Alley Oop: The Complete Sundays Volume 1

by V.T. Hamlin, Daniel Chabon (Editor)

Introducing the first in a series that will collect, in chronological order, all the Sunday pages of this popular newspaper strip! Go back in time to the prehistoric kingdom of Moo and follow the fantastic, whimsical — and often cleverly satirical — Stone Age adventures of V. T. Hamlin's irrepressible caveman, Alley Oop!

This oversized volume collects every Alley Oop Sunday strip from 1934 through 1936, in full color.

Genres: Comics, Comic Strips

128 pages, Hardcover

First published May 20, 2014

Reviews

[Dominick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book, offering an integral run of the first couple of years of Sunday pages at a generous size and with great colour reproduction. This early, things are still taking shape in the strip-most significantly, there is no time travel yet, or for a few years to come--but Oop's basic nature is fully in evidence. Hamlin generally goes for gag a week strips, with occasional continuities that last a few weeks at best--rarely more than five strips or so. However, the art is absolutely gorgeous, and the gags are generally funny. Classic stuff that belongs in every comics fan's library.

[Al Berry · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this, but I don’t. The art work isn’t very good. Considering at this same time you has Alex Raymond penciling Agent X-9, it isn’t just okay for it’s time, like Little Nemo, it is legitimately just not that good at all.

The stories themselves aren’t that strong, mostly gag a day strips with a few short continuities of 4-5 days worth, and the caveman cliches become stale quickly at least when your reading them in a book form as opposed to one strip a week. I don’t think it would have had the run it did had Hamlin not thought up the time travel gimmick, which brings freshness to the storytelling, but just skip these years which take place before the Time travel device.

[Michael P. · Rating 2 out of 5]

The best thing V. T. Hamlin did with this strip was take Alley Oop out of his repetitive cave man stories and make him a time traveler. These Sunday pages are bogged down in that earlier era. The two star review is possibly unfair in that these comic strips were intended to be read a week apart, so the repetitions would be less striking. I am, however, commenting on a book, and these strips do not seem very good when read several at a time.