Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune: The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips 1933-1935 (Vol. 1) (Roy Crane's Captain Easy)

Roy Crane created the first American adventure strip: Wash Tubbs. The character Captain Easy spun off into his own Sunday page in 1933, and Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune: The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips Vol. 1 collects these full-color strips from that point until 1935. In Volume One, Captain Easy visits a lost city, battles pirates, dons a diving suit in search of treasure; everywhere he goes, he finds beautiful women. Captain Easy not only influenced roles for the likes of Hollywood actors such as Cary Grant or Errol Flynn, he influenced virtually every comics hero who followed him - Gil Kane once said "Superman was Captain Easy; Batman was Captain Easy." Crane combined adventure and humor in a Bigfoot cartooning style: according to comic-strip historian Richard Marschall, Crane "develop[ed] expressive techniques and a whole dictionary of conventions and signs for future comic strip artists. Volume One also features some of the best and rarest Roy Crane art, as well as illustrations from his sketchbooks. It will also contain biographical and critical introductions to Crane and his work.

Royston Campbell Crane (1901-1977), who signed his work Roy Crane, created the comic-strip characters Wash Tubbs, Captain Easy, and Buz Sawyer. His work continues to inspire cartoonists today.

Rick Norwood (b. 1942) is a comics historian, writer, mathematician, and professor. He wrote underground comics, founded the newspaper strip reprint publisher Manuscript Press in the 1970s, and is the editor of the magazine Comics Revue. He lives in Johnson City, Tennessee.