Chuck Jones: The Dream that Never Was

We all harbor a secret wish that we could find a previously unseen project by one of the greatest figures in animation history. Well, wish no more — celebrating the 2012 centennial of Chuck Jones's birth, IDW's Library of American Comics unveils Chuck Jones: The Dream That Never Was!

The Academy Award-winning director of "Duck Amuck," "What's Opera, Doc," "How The Grinch Stole Christmas," and other timeless classics, created dozens of cartoon characters throughout his decades-long career: Pepé Le Pew, Marvin the Martian, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote…and Crawford, an accident prone, nine-year-old boy whose daily routine includes surviving his own boyhood.

Chuck Jones: The Dream That Never Was follows the twenty-seven year journey it took Jones to bring Crawford to the public, from conception to storyboard to newspaper strip. This incredible volume is loaded with never-before-seen sketches, drawings, storyboards, and production notes, and the six-month run of the Crawford newspaper comic strip from 1978. Accompanying the artwork is a biography of Chuck Jones's career in the sixties and seventies and how it influenced the creation of Chuck's only foray into the world of comic strips.

Produced with the full coöperation of the Chuck Jones family, the book was conceived by Kurtis Findlay, who says, “My first surprise when I started researching the Crawford comic strip was how little people knew about it. My second surprise was the treasure trove of Chuck Jones art we would find. Crawford just kept popping up in places I didn’t expect, making the history of this little-known character incredibly rich.”

Animation Magazine calls Chuck Jones: The Dream that Never Was one of the "10 Essential Books for Animation Students."