Gemstone Publishing

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Gemstone Publishing (logo)

Gemstone Publishing is a U.S. company that publishes comic books and collectors' guides. The company was formed by Diamond Comic Distributors President and Chief Executive Officer Stephen A. Geppi. Gemstone is the current publisher of licensed Disney comic books, starting in June 2003. The company also reprints EC Comics of the 1950s. Additionally, the company is the current home of The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide. [1]

The core of the experienced editorial staff (John Clark, Gary Leach and Susan Daigle-Leach) previously worked at Gladstone Publishing. Archival editor David Gerstein previously worked at Egmont and is author of Nine Lives To Live - A Classic Felix Celebration, a collection of 1920s Felix the Cat comic strips published by Fantagraphics Books.

Name	Number of pages	Format	Status	Stories featuring
Walt Disney's Comics and Stories	64(68 w/covers)	Prestige	Active	Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Jr. Woodchucks, Goofy, Big Bad Wolf, Bucky Bug, Grandma Duck, Scamp
Uncle Scrooge	64(68 w/covers)	Prestige	Active	Scrooge McDuck, Gyro Gearloose, Beagle Boys, Launchpad McQuack, Fethry Duck, Donald Duck
Donald Duck Adventures	128(132 w/covers)	Digest	Ended	Donald Duck, Scrooge McDuck, Mickey Mouse, Duck Avenger
Mickey Mouse Adventures	128(132 w/covers)	Digest	Ended	Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Minnie Mouse
Donald Duck and Friends	32(36 w/covers)	Standard	Ended	Donald, Mickey
Mickey Mouse and Friends	32(36 w/covers)	Standard	Ended	Mickey, Donald

Gemstone also issues annual editions of Christmas Parade, Vacation Parade and a giveaway for Free Comic Book Day plus occasional special editions (including comic adaptations of Mickey, Donald and Goofy: The Three Musketeers and Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas). Its first book Mickey And The Gang: Classic Stories In Verse, a lavish compilation edited by David Gerstein of Disney cartoon story pages published from 1934 to 1944 in Good Housekeeping Magazine, was issued Nov. 2005

1 Russ Cochran and EC Comics reprints
2 Full-color hardbacks
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Russ Cochran and EC Comics reprints

Gemstone have also been heavily involved in the reprinting of old EC Comics titles. Gemstone's Comic Book Marketplace-editor Russ Cochran had previously published (in 1973) a dozen reprints of EC titles including Crypt of Terror, Weird Science, The Haunt of Fear, The Vault of Horror, etc., before moving to Gladstone Publishing and then to Gemstone, which has been the home of Cochran's EC reprints for over 15 years.

Reprinting the Cochran/Gladstone-reprints of The Haunt of Fear, The Vault of Horror and Weird Science (all 1992), Gemstone also republished (in single issue and 'annual' - four issues per 'annual' - format):

Crime SuspenStories, Shock SuspenStories, Two-Fisted Tales, Weird Fantasy and Weird Science-Fantasy in 1992;
Incredible Science Fiction (1994)
Frontline Combat (1995)
Panic (1997)
Piracy and Valor (1998)
Aces High, Impact, M.D. and Psychoanalysis (1999), and
Crime Patrol and Extra! in 2000.

Oversize, hardback, slip-cased collections of these comics had been previously published in black & white by Cochran during the 1980s as "The Complete EC Library". This Library was then added to by Cochran/Gemstone with 2005's Picto-Fiction collection, comprising the EC comics: Confessions Illustrated, Crime Illustrated, Shock Illustrated and Terror Illustrated, along with "18 previously unseen stories, never published before".^[1]

[edit] Full-color hardbacks

In 2006, Cochran and Gemstone began publication of a series of full-color EC Archives editions. Promising that "[e]ach EC Archive volume will reprint six complete issues (24 stories)"^[2], the first volumes of Weird Science and Shock Suspenstories both saw print in December, 2006, with forewords from (respectively) EC fans George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Ostensibly beginnig to publish two volumes every two months, the schedule changed to one-per-month and recently one every couple of months.

To date, the published volumes are:

The EC Archives: Weird Science Volume 1, with a foreword by George Lucas, (6 December 2006)
The EC Archives: Shock Suspenstories Volume 1, with a foreword by Steven Spielberg, (6 December 2006)
The EC Archives: Tales From The Crypt Volume 1, (14 February 2007)
The EC Archives: Two-Fisted Tales Volume 1, (28 February 2007)
The EC Archives: Weird Science Volume 2, with a foreword by Paul Levitz, (18 April 2007)
The EC Archives: Shock Suspenstories Volume 2, (30 May 2007)
The EC Archives: Tales From The Crypt Volume 2, (20 June 2007)
The EC Archives: Two-Fisted Tales Volume 2, (8 August 2007)
The EC Archives: Vault Of Horror Volume 1, with a foreword by R. L. Stine, (20 October 2007)
The EC Archives: Crime Suspenstories Volume 1, with a foreword by Max Allan Collins, (16 January 2008)

Gemstone's (out-of-date) EC webpage lists future volumes of Weird Science (Vol. 3) and Tales From the Crypt (Vol. 3) for publication during 2008; Amazon lists initial volumes of Haunt of Fear and Frontline Combat.^[3]

In addition, "Deluxe" versions of Weird Science Vol.s 1 & 2 (both signed by artist Al Feldstein), Shock Suspenstories Vol. 1 and Tales From the Crypt Vol. 1 have been published.