Little Tommy Lost: Book One: Book One - Softcover

Nominated for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Award for Best Publication Design "Little Tommy Lost replicates the look and tone of clippings of an daily/Sunday strip from the late 1930s quite beautifully. The story of abused urchins does seems as if it might well have been someone's grampa's favorite serial strip, lovingly preserved for posterity." -- James Romberger, The Hooded Utilitarian "In the idioms and rhythms of...open-ended serial storytelling that first came to life in the pages of the newspaper comic strip in the 1910s, Closser recovers something vital." -- Jared Gardner, Public Books "Closser's magnificent book has nobly earned its spot on the shelf next to the revered legends and recently rediscovered masters he's emulating." -- Jake Austen, Chicago Tribune "Everything is just so well done, it's impossible to not get sucked in and read the whole thing in one sitting. It made me want to search out old newspaper comics, but I stopped because I knew they wouldn't be this good." -- Sam Spina, author of Spinadoodles, for the Atomic Books Blog "A spot-on homage to classic newsprint comics, I am puzzled and stupefied by this book. I did not see it coming." -- Brad Mackay, Sequential "Cole Closser designs strips such that they're not just pastiches or homages to classic comic strips, but rather as a strip that could be transplanted back into the past with the authenticity, skill and authority of one of the masters." -- Rob Clough, High-Low "Looking back to early Little Orphan Annie and giving it a good, swift kick in the pants, while still retaining some of the qualities that keeps it interesting, Cole Closser is literally rebooting the concept of period adventure comic strips." -- John Seven, North Adams Transcript "Little Tommy Lost embodies the rich heritage of bygone American funnies while keeping an edge that's both gripping and grim. And this being Book One, there's still plenty of adventure to be had." -- Jason Heller, A.V. Club "Little Tommy Lost is a fun comic that I would declare okay for all ages, maybe with a bit of supervision...Anyone who loves newspaper strips really needs to budget a mere $15 to take this one home with them." -- Rob McMonigal, Panel Patter "[Little Tommy Lost: Book One] sports plenty of flourishes borrowed from the likes of Bushmiller and Segar, which, along with faded and stained color treatments, are enough to put you back in an era well before the cartoonist roamed this earth." -- Brian Heater, Boing Boing "In Patti Smith's documentary, "Dream of Life," she says that Jackson Pollock noticed a drip in the mouth of a horse in Picasso's Guernica and from that he created a whole new vocabulary. Cole Closser noticed a drip in the mouth of an old man in a comics shop and created a whole new encyclopedia of newspaper comics. These comics are the freshest I've seen since my Grampop showed me his collection of Roy Crane clippings. Amazing work and it doesn't even need a newspaper." -- Tony Millionaire, is a cartoonist, illustrator and author known for his syndicated comic strip Maakies and the Sock Monkey series of comics and picture books. "The comics on Cole Closser's website are amazing. How did I not know about this guy's existence?" -- Jeet Heer, comics scholar and critic "What makes Closser's work great is the organic nature of his line. He's not simply doing a pastiche but rather looks to have achieved his own style after much trial and error after looking at a lot of different kinds of comics. I could read a book full of these gags." -- Rob Clough, writer and comics critic

Separated from his parents on a trip to the big city, a lost little boy unknowingly sets out on a great adventure as he searches for a way home in Little Tommy Lost: Book One. Reminiscent of the newspaper strips and lushly illustrated Sunday comics of the early twentieth century, Cole Closser's work is steeped in cartooning history, but filled with an unparalleled sense of the new.