Classics Illustrated #171 - Nicholas Nickleby - HRN 171 ~ Jack Lake Productions, Toronto. Modern saddled stitched comic book on high quality paper stock, Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens, adapted by Dick Davis, with a new painted cover art by Colin Mayne. Interior art by Gustav Schrotter. This new edition of Classics Illustrated #171 was the first new issue introduced into the CI line after 2007's Aeneid and one of the most significant events in CI history since 1969. If you are this interested in Classics Illustrated then you probably know the story already. Albert Kanter moved the focus of the Classics Illustrated operation to England in the early-1960s. The new adaptations began appearing in Europe before America and eventually new American titles ceased while new British/European titles continued. Nicholas Nickleby, however, first appeared in November 1950, as #9 in the Famous Authors series. It has not previously appeared as part of the Classics Illustrated series (November 2010).

Canada's Jack Lake Productions licensed the rights to Classics Illustrated from First Classics and began a new series of reprints in 2003 with the Classics Illustrated Junior line. Quite a few of the Juniors were reprinted as well as several of the Classics Illustrated Special Issues and the main Classics Illustrated series. The first reprint from the main series was #124 War of the Worlds which was issued in both perfect bound and hardcover formats in 2005. In late 2007, Jack Lake Productions began republishing the regular titles of Classics Illustrated on a regular basis. The new printings were in "regular" comic format, carried the full reorder list, this was the first time Classics Illustrated had been done right since the 1960s.