2010 in comics

A brief overview of comics in 2010, including the stuff I bought and read, stuff I bought and still have sitting in the metaphorical to-read pile, stuff that came out that I still have to buy (some of it on order and coming in the mail), stuff I borrowed and read in whole or in part and stuff that seemed interesting.  The Ditko over here, and the Kirby over here.


SHOWCASE PRESENTS DIAL H FOR HERO
SHOWCASE PRESENTS SECRETS OF SINISTER HOUSE
SHOWCASE PRESENTS SGT. ROCK #3
SHOWCASE PRESENTS THE DOOM PATROL #2
SHOWCASE PRESENTS OUR ARMY AT WAR #1
I do still love DC's Showcase Presents format, big thick books of black and white reprints. The one from the year I'm most happy about is the one I don't have yet, OUR ARMY AT WAR, in my hands this time next week, post office willing.  500 pages of early 1950s war comics. I'm in the middle of reading a whole bunch of them, including those released this year, usually reading a story from each every week. DIAL H is goofy fun, with great Jim Mooney artwork, I'd have loved it at age 10, I still like it a lot at age 40. SINISTER HOUSE is mostly journeyman early 1970s stuff, with occasional artistic standouts including Alex Toth, Alfredo Alcala and Sam Glanzman. The SGT. ROCK book is all Kanigher/Kubert so far, about half new to me, and naturally great. Really looking forward to the Kanigher/Heath stuff coming up towards the end of the book. DOOM PATROL has some quirky stories by Arnold Drake that amuse if I'm in the right mood, but the Bruno Premiani art is the real star. There were also WORLD'S FINEST (Superman/Batman team-up) and LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES volumes out this year, which I'm sure I'll pick up eventually.

AYAKO
The latest single-volume reprint of Osamu Tezuka's work published by Vertical, a thick 700-page hardcover, looks really impressive. Still waiting until I have the time and am in the right mood. Also from Tezuka this year, several volumes of BLACK JACK, which I need to get caught up on, and thinner 2-volume versions of APOLLO'S SONG and ODE TO KIRIHITO. I really need to catch up on all the Tezuka stuff available, and re-read a lot of it.  And this BOOK OF HUMAN INSECTS thing coming up looks bizarre.

AMELIA RULES - THE TWEENAGE GUIDE TO NOT BEING UNPOPULAR
AMELIA RULES - TRUE THINGS (ADULTS DON'T WANT KIDS TO KNOW)
Jimmy Gownley returned in a big way in 2010, with two long original books featuring his character Amelia McBride and her friends and family, picking up right where the serialized version (also available in several collections) left off. I write about the first one over here, the second I hope to get around to writing about soon, but it's even better. And another volume due in September 2011.

BLAZING COMBAT
Softcover edition of the previous hardcover reprint of the 4-issue war comics series Archie Goodwin wrote and edited with some great artists back in the 1960s. Still amazing stuff, very well reproduced, I just leave it lying around to flip to stories at random.

TALES OF THE UNCANNY - N-MAN & FRIENDS PREVIEW EDITION #1
A preview of Steve Bissette's upcoming return to his share of the 1963 characters, I wrote about it over here. No word yet on exactly when we'll see the actual book, but it's one of my most anticipated 2011 releases.

BEASTS OF BURDEN - ANIMAL RITES
A very well designed large hardcover of the Evan Dorkin / Jill Thompson series about domestic pets who get involved in the supernatural. The series began with short stories in some anthology comics, which led to a 4-issue series last year. All of that material is collected in this book. Evan Dorkin's stories are very different from the material I know and love from his solo projects, but still very entertaining, a nice mix of humour and horror with some good work distinguishing the characters. Jill Thompson's painted artwork is some of the best of her career.

MAGNUS ROBOT FIGHTER VOL. 1
This just came out from Dark Horse, I should have my copy soon. It's a softcover reprint of the first seven issues of the original series from the 1960s by Russ Manning. Gorgeous work from the samples I've seen of it before, really looking forward to this and hope we get more volumes. I thought the previous hardcover reprints were criminally overpriced, but this format is right up my alley.

BRODY'S GHOST #1
First of six books in a few series by AKIKO creator Mark Crilley. A good start, with a nice fantasy set-up for some ghosts and adventure storytelling with a Japanese flair, really looking forward to the rest.

AGE OF BRONZE #30 - 31
Eric Shanower's ongoing historical fiction about the Trojan War continues at its regular pace. Gorgeous artwork, as always, and I just got a prior issue I had missed so I can read them now, I think it's a good time to go back to the beginning and re-read the whole series.

SALIMBA
Still waiting for my copy of this collection of the 1980s jungle girl adventure series created by Steve Perry and Paul Chadwick. I read the stuff in the original 3-D version years ago, and will appreciate having a clearer 2-D version, along with the new prose story by Perry with illustrations by Steve Bissette.

DONG XOAI, VIETNAM 1965
A new book from Joe Kubert, about a true story early in the Vietnam War. Still sitting in my to-read pile, waiting for the right mood to strike me. I leaf through it every now and then, and it does look gorgeous, but the story-telling style seems a bit odd. More on that when I finally read it and can tell you if it worked.

MEANWHILE
Jason Shiga's wild and crazy experimental choose-your-own-adventure comic, I wrote about how it almost broke my brain (in a good way) back here. Still a delight that I pick up from time to time just to play around with. Shiga's next book is out in a few months and firmly on that most anticipated books of 2011 list coming on January 1.

A DISEASE OF LANGUAGE
From Eddie Campbell and Alan Moore, a softcover edition of the surprisingly difficult to find hardcover collection of a few years back. This collects The Birth Caul and Snake&Ladders, two Campbell adaptations of Moore's "performance art" pieces, along with a great interview of Moore by Campbell that ran in EDDIE CAMPBELL'S EGOMANIA. Handsome looking book, still sitting around waiting for the right mood to re-read all that stuff.

THE TOON TREASURY OF CLASSIC CHILDREN'S COMICS
A spectacular collection of comics from the 1930s to the 1960s selected by Francoise Mouly and Art Spiegelman. The big four that those familiar with comics would expect art well represented, with multiple stories by Carl Barks, Walt Kelly, John Stanley and Sheldon Mayer (an especially welcome inclusion). There's also great stuff by Jack Cole, Harvey Kurtzman, Dick Briefer and a few dozen more, including a few names I'd never heard of before.

JOHN STANLEY LIBRARY THIRTEEN GOING ON EIGHTEEN VOL 1
JOHN STANLEY LIBRARY MELVIN MONSTER VOL 2
JOHN STANLEY LIBRARY NANCY VOL 2
JOHN STANLEY LIBRARY TUBBY VOL 1
A whole lot of reprints of Stanley's comics for Dell. Always enjoyable, I especially enjoyed some of the stories in THIRTEEN as a very entertaining variation on the teen comic format.

FOLLOW YOUR ART
A new collection of autobiographical travel related stories from Roberta Gregory, most never before published, available from her directly. In the to-read pile as I'm waiting to get a few issues of NAUGHTY BITS I need (after filling most of the holes in my collection through Gregory), and will read it after I read all of her older work. Very attractive book, though, and good to see her publishing something new.

BLACKSAD
A collection of the first three volumes of a European funny animal comic about a hard-boiled private eye cat. I thought the art was really good, for the most part, but had a lot of problems with the writing.  I'll have to re-read it sometime and see if I like it better or can put my finger on what I didn't like.

AL WILLIAMSON ARCHIVES #1
AL WILLIAMSON'S FLASH GORDON - A LIFELONG VISION OF THE HEROIC
A pair of books published by Flesk, celebrating the work of a great who sadly passed away in 2010. I wrote about the Flash Gordon book here, and it remains one of the best looking books in a year of great looking books. Kind of wish I'd sprung the extra few dollars for the hardcover. The ARCHIVES is a collection of sketches from Williamson, which looks great, but I wish there was some more text to give context to the images.

THE MUPPET SHOW COMIC BOOK - ON THE ROAD
The third collection of Roger Langridge's comics based on the classic Jim Henson series of the 1970s, I wrote about the first two here, pretty much all the same applies to this one. Unfortunately the run of comics has ended or is ending soon, but that still leaves quite a few more for me to read after this one.

THE UNWRITTEN VOL 1 TOMMY TAYLOR AND THE BOGUS IDENTITY
THE UNWRITTEN VOL 2 INSIDE MAN
The first two collections of the on-going fantasy comic by Mike Carey and Peter Gross.  I was pleasantly surprised by this, after not thinking much of the premise (and after I stopped reading the previous Carey/Gross collaboration for Vertigo, LUCIFER, about half-way through).  For the most part it reads pretty well, and has some clever ideas.  Can't say I think too much about some of the digressions between the main story, but maybe they'll turn out to be important later.

THE CBLDF PRESENTS - LIBERTY ANNUAL 2010
The annual anthology to benefit the CBLDF, edited by Larry Marder of Beanworld fame this time around. Sadly 2010 was a mostly fallow year for Beanworld after a good 2009, but there are some beans in Marder's 2-page story in here. In addition to the Marder, some Evan Dorkin (Milk & Cheese return), Don Simpson (Megaton Man returns), Jeff Smith and others under a nice Dave Gibbons cover.

THE CULTURE CORNER
A collection of the half-page humour feature that Basil Wolverton did for Fawcett's WHIZ COMICS from the 1940s and 1950s.  Very odd, as you'd expect from Wolverton, with a lot of word-play and sometimes grotesque visuals.  This book includes not only all the published pages in colour, but wherever available also includes Wolverton's pencilled layouts which were sent to the editor for approval, printed opposite the published strips.  But wait, there's more.  There are also dozens of additional layouts that were rejected, either by Wolverton or his editor, which are also included. Plus examples of a few similar features Wolverton did.  Very nice comprehensive package.

LUCKY IN LOVE
A new book from Stephen DeStefano, of 'MAZING MAN and HERO HOTLINE fame, along with co-writer George Chieffet. Just read it recently, haven't quite absorbed it yet, it's an interesting contrast of style and content. Unfortunately it's also just the first half of a story which won't be concluded until, it says, 2013. And I've read comics for long enough not to be too optimistic about a promise of a follow-up that far in advance coming out on time. Anyway, interesting book, more when I've had a chance to re-read it.

CASTLE WAITING VOLUME 2
A collection of Linda Medley's excellent comic, still not sure I can recommend it for the reasons mentioned here, but still some great stuff. Hopefully we'll have word on Medley's future plans sooner rather than later.

JONAH HEX - NO WAY BACK
No, you didn't imagine it, there really was a Jonah Hex movie, so there was an original hardcover comic for Hex as well.  The story wasn't too good, but it was good to see Hex's co-creator Tony DeZuniga drawing the story.

THE QUESTION - PEACEMAKER
QUESTION NO. 37 [BLACKEST NIGHT]
The first finishes up the collection of the 36-issue Dennis O'Neil / Denys Cowan run from the 1980s. The weakest part of the run, but still some enjoyable comics. A shame DC was so short-sighted in the reprint strategy for the series, not including the annuals and just overly lackluster design. Early this year there was also that "#37", tying in with DC's big crossover. Apparently Vic Sage is dead, someone else is the Question, Vic comes back as a zombie and... Fuck, I can't do it. There are some good moments in the comic, which was co-written by O'Neil and pencilled by Cowan (with inks by Bill Sienkiewicz who inked many of the original covers), but there's just such a tonal conflict between what made the series special and the big crossover of the year.

BLACK BLIZZARD
An early comic from Yoshiro Tatsumi, mostly interesting as a sample of the type of work he was doing during the days he writes about in his very impressive look at the early days of Japanese comics in A DRIFTING LIFE published last year.  On its merits not too special, although there are some interesting moments of youthful energy from a young artist figuring things out as he goes.

ROB HANES ADVENTURES VOL. 0
A collection of Randy Reynaldo's stories featuring a modern day soldier-of-fortune, heavily inspired by the classic adventure comics of a half-century ago.  This book has the issues published as ADVENTURE STRIP DIGEST in the mid-1990s, bridging the gap between the mini-comic run (reprinted as ROB HANES ARCHIVES) and the currently on-going ROB HANES ADVENTURES, which is up to #12.  Very entertaining stuff.

COMPLETE MILT GROSS COMIC BOOK STORIES
Impressive looking big, thick book, I have to get around to reading it.

XENOZOIC
A great new collection of Mark Schultz's XENOZOIC TALES comic of the that ran from 1987 to 1996, featuring just the main stories (not the Steve Stiles illustrated back-ups) from the 14-issue run, almost all of it with film freshly shot from the original art, plus some new illustrations. It's a gorgeous book, definitely the best presentation the work has ever gotten. Fascinating to see Schultz's progression as an artist, from the very gritty EC-inspired early work to the increasingly illustrative later stuff. Not sure how much I believe it, but the ending even promises more Xenozoic tales in the future, which would be nice since it ends just as the story is beginning to come together.

THE VIKING PRINCE
A nice hardcover collection of all the stories drawn by Joe Kubert featuring the character from THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD in the 1950s, as well as a later crossover story with Sgt. Rock, with various writers starting and ending Robert Kanigher.  Just got this one, haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I already know from a few prior reprints that I love this stuff.  I've also been tempted by the similar reprint of the Broome/Anderson Atomic Knights.  And that reprint of the early Superboy stories.

SIEGEL AND SHUSTER'S FUNNYMAN
A book about the short-lived feature that the creators of Superman worked on, both in comic books and comic strips, after they were fired from their more famous creation.  Unfortunately the book only includes a handful of stories, following lengthy essays about Jewish humour and the precedents for super-heroes in Jewish culture.

DC UNIVERSE - ORIGINS
Well, it was fairly cheap, so I got this collection of 2-page origin stories of various DC characters, reprinted from a few different sources over the last few years. A lot of different artists, a few quite good, keep it visually interesting. The writing is mostly journeyman stuff, nothing too special, but a few inspired moments brighten it up. Sometimes bizarre to read how different the interpretations of the characters have gotten from what I remember.

THE PLAYWRIGHT
A light but engaging comic by Eddie Campbell and Daren White, definitely needs a re-read before I comment too much on it, but definitely worth reading.

WEDNESDAY COMICS
Surprisingly, my library got copies of this huge collection of DC's anthology comic of last year.  Then it was published as a folding newspaper page, collected it was slightly smaller but much better overall.  The comics themselves weren't that great, of course.  I don't think any of the fifteen 12-page features were wholly successful, although several of them had good points.  Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez's art on Metal Men, with Kevin Nowlan inks, was great in that large size.  The Kamandi story, done in a Prince Valiant format by Dave Gibbons and Ryan Sook, was pretty solid.  Mike Allred's artwork fit Metamorpho pretty well, and the way he and Neil Gaiman played with the format was amusing at times. Joe Kubert's always nice to see, although I was surprised nothing in his Sgt. Rock story really used the format.

ART IN TIME: UNKNOWN COMIC BOOK ADVENTURES, 1940-1980
A companion book to the earlier ART OUT OF TIME, also edited by Dan Nadel, had some entertaining little seen comics.  It's always good to see some of Sam Glanzman's KONA, and some really nice stuff by Pat Boyette, Pete Morisi, Mort Meskin, Bill Everett and others.

USAGI YOJIMBO SPECIAL EDITION #1
USAGI YOJIMBO #126 - 134
Stan Sakai continues with his regular USAGI comic like clockwork, and it's been very enjoyable with some strong short stories. Meanwhile, Fantagraphics finally got out the long-promised deluxe edition of the early years of the series (the first 38-issue series and various short stories). My copy is on the way, I'm really looking forward to it, more when I have it in hand.

GRIMJACK OMNIBUS #1
Nice affordable compact volume of the first 400 or so pages of the John Ostrander / Tim Truman science fiction adventure series from the 1980s. I mostly got it for the early stories that ran as back-ups in STARSLAYER, but it's good to have the rest. A much nicer format than the previous reprints.

SERGIO ARAGONES' GROO - THE HOGS OF HORDER #3 - 4
MAD'S GREATEST ARTISTS - SERGIO ARAGONES
After some small delays the latest Groo series by Aragones and Evanier concluded. Still good stuff. Still no word on the promised Groo/Conan crossover, or the GROO TREASURY reprint of the early years of the comic. But there was a great hardcover collection of just a fraction of Aragones's nearly 50 years of work for MAD. Funny stuff, I keep picking it up and reading a few pages, amazed at how consistent he is and how well he captures each era as he was living it.

Sugar&Spike Christmas Pint-Size Pin-Ups by Sheldon Mayer

From SUGAR AND SPIKE #26 [Dec. 1959/Jan. 1960], by Sheldon Mayer

Coming in January, Sugar & Spike Awareness Month, to celebrate the scheduling of SUGAR AND SPIKE ARCHIVES VOL. 1, order code JAN110334, page 115 of January 2011 Diamond Previews and  ISBN 1401231128, due out August 2011.

While I do like them, the activity pages like this than ran in the series tend to be the bane of my existence, as several of the issues I have of the series have these pages removed, often with story pages on the reverse.

Sugar & Spike reprint in 2011

Well, it shouldn't come as any surprise to regular readers here, if there are any left with my sporadic posting, that I'm a big fan of Sheldon Mayer in general, and his creation SUGAR & SPIKE in particular.  So I'm quite happy about the announcement of this coming from DC in August 2011:

SUGAR AND SPIKE ARCHIVES VOL. 1

Written by SHELDON MAYER; Art and cover by SHELDON MAYER

DC's cult favorite comic about a pair of precocious babies is collected at last in this volume.

Hot-tempered Sugar Plumm and shy Cecil "Spike" Wilson may be toddlers, but they know more about getting into trouble than most grown-ups. And while they can understand each other perfectly, all their parents seem to hear when they speak is "Glx sptzl glaah!"

Now, DC Comics collects their classic series for the first time, starting with issues #1-10, in this hardcover showcasing stories and art by the talented Sheldon Mayer, inspired by the hijinks of his own children.

* Archive Editions * 240pg. * Color * Hardcover * $59.99 US

That's those 10 issues shown in that animated image that should be to the right.  For more S&S covers, check the GCD.

And no, not really the format I would have chosen among the many reprint formats that DC has to offer, not to mention the superior formats that other publishers use, and I'm sure I'll have various quibbles when it comes out, but a 240 page collection of some of Mayer's best work is great to see.

Anyway, for some bizarre reason comic shops are expected to order this book due in August with their orders due in late January, so the next few weeks will be the time to make your interest known if you're planning to buy it from a comic shop (order code JAN110334, page 115 of January 2011 Diamond Previews).  It's also not too early to place an order with your on-line retailer of choice, like Amazon (disclosure, small commission to me if you use that link).  That 37% off they have right now is about as good a discount as you're going to find. Not all the other retailers have it listed yet, but they will soon, search for ISBN 1401231128.

Anyway, look for January to be an unofficial "Sugar & Spike Awareness Month" on this weblog.  I'll try to get daily content up

CASTLE WAITING v2 by Linda Medley

Well, this is kind of an odd thing. On the merits of the work, the newly released CASTLE WAITING VOLUME 2 deserves as high a recommendation as I'm likely to give. I've been a fan of Linda Medley's series since I first encountered it in a short preview in Charles Vess's BALLADS AND SAGAS back in 1997, which insured I picked up the first issue of CASTLE WAITING when I saw it a few weeks later (and went back to pick up the CURSE OF BRAMBLY HEDGE one-shot I'd missed from the previous year). I was thrilled in 2006 when the series returned with a gorgeous hardcover reprinting the completed storylines and a new on-going series reprinting and then continuing the story begun back in 2002. That new series was on of the few serialized comics I continued to buy in the last few years, and came out fairly steadily until early last year, with 15 issues in all. This new book collects all 15 issues of that series, which is quite a bargain at $30, less than half the cover price of those issues.

Unfortunately, right now I can't recommend it, since as you can see it sort of lacks a certain something, that being Linda Medley's name on the cover. In fact, her name only appears in the copyright notice and a sticker on the backcover. The only information I can find on that on-line is here, where the omission is just noted as being at Medley's request. I probably wouldn't have bought it if I had heard about that first, unless Medley said publicly that she was okay with it. Unfortunately, her own website vanished quite a while ago.

The other thing the book lacks is an ending, as the 15 published issues don't complete the story begun in #1. I'd say that it was at least two, maybe more, issues from a conclusion. Hopefully in the near future we'll get some news on when and where Medley will continue the story (presumably not from the same publisher), but I can't really recommend the book if there's the possibility that it'll be re-released in a proper edition with the full story. I mean, I've already bought it all twice (three times in the case of the first two chapters), and I'd probably buy it a fourth if need be, but that's just me.

But as I said, on the merits of the work, this is a great book, as good as comics get.  Medley continues her exploration of the denizens of Castle Waiting, characters from fairy tales and folklore living their lives after the famous adventures are over. Medley continues with her rather unique structure, where she has a leisurely pace for the main story but a very dense narrative overall as she explores the pasts of the characters.  And of course her art is beautiful, full of great character designs, body language, facial expressions and some of the best renderings of architecture in comics since Gerhard at his peak.

Anyway, a great book despite the misgivings above.  Hopefully we'll get some news about the future of the series and I can clarify if I actually recommend the book or not.  Until then, see if your local library gets this, and the first book.

(2012 update, see here for news on the long-delayed continuation of the story, which will eventually lead to an updated VOLUME 2 book)

Quick bits on recent stuff

A few quick comments on some stuff I've read or bought or plan to read or buy recently. Look for longer posts on these books and other things in the future.  Or, you know, maybe look for another long gap before I post again.  You never know.

As Steve Bissette mentions here, the new edition of Steve Perry and Paul Chadwick's SALIMBA is now available.  I should have my copy soon, and I'm looking forward to it.  I never did find my original copies of the Blackthorne 3-D version, and in fact in looking for it found that there are a number of 1980s 3-D comics I once owned that I can't find.  I guess they were stored together at some point and misplaced.  Most of them are no great loss, especially since I can't easily read 3-D comics anyway, but Salimba was one I remembered enjoying despite the 3-D, so it'll be good to have a more readable edition of that.  This version also includes a new prose short story by Perry, illustrated by Bissette.  More when I get my copy.

I  also recently read Paul Chadwick's more famous series, CONCRETE, in the seven-volume reprint series that Dark Horse put out a few years ago.  I'd read about half the material in those before, but had drifted out after a while and never got back in.  Very mixed reaction.  Some of it was brilliant, of course, but sometimes Chadwick seemed more interested in playing with some design or with some cause and it didn't work at all.  It does end on a fairly strong note, though, and it's good to hear that after several years away Chadwick will be returning to Concrete soon.

Caught up on the last few issues of USAGI YOJIMBO recently, and Stan Sakai's going through a good period.  Not that he's been through very many weak ones over the last two decades.  The big 1200 page collection of early the Fantagraphics years of the series should be out in the next month, and I'm sorely tempted to get that one, even though I finally did find the last of the original issues I needed a while back.

In a slightly related somewhat less expensive big book, I got a copy of the recent MAD'S GREATEST ARTISTS - SERGIO ARAGONES hardcover, a nice survey of Aragones' work for the magazine from 1963 today.  A nice companion piece to my beat-up coverless copy of the 1978 MAD'S SERGIO ARAGONES ON PARADE.

Michael Zulli has a new book coming out early next year, THE FRACTURE OF THE UNIVERSAL BOY.  Keep an eye on his site over here for some information about it.  I'm still not clear on what the book is about, but his publisher had some spectacular art from the book over here a while back, and 200 pages of artwork of that quality isn't something you see every day.

Mark Crilley's BRODY'S GHOST #1, the first of a six book series to be published by Dark Horse, is a nice start to a light fantasy series. There's a strong influence, acknowledged in the sketch pages in the back, from Takeshi Obata's work on DEATH NOTE, which is a good influence to have.

Speaking of DEATH NOTE, I just noticed that Viz is releasing the series, this time doubling up on the volumes, and it looks like a slightly larger size.  I'm glad I put off on buying the box-set of the original volumes (after reading the series in borrowed copies), since these look much more to my liking.  Classier covers, too.

For something completely different, I got Jimmy Gownley's AMELIA RULES - TRUE THINGS (ADULTS DON'T WANT KIDS TO KNOW) recently, his latest original book in the adventures of Amelia McBride.  Very enjoyable, as always.

Read Eric Shanower and Skottie Young's adaptation of THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ. It took me a while to get used to Young's design, as I really wanted the book to look like Shanower's old original OZ comics from 20 years ago, but I came to appreciate the merits of Young's approach after a while, and it was a nice version of the original novel, which I haven't read in ages. I'm glad to see the series is continuing (in the middle of the third novel now) and look forward to reading more someday.

Read the first two volume of Mike Carey and Peter Gross's THE UNWRITTEN.  So far I liked it, some parts are really clever, though I'm not sure about some aspects and don't know how long it can maintain my interest (I was reading Carey and [mostly] Gross's run on LUCIFER a while back, and after some really good stuff lost all interest just past the half-way point).

I'd read a few bits of it before, but over the two months I got around to reading the complete run of THE WALKING DEAD, up to volume 12 (72 issues).  Very mixed feelings on it, which I might get to later.  It reads very smoothly, almost too smoothly, as it one of the shallowest comics I can ever recall reading, both in script and art.  What's there isn't bad, but it's all on the surface, to the point that the few times it isn't all on the surface I tend to miss it.  I also really prefer Tony Moore's art on the first book to Charles Adlard on the subsequent books (though Adlard has his moments, especially in the more recent issues). 

I've also been watching the TV show based on the comic.  Not hugely impressed, although there is some enjoyable stuff in there.  Enough that I'm willing to watch the rest of the short 6-episode season.  If it were a full season I'd be seriously thinking of quitting it now.

Some other new stuff sitting around waiting to read.  Joe Kubert's latest war comic DONG XOAI, VIETNAM 1965 looks really good.  Got the new edition of Mark Schultz's XENOZOIC from Flesk, completely re-shot from the original art whenever available, and looking better than ever.  Also from Flesk, AL WILLIAMSON ARCHIVES v1 has some great sketchwork stuff from the classic artist, including an unfinished Xenozoic story, but I would have liked some more notes on the material to give it some context.  Still, gorgeous book.  Just started the recent SHOWCASE PRESENTS DIAL H FOR HERO reprint of the 1960s Jim Mooney illustrated series, stuff I'd long heard of but never read, and it's nicely wacky, in a way I'd have loved when I was 10.

Remember, Remember...

Happy Guy Fawkes Day

Seriously, I can't be the only one who would pay good money to see a proper black and white edition of V FOR VENDETTA. Someone get the rights to revert so that Lloyd and Moore can get a proper publisher for it.

(from WARRIOR #1, Art by David Lloyd, script by Alan Moore, lettering by "Zelda Estrella")

And remember, kids, don't try this at home...

Some quick links

Michael Zulli remembers the PUMA BLUES, and speculates on how it would be now in the unlikely event that he and Steven Murphy re-started the series from scratch today. Look for more about Zulli's major book coming out next year soon.

1977 fan mail response from Charles Schulz.

Mark Evanier has a photo of a Groo-o-lantern, guaranteed to sink Halloween.

Various weird 1960s Archie covers reveal a darker side of Riverdale.

J.M. DeMatteis finds a British edition of his 1980s Star Wars story that doesn't have the editorial changes imposed from above.

A few links

Rare political cartoon by Lucy van Pelt found.

For the sake of the children, Batman must die!

And meanwhile, Superman vs. Jesus by Ty Templeton.

A look at just a few months of 1950s Prize romance comics with lots of Kirby.

Communist super-villains from Steve Bissette's upcoming return to 1963 TALES OF THE UNCANNY.

Sluggo and the Cookie Shortage.

I've posted a bunch of 1950s Ditko stories recently, I especially like this one, check it out and if you like follow the links for more, there are some 125 or so full stories available so far, expect about another hundred of them in the next year.

Cathy, 1976-2010

On the news that "cartoonist" Cathy Guisewite is ending her comic strip, am I the only one who first thought of this:

1994 comic by Evan Dorkin, available in his collection WHO'S LAUGHING NOW? if you want to appreciate him with money.

It took 16 years, but the children will soon be safe.

Strange Schulz...

One day I'll have to go through the full run on Peanuts and try to identify the dozen strangest images, in or out of context, that Charles Schulz put in there. It's sometimes very jarring, when there's a run of perfectly standard, amusing strips, and then you turn the page and see something like this:

Yes, really.

Early 1967 seems to be an especially good time for some mildly unsettling images.

Harvey Pekar, R.I.P.

Harvey Pekar passed away today. While I can't say I was the biggest fan of his work, I did enjoy a lot of it and always found it fascinating. I think the first encountered him before I actually read any of his comics when he was occasionally appearing on Letterman in the 1980s, as some goofy comic book guy who would get mad at Letterman.  Later I actually read some of his comics.  I think the ones I enjoyed the most were the ones dealing with his record collecting:

And in general his work with Robert Crumb was interesting, with both of them really bringing out the best in each other:

Al Williamson, R.I.P.

Classic comic book artist Al Williamson passed away a few days ago at age 79.  You can read a lot more about his life and work from people who met him like John Fleskes, Steve Bissette, Rick Veitch, Ty Templeton, Mark Evanier and many more.

I've posted previously about a few of Williamson's EC stories.
Fired!
Fish Story
The Thing In the 'Glades
Upheaval!

And about some of his Flash Gordon work here and here.

I think the first place I noticed Williamson's work was the adaptation of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK that he did with Archie Goodwin back in 1980.  Even with the less than ideal mass-market paperback format that I had the comic in it was some great stuff, perfectly suited to his style.

(Williamson C3P0 sketch from Vanguard's AL WILLIAMSON SKETCHBOOK [1998], a great little book)

I think the next thing I saw was the "Cliff Hanger" backup he did in the back of SOMERSET HOLMES with Bruce Jones. A great classic adventure story in six parts.

(from the reprint of "Cliff Hanger" in ISG's AL WILLIAMSON ADVENTURES [2003], an excellent collection of Williamson's later work with a variety of writers, with most of his full art jobs from the later years not in the movie adaptation or comic strip vein excellently reproduced in a large size)

I would later discover a lot of his other work, of course.  It's gratifying to see the Goodwin/Williamson "The Success Story" from CREEPY #1 singled out so often in writings about Williamson this past week.  That was the first story I read when I heard about Williamson's passing, as it was the first one I read when I heard about Archie Goodwin's passing in 1998.  A highlight from a pair of creators with careers full of highlights.

(panel from "The Success Story", CREEPY #1 [1964])

And while it was a minor part of his career, I really liked the brief time in the mid-1980s when he inked about a dozen Superman comics over Curt Swan. It was probably the best sustained run of quality inking that Swan had since Murphy Anderson in the early 1970s.

(Williamson over Swan from DC COMICS PRESENTS #87 [1985])


Williamson spent much of the last two decades of his career inking other artists, and not surprisingly he generally made the work all the better for it.  There was some great looking work over Bret Blevins, Lee Weeks and Pat Olliffe, and of course a classic Superman/Swamp Thing crossover over Rick Veitch.  To close, Al Williamson inking Mark Schultz drawing a dinosaur and a giant penny. With some incidental Batman...

(from BATMAN: LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #50 [1993])

Williamson's family requests donations in his memory can be made to

The Joe Kubert School
37 Myrtle Avenue
Dover, NJ 07801
Attn: Al Williamson Scholarship Fund

or

Yesteryears Day Program
2801 Wayne Street
Endwell, NY 13760

A Van Pelt family tradition...

Been reading some later Peanuts strips recently. I really enjoyed the March 14, 1999 strip, since it's a callback to one of my favourite classic sequences. First, from 1967...

(read the whole week starting here)

And now the callback...

Both by Charles Schulz, of course.

Oh, and since I want to be able to find it quickly later, the Little Red Haired Girl:

THE ART OF DITKO

THE ART OF DITKO is a large 208-page hardcover published by IDW a few months ago.  The bulk of the book is a reprint of 27 ½ short genre stories that Steve Ditko drew for Charlton comics in various stints with the company between 1954 and 1976.  All of the stories are reproduced in full colour with the printed comics as the source.  Most of the scripts are uncredited, except for one by Nick Cuti. Not mentioned in the book,  but Steve Skeates has previously verified that he wrote one of them, and recently Bhob Stewart has written that he and Russ Jones wrote one of the later ones.  Most of the others were probably written by Joe Gill.

In addition to the stories, there are 10 covers from Charlton reprinted.  The rest of Ditko's career is represented by the reproduction of a dozen pages of original artwork, which includes examples of the Marvel super-heroes, the short "Atlas" fantasy/sci-fi stories that preceded them, two pages from Ditko's brief period drawing for Warren's black and white magazines, a Mr. A page and a few others.  There are also a few short essays. Detailed list of the contents and sources over here.

Overall, I'd say this book is an inferior presentation of some superior material.  I didn't go into the book with the highest of expectations.  I already knew about one major issue, page 3 of this story being missing, replaced with page 3 of this story, which oddly isn't even otherwise included in the book (and why I said it has "27 ½" stories above).  Obviously production mistakes happen to the best of publishers, but that one is pretty sloppy.  I had some other issues going in as well based on what I heard about the book.  Even with those expectations lowered, I found the book to be disappointing.

But before we get to those, I will say that the strength of Ditko's art (and in a few cases the quality of the mostly uncredited writing) probably still makes the book just barely worth picking up, thanks to its relatively low cover price and the generous discount you'd probably buy it at. This book includes about 5% of Ditko's work that would qualify for inclusion (non-super-hero short story work for Charlton), and while it's not the top 5%, I'd say everything included is pretty solidly in the top 23%, and if you like Ditko, that's pretty good. I won't get into details about the individual stories, I have someplace else where I can and will write about that.  The only real quibble in story selection is that most of these stories have been reprinted before, some quite recently (and in the case of three of the 1970s stories, in a much superior form (black and white, apparently from original art or quality stats rather than printed comics as the source) in a still-available book co-published by Ditko).  Only 4 of the 27 stories have never been reprinted before, and two of those were among the weaker stories in the book (to be fair, the other two were among the best). Obviously if you're going to get a collection with the top 23%, you'll get a few that someone else decided to reprint before, but there are a lot of gems in the 200 or so still never-reprinted Charlton short stories, some 1200 pages, that Ditko drew.

And yes, I like numbers...

Now, other than the missing story page, a big problem was a printing error which may not affect the entire print run (although I did double check with a copy not from the same source I got the one I read, so definitely not a unique error).  There's an annoying void in the artwork, about one-inch long, that occurs every 8 pages from page 64 to 160.  To wit:

(if the top right panel of page 104 of your copy doesn't look like this, let me know)

When I saw the first one I thought it might have been a scanning thing (there is another scanning issue, a page where it looks like a small piece of paper fell on the scanner beneath the comic), but when I noticed more of them, and that it occurred every 8 pages like clockwork (the size of the signatures of the book), at exactly the same place, figured it must have been a printing issue. If it's just in a very few copies, I guess that's an understandable lapse in quality control. If it's in all of them, that's quite a problem to miss.


I also question the editorial choice to present the material in what appears to be a random order, as you can see from the aforementioned list. There really does seem to be no order in either that stories or in the original art and covers used between stories.  I'm not sure why that's considered a good thing.  I don't mind reading stories out of order, but I can do that myself, and wouldn't mind having the option to easily read them in some order, maybe at least separating material by decade or something.  Strict chronological order would put slightly below-average stories both first and last, but I don't see how that's really an issue.

On the actual reproduction quality, a few months ago I said about another Ditko reprint, "there's a limit to how good a reprint can be if the source material has to be actual printed comics from the 1950s, though what's possible overall has improved tremendously in the last decade.  Late in the last century a reprint of this quality probably would have been considered state of the art.  In 2010, I'd say it's solidly average, maybe give it a 6 or 7 out of 10".  For the most part I'd say the same for this book. It gets a few points more for the larger page size, loses a few for some production issues (other than those mentioned above).  I liked the paper a bit more, liked the binding a bit less.

Which leaves the text essays.  The first is by Stan Lee.  I'm really not sure why (other than being the editor of record on a few of the original art pages he wasn't involved in the contents), but it's typical Lee, whatever that may mean to you, with a few of those Lee-isms that I'm sure some people still find charming.  The book's editor Craig Yoe writes a few pieces, partly about his own interactions with Ditko (including an entertaining story about introducing him to Jim Henson) and about some of the stories reprinted.  Most interesting was a short piece by Jerry Robinson, who taught Ditko in the early 1950s.  Not really anything in here that he hasn't talked about in interviews before, but always good to hear from Robinson. John Romita provides some thoughts on following Ditko on Spider-Man, and P. Craig Russell writes a few things on his long time as a fan and brief time as an inker of Ditko. As they say, mostly harmless, although like the rest of the book the text pages could have benefited from another one or two editorial/proofing passes.

So, as I said, worth getting as a relatively inexpensive and easy to obtain sampler of some of the better works of a substantial body of work spanning over 20 years, but disappointing overall for a variety of reasons.  An inferior presentation of superior material.  Overall I'd give it a 6/10.

Steve Perry, R.I.P.

Steve Bissette has confirmed that writer Steve Perry has passed away.  You can read a lot more about his life and the unfortunate circumstances of his last days in other posts from Bissette.

I wasn't reading comics for most of the time that Perry was active in the 1980s, but I did end up with a good percentage of his non-animation related comics (Thundercats and Silverhawks, for which he wrote both cartoons and comics, were after my time, and I don't ever recall watching the shows, though it seems they do have some dedicated fans).  Most recently I picked up an issue of his most significant work, TIMESPIRITS, a few years ago, mostly for the Al Williamson guest art, and liked that enough to get the rest of the series shortly after.  That series deserves a more detailed look, which I'll try to get around to when, hopefully in the not-too-distant future, co-creator Tom Yeates is able to arrange a reprint.  In the meantime, here's a good discussion of it.

Outside of TIMESPIRITS my favourite Perry story is "The Saurian Remains", drawn by Steve Bissette and published in Marvel's AMAZING HIGH ADVENTURE #4 [1986].  A fictionalized fantasy story based on the "Bone Wars" rivalry among 19th century paleontologists, it's a cleverly done tale which provides a fanciful explanation for an old scientific error while also providing the opportunity for Bissette to draw both the dinosaurs and extreme violence that he excels in.

Perry and Bissette also did the memorable stories "A Frog Is A Frog" and "The Blood Bequest" (with John Totleben) for Marvel's BIZARRE ADVENTURES black and white magazine, as well as some stories in HEAVY METAL and EPIC ILLUSTRATED that I haven't read.

With Rick Veitch, Perry did the short story "Ahhh... Christmas" for Marvel's one-shot AMAZING ADVENTURES #1 [1988]. Not your typical warm holiday story, as you might gather from the line:

And what about the elves? I've always wondered about them. An exploited minority if ever there was one. Picture these undemanding little fellows jailed year round in some Arctic factory enslaved to the eccentricities of one slightly larger than themselves...

Perry wrote several stories for the brief revival of THUNDER AGENTS published by Deluxe Comics in the mid-1980s.  In the first issue, he wrote a story drawn by Keith Giffen featuring the new female Menthor, and then he did a 2-part story featuring the robotic NoMan in #3 and #4, with artwork by Steve Ditko and Greg Theakston.  This latter story was very entertaining as a modern take on a silver age concept (including a villain with the unlikely name Cyrano de Klopps), with several inventive uses of NoMan's powers.  Definitely one of the better non-Ditko-written Ditko stories of the era.

I picked up VANGUARD ILLUSTRATED #7 [1984], one of the last comics published by early independent publisher Pacific Comics, quite a while back for the first Mr. Monster story.  The anthology leads off with an entertaining western/horror story "The Ballad of Hardcase Bradley" drawn by George Evans.  I didn't remember that it was written by Steve Perry, but I remembered the story right away when Steve Bissette mentioned the title a few days ago.

One of Perry's other major comic book works was a jungle adventure comic called SALIMBA, with art by Paul Chadwick.  I remember reading that, but can't seem to find it right now.  It was recently announced that About Comics had bought the rights to it, along with a new prose short story of the character, so it might return to print sooner or later.

Perry was helped in his last few months by the Hero Initiative. Consider a donation to them if you can.

Various upcoming comics roundup

Haven't paid too much attention to the solicitations for upcoming comics, except to note the Kirby and Ditko stuff, for the last few months.  Heard about a few things I'd missed recently, so I looked down the full lists, and here are some random things I thought were noteworthy, mostly for my own future reference.

AL WILLIAMSON ARCHIVES VOLUME 1 SC
By Al Williamson
The Al Williamson Archives grants unprecedented access to this master storyteller's unseen work. Culled from his extensive private files, each volume of this series will feature unpublished sketches, preliminary artwork and pieces the artist created for his personal enjoyment. Williamson's fondness for fantasy and SF is showcased in this first volume. It collects work created throughout his career: impeccably rendered dinosaurs, barbarians, spacemen and their craft, even a few sexy maidens. It also features a partially inked Xenozoic tale, previously unpublished newspaper strips, and unused Western comics pages from the '50s.
SC, 8x11, 64pgs, $19.95
[ISBN 1933865296, Flesk Publications,  MAY101032]

Always love seeing more Williamson, and the guys at Flesk really do a great job on production.  This is a little pricey for the page count, but definitely worth considering.


BRODY’S GHOST BOOK 1
By Mark Crilley
On sale July 7
b&w, 96 pages $6.99
TPB, 5 1/4" x 7 1/2"
Brody hoped it was just a hallucination. But no, the teenaged ghostly girl who’d come face to face with him in the middle of a busy city street was all too real. And now she was back, telling him she needed his help in hunting down a dangerous killer, and that he must undergo training from the spirit of a centuries-old samurai to unlock his hidden supernatural powers. Thirteen-time Eisner nominee Mark Crilley joins Dark Horse to launch his most original and action-packed saga to date in Brody’s Ghost, the first in a six-volume limited series.
[ISBN 1595825215, Dark Horse, MAR100018]

I'm a big fan of Crilley's previous work, from AKIKO to BILLY CLIKK to MIKI FALLS, so good to see a new series from him.  The previews on Dark Horse Presents looked interesting, and the format is nice and compact and inexpensive.

WILLIE AND JOE: BACK HOME
By Bill Mauldin
$29.99 / HC / 288 pgs / BW
In 1945, a great tide of battered soldiers began flowing back to the United States. Though victorious, these exhausted men were nevertheless too grief-stricken over the loss of comrades, too guilt-ridden that they had survived, and too numbed by trauma to share in the country’s euphoria. Most never saw a ticker-tape parade, or stole a Times Square kiss. All they wanted was to settle back into quiet workaday lives without fear. How tragic that the forces unleashed by WWII made this simple wish impossible. Bill Mauldin brilliantly chronicles these early postwar years and tells his own story of his journey home to a wife he barely knew and a son he had only seen in pictures.
[ISBN 978160699351, Fantagraphics, MAY101017]

I really enjoyed the big 2-volume set of Mauldin's wartime strips from a few years back, so good to see a collection of the rest of the story.

THE ROYAL HISTORIAN OF OZ #1
By Tommy Kovac and Andy Hirsch
Frank Fizzle wishes his writer father would have just a single original idea, but instead Jasper Fizzle sees himself as the new “Royal Historian of OZ” as he insists on writing new OZ stories. When the failed writer discovers that Oz really exists, he makes an error in judgment that brands him a criminal in two worlds. Can Frank save the day and redeem the Fizzle family name, or will the drizzly ghost of the Wicked Witch of the West destroy them all?
24pgs, B&W $1.00
[Slave Labor, APR100711]

Sounds like an amusing new book, and Kovac's WONDERLAND series from a while back was entertaining, so worth a look.

THE JOHN STANLEY LIBRARY: NANCY VOLUME 2 HC
The second volume of Nancy in D+Q's John Stanley Library, elegantly designed by Seth, stars the beloved Brillo-headed Nancy in her own comic book series written by the greatest children's comics writer of all time, John Stanley. Stanley, the author of Melvin Monster and Little Lulu, puts his own deft sense of humor and superior cartooning on the Ernie Bushmiller creation with spooky Oona Goosepimple, Spike, and Mr.McOnion. Nancy, along with her sidekick, Sluggo, will charm readers young and old with her hilarious, scheming hijinks.
HC, 8x11, 152pgs, FC $29.95
[ISBN 9781897299968, Drawn and Quarterly, MAR100913]

It's always good to see more of Stanley's work, though there does seem to be an overdose after so many years of nothing, it's hard to absorb it all. But that's a good problem to have.

LUCKY IN LOVE: A POOR MAN'S HISTORY
By George Chieffet and Stephen DeStefano
$19.99 / HC / 120 pgs / PC
Elegantly drawn in a supremely confident, lively, cartoony black-and-white style that recalls Milt Gross and classic Disney animation and comics, Lucky in Love is a unique coming-of-age story that follows its lovable hero Lucky Testatuda from his rascally teen years in Hoboken, New Jersey’s Little Italy to his induction into the air force and subsequent wartime experiences. Ultimately the poignant discoveries Lucky makes on his way to adulthood bestow upon him a very different kind of heroism than that of which he had dreamed... The second and concluding volume, Lucky in Love: Lucky for Life will be released in 2013.
[ISBN 9781606993545, Fantagraphics, APR100963]

Pleasant surprise to see DeStefano back in comics with a major work. Of course most people will remember his work from the excellent 'MAZING MAN and less-excellent-but-still-entertaining HERO HOTLINE from DC, and he did some interesting stuff in the INSTANT PIANO anthology in the 1990s and a few other places.  

DC UNIVERSE LEGACIES

One of the few regular mainstream super-hero books I'm really interested in, to the point that I'm considering getting the individual issues (but probably won't), is this 10-issue history of the DC Universe by Len Wein and various artists, including Joe Kubert, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Dave Gibbons, George Perez, Jerry Ordway and various others. I'm cynical enough that I'm assuming it'll be out-of-date and contradicted by other books within weeks of the final issue, if not sooner, but I'm not invested enough in a cohesive universe to care as long as there's a good story, which hopefully this will be.  And man, is that a nice Gibbons cover.

GLAMOURPUSS #14
By Dave Sim
"glamourpuss reinvents the Universe." Everyone's favourite fashionista decides a lot of things need to change while she's still young enough to enjoy them — starting with the online universe. Are you ready for FACEITBook? In the "History of Photorealism in Comics" section, a continuing examination of the relationship between Rip Kirby's Alex Raymond and Heart Of Juliet Jones' Stan Drake.
24pgs, B&W $3.00
[Aardvark-Vanaheim, MAY100717]

I haven't been following Sim's latest thing, but I kind of like the cover of this one more than previous issues, and something tickles me about the Sim of all people doing satire based on online social networks.

ALTER EGO #95
Who says a comic book has to be good? Not Brand Echh, from 1967-69! Behind a fabulous cover by Marie Severin, we feature a look at Marvel’s madcap parody mag, with rare art and artifacts by Ross Andru, John Buscema, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and more! Plus the conclusion of the cataclysmic George Kashdan interview.
Magazine, 84pgs, PC $7.95
[TwoMorrows, MAY101235]

I stopped getting every issue of ALTER EGO a while back, but I'm comforted to know that it still comes out like clockwork and like to check in every now and then. This seems like it might be a good issue to get.

RASL POCKET EDITION VOLUME 1 TP
By Jeff Smith
Collected in this new pocket edition is the hard-boiled, sci-fi tale of Jeff Smith's inter-dimensional art thief known only by the strange four letter word found spray-painted at the scene of a crime: RASL. This 6 1/2" x 9" double edition collects the first seven issues of RASL in one heart-pounding book! A compact, affordable, edition of RASL: a sci-fi/noir tale of violence and corruption where murder and passion mix with folklore and cutting-edge physics.
MATURE THEMES
SC, 6.5x9, 224pgs, B&W $17.95
[Cartoon Books, MAY100912]

Well, I dropped the serialized version of RASL when I saw how good the big collections looked, but now I kind of think I might like this version even more. Maybe I should just wait for the RASL ONE VOLUME edition when the series is done... Anyway, interesting book, very different from BONE, worth checking out in any or all formats.


FROM SHADOW TO LIGHT: THE LIFE & ART OF MORT MESKIN
By Steven Brower
$39.99 / HC / 220 pgs / FC
This lush art book and critical biography compiles for the first time the best art from one of the 20th century’s most influential and overlooked comic book artists: Mort Meskin. His life and work left an indelible impression on many, including: Jack Kirby, Jerry Robinson, Alex Toth, Steve Ditko, Jim Steranko, Stan Lee and many more. Meskin’s contributions to our form reshaped how comics articulated our imaginations, specifically by his sophisticated chiaroscuro technique Meskin defined space within the panel like none who had come before. With this tome Fantagraphics is proud to set the record straight and add his name to the pantheon of comic book artists who helped create this distinctly American art form.
[ISBN 9781606993583, Fantagraphics, MAY101012]

I'm not too familiar with Meskin's art, but I do like what I've seen, and this looks like it'll be a fascinating book.

THE COMPLETE PEANUTS 1977-1978 VOL. 14
By Charles M. Schulz
Introduction by Alec Baldwin
$28.99 / HC / 344 pgs / BW
This new volume of everyone’s favorite classic comic strip establishes the last two recurring characters (Snoopy’s brother Spike and Rerun Van Pelt) and features an amazing profusion of hilariously distinctive new characters who appeared in only one or two strips total! Including: a group of diminutive baseball players, Austin, Ruby, Leland, and Milo. Their coach, good ole Charlie Brown has been found guilty by the EPA of biting the Kite-Eating tree and must go on the lam where he establishes the midget baseball team known as the “Goose Eggs.” All that and more including the usual cast of beloved characters (including the talking schoolhouse and the doghouse-jigsawing cat, who steals Linus’s blanket creating much unrest). Wait! Don’t forget the introduction by Alec Baldwin!
[ISBN 978-1606993750, Fantagraphics, MAY101018]


Spike I'm still not sold on, but I kind of like Rerun. Anyway, these are among the earliest strips I would have read in the newspaper at age 7-8, so there's that.  Intro by Alec Baldwin, though?  Seriously?  You'd think with only 25 of these there would be a lot more prominent people with more bookstore-attractive names lining up to write intros you'd get to before Alec Baldwin.  I understood the Kristin Chenoweth thing a few books back since she played cover-featured Sally Brown in a production of the stage play based on Peanuts, is there some Baldwin connection I'm missing?  He didn't play Peppermint Patty, did he?  Because if he did, I need to see a video of that...


USAGI YOJIMBO ongoing
By Stan Sakai
[Dark Horse]

Just a quick mention of USAGI, still going strong after all these years, up to #130 (around 180 with the previous volumes) and no sign of slowing down, plus more collections of the older stuff (looks like that big Fantagraphics collection of the entire first series is delayed, hopefully we'll see it soon). The Sakai abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there.

CAGES TPB
By Dave McKean
On sale Aug 25
FC, 496 pages $29.99
TPB, 8 1/2" x 10 3/16"
Dave McKean’s Cages is finally back in print!
Best known for his collaborations with Neil Gaiman, McKean defied expectations with his stunning debut as writer and artist in Cages, winner of multiple awards for Best Graphic Album.
Filled with complex characters, intriguing flights of fancy, and all the beautiful visuals you’d expect from the director of MirrorMask, Cages is McKean’s magnum opus. It chronicles the intersecting lives of a painter, a writer, and a musician living in the same apartment building, and is a profound rumination on art, God, cats, and the cages we build for ourselves.
Out of print for years, Cages is finally available in an affordable new softcover edition, remastered and newly redesigned, with a brand-new cover by McKean.
• Almost five hundred pages in an affordable softcover!
• Features painstakingly rescanned and remastered art.
[ISBN 9781595823168, Dark Horse, APR100045]

This has been on the schedule a few times, major books like this seem to take Dark Horse a few tries to actually get out. Anyway, I didn't pick up the previous hardcover editions from various publishers, but this one has a nice price and it'll be interesting to see the "remastered" art.

WARLORD OF IO VOLUME 1 TP
by James Turner
A slacker prince inherits a space empire and finds himself responsible for the lives of billions. Emperor Zoz of Io has retired, leaving his slacker son Zing in charge of the Ion Empire. After initiating sweeping social reforms to impress his friend, Moxy Comet, Zing upsets the army by cutting the military budget to pay for them. Can one slacker prince get up off his ass long enough to save the galaxy?
SC, 208pgs, B&W $14.95
[ISBN 1593621957, Slave Labor, MAY100724]

The original one-shot comic was entertaining, as was Turner's REX LIBRIS book, so hopefully it'll find some success in this new hopefully Diamond impervious format.

THOR: THE WARRIORS THREE PREMIERE HC
Written by LEN WEIN & ALAN ZELENETZ
Penciled by JOHN BUSCEMA, JOE SINNOTT & CHARLES VESS
Cover by CHARLES VESS
Fandral the Dashing, Hogun the Grim, Volstagg the Voluminous: They may not have made it into the mythology books, but they're living legends to this day – and some of their solo sagas are collected here for the first time! The Warriors Three tackle organized crime in Manhattan, then embark on an Asgardian quest that takes them deeper than ever before into peril – and into themselves! Featuring stories by Alien Legion co-creator Alan Zelenetz! Collecting MARVEL SPOTLIGHT (1971) #30 and MARVEL FANFARE (1982) #13 & #34-37.
144 PGS. $19.99
[ISBN 9780785144809, Marvel, MAR100643]

I really like the Zelenetz/Vess stuff from Marvel Fanfare, and while I've never read the 1970s issue I'm always interested in some Wein/Buscema/Sinnott. A bit of a shame that, with the book being so slim, they aren't including the RAVEN BANNER graphic novel by Zelenetz and Vess, which could really use an updated printing job, and maybe the other Thor related Vess short story with Loki, which I just found out about recently.

ASTRO CITY: SILVER AGENT #1
On sale JUNE 30 • 1 of 2 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US
Written by KURT BUSIEK
Art by BRENT ANDERSON
Cover by ALEX ROSS
At last, the full story of the Silver Agent’s fateful journey through time — including his origin, his greatest battles and his ultimate fate — can be revealed. It’s all right here in a 2-issue miniseries spanning from the late 1950s to the far future. Guest-starring a constellation of Astro City stars and introducing the Silver Centurions, this very personal story will blow readers away on a galactic scale.

ASTRO CITY: SILVER AGENT #2
On sale JULY 28 • 2 of 2 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US
Written by KURT BUSIEK
Art by BRENT ANDERSON
Cover by ALEX ROSS
The Silver Agent faces his last battle to save a world he’s already saved. A heroic life comes full circle and a heroic legacy lives on in ways no one – much less the Agent himself – could ever have expected. Say goodbye to one of Astro City’s finest and uncover more of the city’s secrets in this finale to the 2-issue event.

[DC, APR100250, MAY100243]

I've drifted away from ASTRO CITY over the years, but this is one of the stories hinted at in the earliest issues that I was most interested in, so I might pick up the individual issues, and if seems to recapture what I liked about the series early on I might catch up on some of the stuff I missed (probably not that 16-part saga that just ended, though).


FRACTURED FABLES HC
story & art VARIOUS
cover MIKE & LAURA ALLRED
JULY 14
160 pages/FC $29.99
Some of the comic book industries best and brightest use their talents to welcome the next generation of comic book readers with the kid-friendly anthology, FRACTURED FABLES! Features all-new, humorous takes on our most beloved fairy tales with stories by award-winning creators like JILL THOMPSON, BRYAN TALBOT, PETER DAVID, BEN TEMPLESMITH, TERRY MOORE, SCOTT MORSE, DOUG TENNAPEL, TED McKEEVER, BILL MORRISON, LARRY MARDER, JIM VALENTINO, PHIL HESTER, SHANNON WHEELER and many more!
[ISBN 1607062690, Image, MAY100407]

Well, obviously the presence of Larry Marder, even on non-Beanworld stuff, makes this worth a look. Bryan Talbot and some of the others are also names well worth paying attention to.

THE MUPPET SHOW VOLUME 4: FAMILY REUNION
By Roger Langridge and Amy Mebberson
The Muppet Theatre has been repaired, and it's time to once again start the Muppet Show! The search for a new performer leads to an unexpected guest, prompting a family reunion that fans have been asking for, but never expected! This is the one Muppets fans have been demanding, and will be talking about for months to come! Written by the critically acclaimed Roger Langridge with art by Amy Mebberson. SOFTCOVER, 6x9, 128pgs, FC $9.99
[ISBN 9781608865871, Boom, MAY100892]

As I mentioned recently, Langridge's version of the Muppets was surprisingly effective in the first two books, and by the time this comes out I'm sure I'll be ready for more.