I don't necessarily agree with Mr. Canwell regarding his conclusions that reprinting classic strips vs. modern-day strips has to be an either/or approach.  The appeal is different.  While I'm a bit unusual in that I enjoy both the classic as well as the modern-day strips, the truth is that the audience for modern day strips like Garfield and Get Fuzzy is different from that of classic strips like Dick Tracy and Terry and the Pirates.  By focusing solely on the classic strips, LOAC may be losing the chance to grab some of the more modern-day strips that have a wider appeal (and the possibility of larger sales). 

While I didn't necessarily ask about Terry and the Pirates, I would throw one thought out there.  While LOAC might not be interested at the moment with reprinting the George Wunder era, perhaps LOAC could consider reprinting the 1990s revival.  The revival lasted only a little over two years, and could easily be done-in-one volume.  Sales of the volume could be used as a gauge for continuing on with the Terry reprint line into the Wunder era.   Besides, I think sales on a Terry revival reprint could be good, considering that for the first year of the revival the artwork was done by Greg and Tim Hildebrandt.