Today brings a press release letting me know that longtime comics pros Chuck Dixon and Gary Kwapisz have formed History Graphics Press, to publish "entertaining, historically accurate graphic novels set against the background of American history." Their first is Civil War Adventure, a 150-page graphic novel telling tales of The War Between the States.

This is very good news. Gary's a very good illustrator, best known for working on Conan and the Punisher. Chuck is one of my all-time favorite comics writers, who's worked on just about everything for everybody. They both make good comics, but they also both love history, and know how to tell informative and exciting stories that get it right. I fully expect that everything they do will be not only a good read, but well-researched, authentic and convincing.

Years ago, when Carol Kalish was a VP at Marvel Comics, she wanted to do a line of Civil War comics to be sold at the various battleground sites, as another way to do comics outreach—books that could be sold as souvenirs, that would also educate and give context to what visitors to the battlefield parks had seen, and, not-incidentally, get people reading comics who might not otherwise have tried them. The line fell apart as it went through editorial development and became something aimed more at comics fans than park visitors, but it was a good idea and I always thought it was something of a lost opportunity. This new line, from Chuck and Gary, seems like exactly the sort of thing Carol would have wanted to see—and even better, they won't be limiting themselves to the Civil War, but will be exploring all of American history.

You can check out a story from their launch graphic novel (plus samples of the other stories it'll hold, as well) at their website, History Graphics Press.

I'm eager to see the full book, and to see what else they have in the works.