by Chris Ware. Chris Ware has edited and designed this new 400 page hardcover volume of Walt & Skeezix, collecting the Gasoline Alley strips by the great American cartoonist Frank King from 1923-1924. King was the first cartoonist to have his characters age in real time and have modern storylines. In Book Two, Baby Skeezix is kidnapped, Walt's courtship with Phyllis heats up and cools down, and Walt makes a bet with his friend Avery to see who can cross the North American continent first. There will be a new eighty-page introduction by journalist Jeet Heer exploring the strip's Chicago background and the attraction that King and other cartoonists felt for the Grand Canyon. The first volume of Walt & Skeezix was enormously successful, selling 9,000 copies in two printings. HC, 9x7, 400pgs, PC.