Checker Book Publishing Group was an independent publisher of comics reprints, from newspaper strips to contemporary out-of-print titles and collections from defunct publishers. In 2012, they seemingly disappeared from the market. A few years later, they re-emerged as a presumptive publisher of projected role-playing super-hero board games. However, none of this seems to have materialised, and no more news of the company has been heard since 2017, which was the last time their company website was updated.
History
Based in Miamisburg near Dayton, Ohio, CheckerBPG was established in 2000 by Mark Thompson and Paul Dubuc with the intent to bring back into print "dormant, unpublished, and under-published serial comics and cartooning."
Checker ''Comics''
CheckerBPG's publisher, Mark Thompson, graduated from Miami University with a business degree, and worked for a newspaper before starting his first comics company - Checker Comics - in 1997. Based in the Oregon District, Checker Comics published original works including Danger Ranger and Mutator before becoming one of many victims of the collapse of the comics speculator bubble in the late 1990s.
CheckerBPG, Inc.
Checker Book Publishing was incorporated in 2001. Over the next five years, Checker published 43 titles. Between 2004 and 2005, two of Checker's co-founders departed the company, and in 2010, Thompson joined with Josh Blaylock of Devils Due Publishing to create Devil's Due Digital Inc. The present state of the company is uncertain—it seems to again be defunct.
Reprints and rights
As well as publishing over a dozen volumes showcasing the works of Little Nemo in Slumberland-creator Winsor McCay, Checker also published Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon. Other reprint rights of older material secured by Checker included Dick Tracy, Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon, the Gold KeyStar Trek comics, and Johnny Hart's B.C. as well as works by Theodor Seuss Geisel.
Published works
CheckerBPG launched with its November, 2001 release of Chuck Dixon's Alien Legion: Force Nomad. Other early titles included Clive Barker's Hellraiser and his Eisner Award-nominated anthology Tapping the Vein.
Newspaper reprints
CheckerBPG began reprinting out-of-print material in November, 2003 with their first collection of Winsor McCay's , Max Allan Collins' Dick Tracy work, and the first volume of Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon. By Summer, 2007, eight volumes of each were in print. Further volumes of McCay's works - including Dream Of The Rarebit Fiend and his Editorial Works were also published, alongside the first collection of his Little Nemo in Slumberland strips.
Dick Tracy
CheckerBPG released their first "of several" volume of Max Allan Collins' Dick Tracy works in November 2003 as Dick Tracy: The Collins Casefiles Volume 1, and a second and third volume followed within a year. Reprinted in the 'regular' trade paperback format, Checker's volumes print three daily strips per page, with the Sunday strips "chopped up", losing the logo and "Rogues Gallery" headers.
Flash Gordon
Between June 2004 and January 2007, Checker reprinted the complete Flash Gordon Sunday strips of Alex Raymond. These strips had been previously collected in colour by Kitchen Sink Press, but had been out-of-print for several years.
Volume 1 collects Raymond's earliest Sunday Strips starting from the first, printed on January 7, 1934.
Volume 2 collects strips from 1935 and 1936.
Volume 3 collects the pages printed between October 25, 1936 and August 1, 1937.
Volume 4 collects strips printed between 1938 and 1940.
Volume 5 collects "The Ice Kingdom of Mongo", "Power Men of Mongo", and "The Fall of Ming"; 1940 to 1941.
Volume 7 collects the final strips from mid-1943, until the final Raymond issue from February 1945.
Little Nemo in Slumberland
In Summer 2007, Checker announced a two-volume hardback edition of Winsor McCay's landmark strip Little Nemo in Slumberland, claiming it to "provide the most comprehensive collection of the series ever produced".
