with an introduction by Alan Moore At last, this long neglected masterpiece of comics is once again available, and in the finest edition yet produced.  Originally published as a comic book mini-series in the late 1980s by Kitchen Sink Press, Kings in Disguise started out life as a one act play.  Around the time that the play premiered in 1984, Vance stumbled into a comics shop became intrigued by the comics renaissance that he discovered that was then in first bloom and a lightbulb went off.  Set in America at the nadir of the Great Depression of the 1930s, Kings in Disguise is a thoroughly engaging story told with heart and finely rendered by long suffering alternative comics stalwart, Dan Burr.  It is a story of tramps, bums and yeggs, young and old, weak and strong, good and bad, all caught up in the forces of history and trying to do the best they can.  This is a story that tries to capture the reality of lives of struggle, in direct opposition to the traditional role of comic books as escapist fare read precisely to avoid confronting these hard realities.  Do yourself a favor and give this one a look.

Will wonders never cease?  Who knew that writer, James Vance, and illustrator Dan Burr had been hard at work on a massive sequel to Kings in Disguise, their highly original series depicting depression-era America that originally saw print as a six-issue mini-series from Kitchen Sink Press way back in 1988?  Not us!  On the Ropesis a 248 page oversize hardcover that takes us to the year 1937, where Fred Bloch – the protagonist of Kings in Disguise –  has found a temporary home in a WPA-sponsored traveling circus!  Here's what Alan Moore has to say about this just released work:  "More than twenty years in its construction and worth every moment of the wait, James Vance and Dan Burr's On the Ropes is that most rare of animals, a sequel that's as powerful, as vital, and as necessary as the work that it continues.  A quietly epic human tale that beautifully and expertly employs the comic medium in its telling, On the Ropes is very possible the most affecting graphic narrative that you will read the next couple of decades."  High praise, indeed, from someone who should know.

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