Sometimes, dreams do come true! Here it is, at long last: the first of two volumes collecting the entirety of Steve Ditko's pre-superhero output for Marvel Comics, almost all of which was scripted by Stan Lee. This massive, full color, slightly oversize, hardcover volume – the first of two! – collects a wallopin' 134 (!!!) tales, plus 16 bonus pages, ten of which are high quality reproductions of original pages. It all starts off with a great Roger Stern introduction. Yes!

COLLECTING:JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY (1952) #33, 38, 50-73, STRANGE TALES (1951) #46, 50, 67-91, TALES TO ASTONISH (1959) #1-26, TALES OF SUSPENSE (1959) #1-15, 17-24,...

A one-of-a-kind classic of the early years turn-of-the-century*, independent, creator-owned comics, Pop Gun War presents a fullembodiement ofthe imaginative capacities of the comics medium created by a natural-born comics maker.

*Pop Gun War was originally created and published between 1997 and 2003. It has now (in 2016) been reissued to prepare the ground for its forthcoming sequel.

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While Darwyn Cooke originally planned for a two-year stint on The Spirit, circumstances conspired to cut his run short at the halfway mark. The evidence of this final issue -- an exigetical adaptation of Eisner's original Sand Saref story (the same story Frank Miller's upcoming movie is also using as it's core text) -- bears out that this is all it took for Cooke to bore right to the core of not just the character of The Spirit but of the spirit of the noir sensibility itself. Through his masterful employment of Eisner's late style (which Eisner himself used to portray the past; i.e. his own childhood during the depression out of which so...

How To Be Drawn has arrived! The latest volume of poetry by Pittsburgh's own MacArthur Fellow, Terrance Hayes, this 100 page collection is divided into three parts, each composed of ten pieces (decalogues?) --Troubled Bodies; Invisible Souls; A Circling Mind -- followed by an epiloguical closer. While firmly grounded in Hayes's own personal landscape, the thirty-one poems collected here roam the world, from "Russia's red-light districts" to New York's Chinatown, explore histories and cultures, and celebrate a cornucopia of creators and creative forms -- most abundantly, musicians and music; most succinctly, writers and writing; and, most...

The long awaited follow up toAbandoned Carshas arrived.The Lonesome Gois a giant oversize volume packed with more carefully placed ink lines than any book this side ofBlack Hole.Taking a hint from theLegend of Duluoz, St. Louis resident and Washington University lecturer, Tim Lane takes a turn down aLost Highway on aSavage Night, whereA Good Man Is Hard to Findand a sprawling chaos of comics ensues, recorded employing a visual lexicon that is partCharles Biroand partCharles Burnsand shines a light onthose parts of the American psyche that are usually left festering in the dark, allin the service of creating an acutely observed and fully...

Brecht Evens, creator of The Wrong Place, The Making Of and Panther (all of which except forPanther, which was, thankfully, just reprtinted arecurrently – and shockingly –out of print here in North America)has,in TheCity of Belgium,likely produced hismasterpiece.There might not be any other work that compares in the effectiveness ofits conveyance of the feeling of being immersed in the overflowing of city life, of the sense of being aware of everything, of being surrounded byso much – too much – that ishappening all aroundat every moment. Ariotous explosion of color and details communicate the overwhelming feelings that accompany this...

Log considered the essential, go-to guide to drawing comics. Start here.

This One Summer is a finely nuanced portrait of pubescents at the dawning of their age of sexuality that will have readers slowing down if not stopping in their tracks to pause and soak up every line ofstunningly good work. The Tamaki cousins enter Hernandez brothers territory here, with their deftly characterized and deeply empathic portraits of each pen & ink participant in the drama that unfolds on these pages. There are echoes, too, of Charles Burns’s Black Hole, in the presentation of the protagonists' stumbling upon detritus strewn outdoor settings that stand as a synecdoche forinnocence’s discoveringthe mysteries of sexual...

Boundless is a 248 assemblage composed of ninetales: World Class City;Body Pods;The Clairfree System;1. Jenny;Half Life;Darla!;bedbug;Sexcoven;Boundless. Each is possessed of itsown individual artistic personality, chosen to best visually convey the character of the story:rough and ready;smooth and silky;precise;loose;colorful;stark. Here, the real story is the way in which the taleis told. Decision embodied in line and composition.

Each of the pieces, while being a unique organic whole in and of itself, is part of a greater whole as well; part ofa tapestric unity. These stories deal with individuals alone, together and in groups. They...