Chandler: Red Tide is a 1976 illustrated novel, an early form of graphic novel, by writer-artist Jim Steranko.
The digest-sized book combines typeset text with two same-sized illustrations per page, utilizing no word balloons or other traditional comics text conventions. A hard-boiled detective novel in the film noir style, its protagonist is a private detective named Chandler (an homage to author Raymond Chandler) who is hired by a man who claims to have been poisoned by the same people responsible for a notorious gangland slaying. As Chandler tracks down witnesses, each begins to turn up dead.
Publication history
Packaged by Byron Preiss Visual Publications and published by Pyramid Books,The back cover reads: "A Pyramid publication produced by Byron Preiss Visual Publications" under vice-president Norman Goldfein,Ashley, Mike. Gateways to Forever: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazines, 1970–1980, (Liverpool University Press – Liverpool Science Fiction Texts & Studies, 2007), p.323 in 1976, Chandler was written, drawn, and colored by veteran comics creator Jim Steranko. There is an introduction by crime novelist and former San Francisco private detective Joe Gores, and a foreword by Preiss. The original cover price was one dollar.
Preiss said the book was "created to retail at American newsstands alongside hundreds of other paperback offerings".Preiss, Byron "Eisner or Steranko? Check the Facts" (op-ed), ComiCon.com: The Pulse, July 22, 2003. WebCitation archive. The mass-market edition (), which Preiss said had a "50,000+ press run", was the third in a series from the publisher, and also known as Fiction Illustrated Vol. 3. (See image at left.) It was supplemented by a separate edition for bookstores that was double the dimensions of the newsstand edition. Steranko, through his company Supergraphics, additionally offered the latter in a limited edition of 750 with a signed and numbered signature plate.
Steranko in 1978 recalled the project's genesis:
He elsewhere said that in creating the book he used golden sectioning, "a mathematical formula to arrange elements in a unified structure, to create an image-to-text relationship that readers would be very comfortable with. The text on any given page related only to that page".
Steranko, who retained rights to the character, was then assigned to create a 12-page "Chandler" story for Penthouse magazine, working with executive editor Art Cooper. When Cooper departed Penthouse, the project was canceled and Steranko was paid a kill fee.Burchett, Rick, and Ed. Mantels, "Whizzard Talks to Steranko", Whizzard vol. 2, No. 11 [issue #16] (Summer 1978; published by Marty Klug, 5730 Chatport Road, St. Louis, Missouri), p. 13
Dark Horse Comics had planned to publish a revised edition of Chandler: Red Tide in December 1999, with revamped and more hardboiled art and text by Steranko,Smith, Kevin Burton. "Chandler", ThrillingDetective.com, n.d. WebCitation archive. but this did not see fruition. Dark Horse Presents vol. 3, No. 3 (Aug. 2011) included a 13-page Chapter 1 of Red Tide.Dark Horse Presents vol. 3, #3 at the Grand Comics Database
Reception
Chandler: Red Tide did not meet sales expectations, with Steranko recalling in 2003 that, "When the book appeared it was not embraced by the comic-book community because it didn't have word balloons or captions. Believe it or not, they found that shocking!"Archive of Epstein, Daniel Robert, , Newsarama, July 14, 2003. In 1978, shortly after the book's publication, he said, "I was disappointed in Pyramid's distribution and promotion of it. ... They did a major mailing on it, but there was more that can be done".
Illustrated-novel format Chandler: Red Tide is similar to Harold Foster's comic strip Prince Valiant in that the narrative is carried by a combination of graphics and text blocks without word balloons. Steranko used the term "graphic novel" in his introduction, though it was labeled "a visual novel" on the cover.
References
External links The Drawings of Steranko: Red Tide (fan site)