Innocent Bystander

Batman: The Black Casebook

You can't really tell what's in Batman: The Black Casebook, a recent DC Comics trade paperback, by looking at its cover. Since it had Grant Morrison's name plastered on the front, I thought immediately it was something tied into his Batman: RIP storyline, which I pretty much hated. And that much is true: It is tied into the most recent death of Batman, but it's all the stories that "inspired" Morrison to write his recent baffling run on the Batman flagship title.

So--for me, at least--this slim (144 pages) volume was a trip down memory lane. All of the stories herein are from the 1950s and early 1960s, with an emphasis on the late fifties, Batman's wonkiest era. It was a time period when the title and character tied into whatever was big in pop culture: giant monsters, science fiction, etc. Gone were the Dark Knight and his rogues gallery (an occasional Joker or Penguin story popped up, but not very often). Instead there were such timeless tales as "A Partner for Batman," featuring "Wingman," which meant Bats could go hang out at bars now that that pesky kid was laid-up with a broken leg. Also included in this book are "Batman: Indian Chief (tying into the national predilection for cowboys and Indians in the early 50s); "The Batmen of All Nations" and "The Club of Heroes," featuring the characters Morrison would bring back into the modern bat-mythos; "The First Batman," with Bruce's daddy Thomas in a bat-costume; the classic "Robin Dies at Dawn;" and "The Bat Creature." There's also the introduction of Bat-Mite. Personally, I don't think there's enough Bat-Mite stories these days, but I cringe at the thought of Morrison writing him. It would be 22 pages that I would never begin to understand.

The majority of the art in this volume is by Sheldon Moldoff, in that familiar--if somewhat stilted and borderline creepy--style that punctuated the Bat-books throughout that era. There's a couple of Dick Sprang tales and one Lew Sayre Schwartz-drawn one, too. The writers are all Edmond Hamilton, Bill Finger, and France Herron. I don't think I can ever really read these stories again...they're so much a product of their time, but they're fun to look at. As an additional selling point, the reproduction and coloring in this volume is so sharp (the first story, "A Partner for Batman," is a little sub-par), that it's almost like seeing the stories for the first time. One drawback: no cover reproductions, a bit of a faux pas, since Morrison references one of the covers in his introduction.

There's a certain comfort level involved in a book like this, a strong dose of fond memories. This is definitely a case where you can't judge a book by its cover, though. The designy all-black look certainly doesn't predict the bright, colorful, and somewhat funky adventures contained inside.

Wednesday is new comics day!

Slim pickins' at the comics shop today as--once again--a few boxes were missing from the store's weekly shipment. Economically-speaking--and critically, for that matter--I'd be fine if a few more boxes went missing occasionally, to be honest. But there is an inherent problem here...

The comic shop I frequent seems to have this missing box thing as a consistent problem. Since all comic books in America come from one distribution company (albeit different distribution points), it's easy to point a finger (you can pick which one) and say here is where the blame lies, but I'm not entirely convinced that the problem doesn't lie with my local comics shop and the payment of bills. So here's my question to you West Coast-living comics fans who visit your local comics shop every Wednesday: Are missing boxes a regular thing at your shops, too? Is there product that regularly doesn't make it for new comics day? Is this a distributor problem or one peculiar to the shop I visit? I know when I was publishing my comic back in the 1990s (a century ago), the Los Angeles branch of the world's largest comics distributor was often a black hole into which books descended and never appeared again. Is this still the case?

And while I have your attention...

Many moons ago, when I was but a mere lad in short pants (or maybe I was short and the pants were long), DC started a new thing called "Dollar Comics." It was a sincere effort to help stem the tide of the dying newsstand sales of comic books, an attempt to get a higher-priced product into the hands of retailers (in the days before comics-only retail shops) to compete with the likes of Time, Newsweek, and Playboy. At that point in time, visionary that I am, I had the brilliant idea that DC should take it's entire monthly output of say, Superman titles and put them into one Dollar Comic book...Superman, Action, World's Finest, Superboy, Adventure...so instead of buying 5 comics a month, we would be buying one. Needless to say, they didn't listen to me (mainly because it was an idea I myself had and didn't share it with anyone), but fast forward to the new millennium, and what does Marvel do? Take all their Spider-Man titles and consolidate them into one title, Amazing Spider-Man (the flagship one) and kill the others and bring it out weekly. Or three times a month. You pick.

So here's my question(s), oh True Believers...why bother to do this and publish what is ostensibly a weekly comic, and then only do it three times a month? Why then add a FOURTH title, a resurrected Web of Spider-Man, and have it sort-of, kind-of relate to the ongoing storyline? Why not add a fourth issue of Amazing Spider-Man, thus making the almost-weekly ASM a true weekly? And while we're on the topic, why does the skip week--or sometimes two weeks--frequently seem to occur between the next to last and last part of a storyline, thus absolutely KILLING any momentum in the story? I'm all for weekly comics; the format is more immediate and compelling from a story-telling standpoint, but Marvel--DEAR Marvel--you're doing it wrong. Your thoughts?

This weekend: APE (Alternative Press Expo) in San Francisco!

If you happen to be in or around the Bay area this weekend, the place to be for comics-lovers is APE, the Alternative Press Expo. One of the country's largest alternative and self-published comics shows, this year's guest list boasts Jeff Smith, Dash Shaw, Dean Haspiel, Batton Lash, Phoebe Gloeckner, and Lark Pien (who illustrated the cute ape at left). Yes, I have a vested interest in this show, and yes, I will be there. So stop by the Concourse at 620 7th St. in San Francisco and take in one of the most fun comics shows around. Admission is $10/day or $15 for both days (trust me...you'll want to be there both days!). More info: www.comic-con.org/ape.

Wednesday is new comics day!

This week's trip to the comic shop netted the start of a new super mini-series and the ending of another, plus the final chapter in a special story arc.

Let's start there, with Mark Millar and Steve McNiven's conclusion to their "Old Man Logan" storyline, that ran through Wolverine for 7 issues and then jumped into Giant Size Wolverine Old Man Logan for its 8th and final part, due to deadline concerns. This story started out to be as memorable as Millar's last arc on the character, the "Enemy of the State" story (the best Wolverine tale I've read since Chris Claremont and Frank Miller's 4-issue mini in the 1980s). Old Man Logan showed us Wolvie in an apocalyptic future (is there any other kind in comics these days?) where all the super-heroes are dead and the United States is divided up into a series of super-villain run fiefdoms. Wolverine (refusing to pop his claws) and a blind Hawkeye do a desperate run across country. That was pretty much the first 7 issues, and they were great, with McNiven's art reaching a new high. Now the Giant Size part comes along and...meh. It's violent and ugly and McNiven's art...well, it's like Geoff Darrow on crack (and I refer to the Geoff Darrow art on Hard-Boiled). Millar stumbled here, I think, with the story, which becomes just page after page of gore and Wolvie's violent retribution on the Banner family who killed his own family. You think Kick-Ass is raw? This is worse, and no mature content warning to boot (I guess Kick-Ass gets it for language, not the blood, guts, brain matter, and gore that's on even more prominent display here). This is the second time Millar has fumbled at the goal line to lose the game, as far as I'm concerned. 1985 started out great and lost it by issue #6. With Kick-Ass about to end, I'm hoping his dropsy period doesn't continue.

DC's Wednesday Comics came to an end today also with issue #12. The broadsheet newspaper experiment in Sunday comics story-telling has mixed results as far as I'm concerned. Yes, it was very cool. Yes, it had some amazing team-ups of talent. No, it didn't really succeed in emulating the Sunday comics of yore, except in size and format. With the possible exception of Kurt Busiek, I felt none of the talent involved with this seemed to be doing a Sunday kind of comics continuity story-telling. Maybe it's because I've just read volumes of Hal Foster's Prince Valiant, Leonard Starr's On Stage, and Stan Drake's The Heart of Juliet Jones, and the art of day-to-day (or week-to-week) storytelling is so readily on display in those books, but it's sadly missing in Wednesday Comics. Yeah, I bought all 12 issues. Yeah, I tried to read them all, but gave up quickly on a few of them (Wonder Woman, Teen Titans, and Demon/Catwoman). I'd like to maybe see this reprinted (actually in a more manageable size and in sequence by story, i.e., all 12 Batman in a row, etc.) and see how it reads, but in its current format, it read like a 12-page story presented a page at a time, not as an ongoing continuity that told a story over time. I know that sounds like semantics, but it isn't. It's a very fine line to walk, and I think Wednesday Comics failed at it. Still, kudos to DC for trying something like this, and bucking the usual retailer philosophy of it having to be a certain size to sell to the collectors.

The first issue of Geoff Johns and Gary Frank's Superman: Secret Origin came out today, too, and it proves once again that when it comes to DC's icons, Johns knows exactly what do with them. This first issue shows Clark Kent's burgeoning powers (wisely tied to puberty...I don't think Mort Weisinger ever thought of that one, but it certainly gets rid of the whole Superbaby kills Ma and Pa Kent while hugging them scenario) and his introduction to his Kryptonian parents, Lex Luthor, and his familiar costume. It's a bravura performance by both Johns and Frank, whose switch to the Superman books (he did Action Comics with Johns before tackling this mini-series) from those awful Squadron Supreme books at Marvel has had an amazing effect on his art. His Clark/Superman is a little too Chris Reeve looking for me, but I recognize the sentiment behind that. This looks to be a great retelling of the Superman origin story, with Johns adding to the mythos like he did with Green Lantern. I hope he does the same for the Flash once the Barry Allen regular series is up and running. (Yes. Pun intended.)

All these books should be available at your friendly neighborhood comic book shop right now.

Book signing this weekend!

I--along with a few other Comic-Con stalwarts--will be signing the convention's 40th anniversary book this Sunday at 2:00 pm at Mysterious Galaxy, 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd. Suite #302 San Diego, CA 92111. The book--Comic-Con: 40 Years of Artists, Writers, Fans & Friends!--is published by Chronicle Books and is a beautiful 208-page color hardcover "coffee table" book. It contains over 600 photos and pieces of art from the 40-year history of the San Diego Comic-Con International. The book is a team effort, developed by many people, but I'm happy to say I am the co-author (along with Jackie Estrada), and it's a project I worked on for most of 2008 and into the first quarter of 2009 when it finally winged its way out of Comic-Con and Chronicle's hands to the printer in Asia. It was a pretty amazing thing to be the first person to open the boxes and see a bound version of a book you looked at for months as printed 11x17" spreads on a somewhat-crummy color printer. But I digress...

If you're in the San Diego area this Sunday, please stop by, buy a book, and say hi. Even if you're not a hardcore comics fan, this book is an incredible collection of images and hours of  fun for everyone. The amazing cover by MAD's maddest artist, Sergio Aragonés, is a couple of hours of viewing pleasure in and of itself!

The Amazing! Original! Uncanny Oral History of Marvel Comics in Maxim magazine...

While the world still reels from the incredible news that Disney is purchasing Marvel Comics (the company, not just starting a pull-list at the local comics shop), I noticed a great article in the current issue of Maxim magazine (the Sept. issue, with Milla Jovovich on the cover). This issue is--of course--so hot it came wrapped in plastic, but some enterprising person liberated it from its protective baggie in my local CVS store (one of THREE in about a 4 block radius), and I was leafing through it, purely for editorial content, I assure you, when I found--lo and behold--an article celebrating Marvel's 70th anniversary.

With nary a cover mention, "The Amazing! Incredible! Uncanny Oral History of Marvel Comics," by Sean T. Collins, occupies six pages in the issue, including a great new illustration by Marvel stalwarts John Romita Jr. and Klaus Janson. It's exactly as advertised: an oral history of the company from the late 1930s through now (although admittedly, the word "oral" has a whole new context when used in an issue of Maxim). While the oral part is light, there's a lot of good stuff here, and I can't help myself hoping  Collins (who is a blogosphere mainstay, writing about comics here) expands this into a book. I love oral histories...I've read two great ones, one on Saturday Night Live, the other on the porn industry and there's a book called The Box sitting on my shelf for over a decade now which is an oral history of television.

Included in this article are observations from such esteemed Face Front-ers as Stan Lee ('nuff said!), Joe Quesada, Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Mark Millar, Tom Brevort, Chris Claremont, Steranko, Herb Trimpe, Roy Thomas and more, plus previously-employed Marvel talent like Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, Bob Harras, Jim Shooter, Tom DeFalco and Louise Simonson. Even Fantagraphics' Gary Groth gets into the act. There's also some excellent illustrations accompanying the article, and it's definitely worth a look. Not sure how much longer Milla lingers on the newsstand (it doesn't appear to be on the Maxim website), so you may want to seek this out...or then again you might not. Good thing Marvel squeaked this one into Maxim now...I'm not sure Disney would want it now that they've entered that corporate fold.

Complete Dick Tracy vol. 8 by Chester Gould...

IDW's continuing series of chronological reprintings of Chester Gould's Dick Tracy has certainly switched into high gear this year. With Eisner Award winning editor Dean Mullaney coming on board to edit the series, Tracy has undergone a makeover into the format of the Terry and the Pirates and Little Orphan Annie books, and couldn't have come a better time. Mullaney's presence has also upped the publication of this amazing series to three books a year. Volume 7 came out in April, the current one in July, and volume 9 is scheduled for December, just in time for Christmas gift-giving.

The format change coincides with the beginning of Tracy's--and Gould's--golden age. Volume 8 (click here to get your own copy!) introduces us to a number of classic villains, including Pruneface, 88 Keyes, Laffy, Mrs. Pruneface, and the one and only Flattop. The front page headlines during these years--mired deep in World War II--were horrifying enough, but somehow Gould outdid himself with these incredible bad guys. While World War II is certainly a part of Tracy's world--Pruneface is a spy, gas and tire rationing are apparent, one story deals with a daycare center for children whose mothers work for the war effort, and--most tellingly--that single shot of a star in someone's window, indicating a soldier killed in action--but it stays that way: just in the background. Gould wisely knew his reader wanted to escape from the horrors of war, and he certainly gave them his own horrors to concentrate on.

Gould still sometimes gets befuddled with his own writing...Flattop has money from "killing" Tracy that we never actually see him get; Mrs. Pruneface wants revenge for the death of her husband at Tracy's hands, but the last we hear of him, he's being transferred to the county jail, "heading straight to the electric chair," as Chief Brandon exclaims. (Mrs. Pruneface shows up just a few short months later, so I guess we're to take it that justice acted much more swiftly in the 1943...) When Mrs. P. captures Tracy, she devises one of the most insidious death traps ever: chaining him to the floor between two blocks of ice, with a refrigerator resting on boards above. Attached to the back of the fridge is a huge metal spike, designed to pierce Tracy's heart as the ice melts. And oh, yeah...it's in the kitchen. In August, And they close the windows. And turn the oven on. And leave the oven door open. Yikes! I can't make this stuff up, but Chet Gould sure could.

And then there's Flattop, the quintessential Dick Tracy villain. Cool, calm, and collected, a paid assassin brought into town just to kill Tracy--during Christmas, 1943, no less; how's that for warm holiday sentiment?--Flattop has nine lives and escapes to bedevil Tracy in the next volume (almost 15 years later, his identical son, Flattop Jr., appears in one of my all-time favorite stories--clearly Gould knew a great character when he saw one). It's very wise of IDW--however annoying--to split the Flattop storyline into two volumes. As the top Tracy baddie, he probably represents the one storyline more people will want to read. As good as volume 8 is, volume 9 will present the pinnacle of Gould's creativity: in addition to the conclusion of the Flattop storyline (featuring the introduction of ham actor Vitamin Flintheart), we'll meet The Brow, Shaky, Measles, Breathless Mahoney, Gravel Gertie, B. O. Plenty, and the Summer Sisters. This is Gould running at his fastest and most furious. Don't miss it!

Wednesday is new comics day!

Let's try something a little different for this week's installment of "Wednesday is new comics day!" and actually look at some of the comics I bought today. What a concept! I'm sure there are probably only a couple hundred thousand comics-oriented bloggers doing this right this very moment!

There was quite a stack of comics today (14 to be exact in my pile) awaiting me. Since I am at the age where a nap and dinner are more important than comics reading, I've only gotten through a few of them at this point, so please forgive me. Also please forgive me that these are all Marvel and DC mainstream superhero comics. I feel the need to make that disclaimer upfront.

Ultimate Avengers is the continuation of Marvel's Ultimate Universe, now called Ultimate Comics. I guess they blew up the world in Ultimatum...I don't know, I didn't read it. If Marvel continues to strip mine the genius of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and those other "first wave" artists and writers, the Ultimate Universe was, to me at least, the ultimate insult to the creations those guys left behind. The only Ultimate books I've ever read where Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch's The Ultimates, and this is a continuation of that. It's a new start, but trust me...I felt like I came in 3/4 of the way through a movie. I'm not real fond of comics that require an entrance exam, and this one felt that way. Still Millar's script and Carlos Pachecho's art make it worth following, at least through the first story arc. Oh, and Marvel: Since you made a semi-big deal out of your signing of Laura Martin as a colorist exclusive to your company, how about having her color the interior of this book, and not just the cover? There are only a few superstar colorists in comics, and she's definitely one of them.

Blackest Night, now in its second issue, and god knows how many spin-off issues (off the top of my head...eight, I think) is the kind of summer big comics event I can get behind. It's not only fun, it's actually READABLE, something missing from the big two companies these past two years when these kind of things have reared their sometimes (more often than not) ugly heads. Geoff Johns is the best superhero comics writer at DC right now (Ed Brubaker holds that distinction at Marvel), and his jewel in the crown is Green Lantern. He's restored Hal Jordan and the Corps to their rightful place as one of DC's best franchises. Blackest Night may very well be DC's version of the absolutely excreable Marvel Zombies (which, like the Zombies themselves, can seemingly NOT be killed off), and it may turn out to be just an easy way to get all the DC players back in the game, including everyone who has been killed off. Either way, I'm enjoying it. Johns' script and Ivan Reis's incredible art makes this the big event book of the summer.

Something that should have been a big Marvel event, but seems to be--at first glance--a standalone mini-series, is Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting's The Marvels Project. The series takes place in the late 1930s and brings more depth and backstory to the creation of Marvel's core Golden Age heroes: Captain America, Human Torch and Sub-Mariner. Again, this is something that requires an incredible knowledge of Marvel canon, something I would normally bypass, but with Brubaker writing it, it's already golden. I'm uncertain if Marvel is spinning anything out of this. I know there's a new Human Torch series featuring the original Torch coming up, with at least the first cover by the ubiquitous and over-exposed Alex Ross (seriously, dude...take a month off). Brubaker and Epting brought back Captain America in one of the best relaunches of recent memory, and Ed's work really shines with an artist like Epting, whose style tends to be realistic and dark and moody. Also, it doesn't hurt that it's colored by Dave Stewart, another of those superstar colorists we mentioned above.

Finally--at least so far, in this gang of 14--is the restart of Adventure Comics, featuring Superboy by Geoff Johns and Francis Manapul. I'll give anything Johns writes a chance, even though I'm less than thrilled at the return of this version of Superboy, a clone made up of DNA from both Superman and Lex Luthor. I was willing to pass on this when I first heard about it. I haven't seen much of Manapul's art, and what I had seen--including the cover to this first issue--left me cold. Too cartoony, too manga-like for my tastes. But his interior art--which may be from his pencils, I'm not sure--is amazing in this first issue, lovingly colored by Brian Buccellato, which adds a whole new dimension to the art. Also featuring the Legion of Super-Heroes (a group that requires not only an entrance exam in comic history, but an entire college education), this one starts off great, even if the Legion story is only lukewarm. And it's certainly great to have a series called Adventure Comics back on the racks, especially with DC looking at their 75th anniversary next year.

Gotta go...10 more comics are calling my name!

Wednesday is new comics day: Special sneak peek Comic-Con books edition...

We interrupt our semi-regular "Wednesday is new comics day!" feature to show you what we bought this year at Comic-Con. Because, you know, there are no comics at Comic-Con. There are no publishers like IDW or Drawn and Quarterly or Oni or Exhibit A Press or Abstract Studio or Fantagraphics or Robert Ullman or Flesk or Abrams or Classic Comics Press or Tripwire. None of them. Nope. Not one of them. I found all these books just laying in the middle of the floor. Honest.

ABOVE (clockwise from top left): Terry Moore's massive Strangers In Paradise Omnibus; D&Q's Masterpiece Comics by R. Sikoryak; Flesk's Al Williamson's Flash Gordon; Fantagraphics' restarted (and beautiful) Prince Valiant; IDW's Parker: The Hunter by Darwyn Cooke with a special Comic-Con only cover; mini-comics king Robert Ullman's spiffy Atom-Bomb Bikini art book; Batton Lash's Supernatural Law: Tales From the Vault (An Anniversary Special); Oni's You Have Killed Me by Jamie Rich and Joelle Jones; and Seth's George Sprott also from D&Q.

BELOW: Classic Comics Press' Heart of Juliet Jones vol. 2 and Mary Perkins On Stage vol. 6; Vertigo's The Nobody by Jeff Lemire; the futher exporation of the ouevre of wonky comics artist Fletcher Hanks, You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation!; Flesk's excellent 4th volume in their Mark Schultz sketchbook series; Joel Meadows' wonderful Tripwire Magazine, with a cover worth the price of the mag alone; Abrams' Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow by Brian Fies; D&Q's Berlin vol. 2, by Jason Lutes; and Craig Yoe's Secret Identity, The Fetish Art of Joe Shuster also from Abrams.

Reviews on all these books are coming soon in our special "Comic-Con Books" posts. But first, forgive me while I yell and scream...

I have very little shopping time at Comic-Con, for reasons that are obvious to most people. Yet I was able to go down on the floor and get my hands on all these books, because all the publishers were AT COMIC-CON. I'm sick and fucking tired of all these alleged "journalists" and bloggers bemoaning the fact that there are "NO COMICS AT COMIC-CON." Wake the fuck up! Beyond the special guests list, beyond the extensive programming schedule, these books alone--some of which debuted or were created specifically for sale at the show--show the depth of the publishers at the event, many of which do no other or few other shows. There's only one place in the country where you can find all these companies, plus DC, Marvel, Image, and Dark Horse. At Comic-Con in San Diego. If I can go down in one 2-hour period on Wednesday night and find these 18 books and buy them, anyone else can do it. Next time any of you say there are no comics at Comic-Con, LOOK FIRST, then write.

On comics: Bat Lash, Superman by Alan Moore, the final Spirit Archive, and more!

Comics have been on our mind a lot here at Casa Innocent Bystander in recent weeks, for obvious reasons. Truth be told, they always are. Here's what's on the top of the bookshelf by the window.

DC has come out with a welcome addition to their Showcase Presents line: the complete run of Bat Lash comics from the late '60s. Lash was a Maverick-like Western addition to the line when cowboy books were fading out a bit, but what separated it from the Kid Colts and Rawhide Kids was it's wonderful art by Nick Cardy. You can savor this art even more in this edition, in sparkling black and white with relatively good reproduction. Best of all, even for a Showcase Presents book, it's dirt-cheap: Only $9.99! It includes the original Showcase #76 premiere of Lash, plus the seven issues of his own series and some later stories, including a trio of short stories by the great Dan Spiegle, one of comics most-underappreciated artists. I tend to buy only the most oddball collections in the Showcase series (the only two I own are this one and the one devoted to Kanigher and Kubert's superb Enemy Ace). I hope they'll do more quirky stuff like this one.

Speaking of DC, they recently did for Batman what they did for Superman 23 years ago: Offer a two-part "career-ending" story written and drawn by major players. With Superman it was Alan Moore (when he was still speaking to DC) and Super-artist supreme Curt Swan; with Batman it was Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert. Both sets of stories have been collected into "deluxe editions" which also contain the other Batman and Superman stories written by Gaiman and Moore, respectively. Here's the big difference though: Moore's "Whatever Happened to the Man of Steel?" is one of the best Superman tales EVER, while Gaiman's "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" was as confusing as the Grant Morrison-written "Batman RIP" storyline that preceded it (and tied into the even crappier and more convulted Final Crisis series). The Moore collection is the one to buy, partly because he won't pass this way ever again through the DC Universe, but mainly because it's such a wonderful story.

I had been hoping for a book like volume 26 of The Spirit Archives through the entire run of the pricey hardcovers. I gave up on buying them all a while back. At $49.99 they were too rich for my poor wallet, but this final volume includes an extended cover gallery of Will Eisner's post-newspaper work, spanning from the Harvey issues in the '60s through his long run with Kitchen Sink Press. Some of those Kitchen covers are among my favorite Eisner Spirit work. So when I got the book and opened it, I was in comics heaven, at least for a moment or two. In theory, it was everything I wanted it to be. And then I paid closer attention. First off, almost all the covers are subpar scans of printed covers. I thought DC was working with the Eisner estate and would have access to the original films of all these covers? Beyond that, the 16 Warren covers are missing, and the rest of the art (with the exception of the stories reprinted from the Harvey issues) also seem to be less than adequate scans. Having all this stuff in one place is great; having it be the best quality reproduction would have been greater.

DC, through its WildStorm division, is also reprinting Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' excellent Sleeper series, this time in two volumes, instead of four. I think Brubaker is just about the best writer in mainstream comics these days, and this series--which has been optioned as a movie by no less than Tom Cruise and Sam Raimi--is one of his better early works. Season One is available now...Season Two is coming in late September.

Finally, our one non-DC book is Brian Cronin's Was Superman A Spy?, a collection of his "fascinating and often bizarre true stories behind more than 130 urban legends about comic book culture," or so the jacket says. If you're a hardcore comics fan like myself, there's very little new stuff here. It's mainly a book for a mainstream neophyte who has picked up on this comics craze, but it does have a spiffy cover. The book is a reprint of columns from Cronin's ComicBookResources.com column, and it's a fun read, especially perfect for the bathroom, due to it's "short take" format.