• Introduction • Collector's Guide To Clive Cussler • Description By Bruce Kenfield • Frank Bolle • Toronto Star August 15, 1977 • Best Seller Showcase 8/15/77-10/9/77 •

Toronto Star
Monday August 15, 1977

The Star today launches Best Seller Showcase, an innovative approach to best-selling novels.  Each day's entertainment section will offer readers a segment from serialized "comic strip" rendition of a novel currently in the public eye.

The first serialization is of Clive Cussler's Raise The Titanic, an adventure thriller set in 1987.  The United States government believes that the worlds only supply of a rare mineral called byzanium is locked in the hold of the Titanic.  The unsinkable ocean liner that went down on it's maiden voyage in 1912 with the loss of 1517 people.  The U.S. agent wants the byzanium to complete its "Impenetrable defense system."

But Soviet officials find out about the Americans' intentions and try to thwart the efforts of U.S. agent Dirk Pitt to recover the byzanium.  Six days a week for eight weeks the story will unfold.

Other novels will be treated in the same fashion, Lee Salem, managing editor of United Press Syndicate (which is originating the new series), said in an interview from his Kansas office. "We feel it's a new innovative approach to comic strip art."

Salem said that while some people feel serialized strips could draw people away from actually reading books, "We think this will give the readers of the strip enough of a taste to go out and buy the book."

All strips will be approved by the novels' original authors before publication to ensure they are faithful to the original story.

Other books under consideration are: Paul Erdman's The Crash of '79, Peter Benchley's The Deep, Leon Uris' Trinity and Erich Segal's Oliver's Story."