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Hawkman Omnibus, Volume 01

by Geoff Johns , Rags Morales (Illustrator)

  • $ 49.99
  • Pub. Date: March 2012
  • Publisher: DC Comics
  • Format: Hardcover , 320pp
  • ISBN-13: 9781401232221
  • ISBN: 1401232221
Really?  I don’t really remember him writing this character.  But if DC is collecting everything he has written, then I’ll wait for the Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. omnibus.

Jack Jackson’s American History: Los Tejanos & Lost Cause

by Jack Jackson , Ron Hansen (Introduction)
  • $ 35.00
  • Pub. Date: February 2012
  • Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
  • Format: Hardcover , 320pp
  • ISBN-13: 9781606995044
  • ISBN: 1606995049
Remember all that fuss about R. Crumb’s Genesis?  Jack Jackson was doing that sort of thing back in the 1990s.  Doing it so well, that the Texas Historical Association  awarded him a lifetime fellowship.  He produced one of the first underground comics in 1964, and co-founded Rip Off Press.  He deserves more attention and recognition from comics fans and historians, and I hope this book does that.  If you can find copies of past editions, read them now!  His research, both written and visual, is so precise that he once engaged in a written war over criticism of perceived inaccuracy and racism in Lost CauseYou can read his interview here, at the Comics Journal.

Decelerate Blue

by Adam Rapp , Humayoun Ibrahim (Illustrator) , Sonny Liew (Illustrator)
  • $ 17.99
  • Pub. Date: September 2013
  • Publisher: First Second
  • Format: Paperback , 128pp
  • ISBN-13: 9781596431096
  • ISBN: 1596431091

This project is so secret, there’s not even sample art available.  So I grabbed this awesome Sailor Moon painting from Sonny Liew’s super secret website!  If you need something to while away the days while you wait, he has a story in the final, eighth volume of Flight, plus all sorts of great stuff from a variety of publishers! And Malinky Robot from Image in August!


Treasure Chest

  • $ 15.99
  • Pub. Date: January 2012
  • Publisher: Bluewater Productions, Incorporated
  • Format: Paperback , 144pp
  • ISBN-13: 9781450723794
  • ISBN: 1450723799

Ut oh…  looks like I have a reason to buy something from Bluewater.

Okay… for those who don’t know about this amazing series, Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact was a Catholic-oriented biweekly distributed to parochial schools from 1946 to 1972.  (Yeah, it’s the catholic Weekly Reader.)  I’ve found a few copies in the dollar bins at shows, and it’s pretty tame fare.  It’s not as … erm… parochial or pedantic as you might think.  Safe, innocuous stories for kids, some of them quite amazing.  For example, in 1964, they ran a ten-part story about a presidential candidate in 1976.  Were there flying cars?  Moon bases?  Food pills?  Nope, something even more outlandish and inconceivable!  *SPOILER WARNING* Tim Pettigrew, the candidate, was BLACK.  Written by Berry Reece and drawn by “Joltin” Joe Sinnott, it is just one example of the hidden and forgotten treasures in this series.  (You can read the mini-series here.)  Other notable creators: Reed Crandall, Graham Ingels, Joe Orlando, Murphy Anderson, and Jim Mooney.  Yes, “Ghastly” Graham Ingels.  Not too surprising, since this comic didn’t carry the Code Seal.

A Game of Thrones: The Graphic Novel, Volume 1, No. 6

by George R. R. Martin

  • $ 3.99
  • Pub. Date: December 2011
  • Publisher: Bantam Books
  • Format: Paperback , 32pp
  • ISBN-13: 9780345532732
  • ISBN: 0345532732
$ 3.99 for 32 pages… Volume 1, number 6…  I suspect that this is a comic book which will later be collected.  Random House, which owns Bantam Books, has distributed comics to shops, so this will probably be collected into a graphic novel later in 2012.  Given the popularity of the television show, this is a smart move on Bantam’s part, if the books survive the rigors of shipping and display.  Or maybe it’s just being sold online.  The comic is produced with Dynamite Entertainment, which is publishing the single comics.  I wonder how they are selling?
And is anyone collecting Martin’s other comics work, like Wildcards or Sandkings?  Or perhaps his fanzine writing (and artwork!) from the 1960s?

Projections: Comics and the History of Twenty-First-Century Storytelling

$ 100.00 / $ 24.95
Covering a neglected history of American comics, from the rise of sequential comics in the late nineteenth century, through comic books and underground comix, to the graphic novel and webcomics, Gardner shows why comics offer the best models for rethinking storytelling in the twenty-first century.
Stanford University Press.  And another academic press joins a growing list of publishers offering intellectual and historical examinations of comics.

1 COMMENT

  1. “[Jackson] deserves more attention and recognition from comics fans and historians” — well, he did make it into the Eisners Hall of Fame this year on a Judges’ Choice ballot…

  2. You don’t remember Geoff Johns writing Hawkman ? His version is pretty much what brought the character back to the forefront after the Hawkworld mini of the 90’s. If you’re a fan of Hawkman or Johns at all, it’s must reading.