Review- SHOWCASE PRESENTS TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED VOL. 1

I forgot to take a picture of the spine and I don't feel like digging this back out to take one. Sorry OCD folks! 

SHOWCASE PRESENTS TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED VOL. 1 (DC, First Printing, 2012; Softcover)

Collects Tales of the Unexpected #1-20 (cover dates February/March, 1956- December, 1957)

Writers: Jack Miller, France E. Herron, and other, unidentified writers

Artists: Bill Ely, John Prentice, Howard Purcell, Charles Paris, Leonard Starr, Ruben Morera, Bill Draut, Mort Meskin, Sheldon Moldoff, George Papp, Nick Cardy, Bernard Baily, George Roussos, Jim Mooney, Jack Kirby, and Bob Brown

Tales of the Unexpected is one of those Cold War-tinged, watered down for the Comics Code Authority Twilight Zone-esque light fare anthology series. Alien invasions, ghosts, magical objects (lamps), timestream slips (i.e. broadcasts from the future), living paintings, and other concepts used here were also used so many times in other stories that it is almost impossible to ascertain where they originated.

Issue 9's The Day Nobody Died is the closest thing to a Pre-Code macabre style story. George Roussos was an excellent artist in the 1950s, employing endless solids which are stunning in black and white. His work here is so close to Alex Toth that I had to do a double take and go back to the table of contents to be sure. Roussos would have a decades long career in the industry, although he has no defining run on any title for fans to remember him by. I call guys like him comic book journeyman, as they turned it solid work year after year but never made it “big”. Jim Mooney is another artist who did great work here and, like Roussos, was a journeyman. Mooney is better remembered, though, as he inked Spider-Man on and off over the years.

If you've read one of these '50s titles then you have read them all, although this one boasts a better than average roster of artists. Take a gander at that list above. A lot of Golden Age greats were still doing solid work, such as Sheldon Moldoff (creator of Hawkman), Bernard Baily (co-creator of The Spectre), and of course Jack Kirby (co-creator of every great 1960's Marvel hero except for Spider-Man and Doctor Strange).

Kirby's artwork is in a transition phase here between the rawness and energy of his 1940s work and the refinement of his Silver Age work. Of note is #16's The Magic Hammer, where Kirby tells the story of a man who finds the magic hammer of Thor and uses it for evil. This was five years before he created the character for Marvel's Journey Into Mystery #83. While it is hip and trendy to downplay Stan Lee's contributions to Kirby's co-creations, I have to side with the Kirby Kult about Thor. You can't dispute that Kirby had the idea cooked up. Lee may have added supporting casts to the series, but the rest of Thor is pure Kirby. Look at this panel from the story. It is the exact same pose that he would draw Thor in on the cover of his first appearance!

Leonard Starr is one of the all-time greatest comic book or strip artists. This was toward the end of his career as a comic book artist, as he was about to graduate to the big time with his nationally syndicated strip Mary Perkins On Stage. If you have never read that series you should check it out, as it is brilliant.

I enjoy reading stuff like this before I go to bed, when the house is quiet and the kids are sleeping. I would be all over a Volume 2 of this, although four years have passed and this line of books is pretty much dead in the water. This would make a great line of Archives, although the market has shown that the audience for material like this is small. Oh well.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 4 out of 5.

The OCD zone- These 500+ page black and white phonebooks are a bargain. Condescending fans call them coloring books, whereas I prefer to refer to them as poor man's Artist Editions.

Linework restoration: There is no way that DC is going to do restoration on 510 pages of story at a $19.99 MSRP. That means that the film for this stuff is in perfect shape, as there are no line dropouts, no murkiness from scanned printed comics or any other imperfections.

#12's The Indestructible Man was altered when it was reprinted in House Of Secrets #96, and the altered header with series host Abel giving the introduction is present here.

Paper stock: Good weight pulp paper.

Binding: Perfect bound trade paperback. There are reports of these falling apart, although I haven't had any of my Showcase Presents books fall apart.

Cardstock cover notes: Laminated cardstock cover. I find it interesting that DC leaves the interior covers blank, as they are normally printed with advertisements for other books available from the publisher. 

Review- SHOWCASE PRESENTS THE SPECTRE VOL. 1

SHOWCASE PRESENTS THE SPECTRE VOL. 1 (DC, 2012; Softcover)

Collects Showcase #60, 61, 64, The Spectre #1-10, The Brave and the Bold #72, 75, 116, 180, 199, DC Comics Presents #29, and The Spectre stories from Adventure Comics #431-440 and Ghosts #97-99 (cover dates February, 1966- June, 1983)

Writers: Gardner Fox, Bob Haney, Mike Friedrich, Steve Skeates, Denny O'Neil, Mark Hanereld, Michael Fleisher, Len Wein, and Paul Kupperberg.

Artists: Murphy Anderson, Carmine Infantino, Charles Cuidera, Neal Adams, Ross Andru, Mike Esposito, Jerry Grandenetti, Bernie Wrightson, Jack Sparling, Nick Cardy, Jim Aparo, Ernie Chan, Jim Starlin, Romeo Tanghal, Michael R. Adams, Tex Blaisdell, Tony Dezuniga, and Rick Hoberg.

The Spectre rules! This skips his still largely uncollected Golden Age run and jumps ahead to his Silver Age revival, which was 21 years to the cover date of his previous appearance. They seem to try to keep the premise of the Golden Age Spectre at first. The Showcase issues and the first issue of his series are okay if a little boring. Neal Adams comes in for #2 and stays a few issues. I enjoy the ones with Wildcat, now 20 years older and past his prime. I recently read some of his early appearances in The Comics Cavalcade Archives.

Things are good but don't get great until Adventure Comics #431, which ushers in the reinvented Spectre after a five year absence in 1974. Michael Fleisher and Jim Aparo crafted a brilliant storyline of wrath and retribution. The Spectre deals out ironic deaths to criminals. This is pretty gritty stuff that pushed the Comics Code Authority to it's limit. There is an old, long out of print trade paperback which collects that series in color which I read years ago.

These black and white phone books are a love and hate thing for me. DC usually screws up the coloring in their collections, so this is something of a plus for them. They can also serve as poor man's Artist Editions books.

I wish that DC would continue the Golden Age Archives and continue into the Silver Age and beyond. I have the first two '90s series trades but couldn't even begin to guess when I will get around to reading them.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 4.75 out of 5.

The OCD zone- This being DC, multiple appearances are omitted that were published during the timeframe of the material presented in this collection. Par for the course. At least they didn't omit any story pages in this collection like they did in so many others during the period that this collection was published in.

Linework and restoration: Everything looks tight and clean.

Paper stock: These books use the cheapest pulp paper available. When you get 624 pages at $19.99 MSRP you can't really complain, though. These are designed to be cheap reads.

Binding: Perfect bound trade paperback.

Cardstock cover notes: Thick waxlike lamination.

 

Review- THE WARLORD: THE SAGA

THE WARLORD: THE SAGA (DC, 2010; Softcover)

Collects Warlord Nos. 1-6 (cover dates June- November, 2009)

Writer: Mike Grell

Artists: Pencilers- Joe Prado and Chad Hardin; Inkers- Walden Wong, Jay Leisten, Joe Prado, Wayne Faucher, and Dan Green

Colorist: David Curiel

Now this is what I'm talking about! High flying sword and sorcery medieval action meets ancient advanced high tech Atlantean civilization...under the Earth's crust in Tibet. A group of explorers in then-modern day 2009 discover a fresh dinosaur corpse and stumble upon the hidden world of Skartaris, a land where dinosaurs meet science fiction at the center of the Earth. This group of folks, all with their own agendas, return and go exploring and things go awry. Enter the Warlord! The action is every bit as over the top as it was in the original series, back when the violence pushed the limits of the Comics Code Authority. 

Mike Grell's Warlord is woefully underrepresented in terms of collected editions, with this book being only one of three ever published. The first is a long out of print collection of the first ten or twelve issues, the second is an out of print Showcase phone book (I have stumbled across copies on comic shop shelves here and there, so they are floating around), and then there is this book. 

While creator Mike Grell handles the writing and issue covers, others handle the interior art on these issues. I adored Grell's work on the original series, and was thrilled to see that he picked up his pencils for the interior artwork of the subsequent issues. Then I became frustrated when I realized that the rest of the series was never collected in trade paperback. I hope that this becomes rectified at some point in the future, as I would love to read issues 7-16 but have no interest in hunting down the back issues. I hope that DC releases another trade paperback or two. Better yet, go back to the beginning and do Warlord Archives.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 4 out of 5.

The OCD zone- I can't stand how the covers are all collected in the back of the book, with no chapter break indication of any kind. I guess the mythological mainstream bookstore buyer that DC chases was fooled into thinking that this was a “graphic novel” and not a compilation of comic books previously published in the single issue periodical format.

DVD-style Extras included in this book: No extras to be had, really. No variants. No harm, no foul.

Paper rating: 4 out of 5. Decent weight coated stock with a slight sheen.

Binding rating: 4 out of 5. Standard glued binding.

Cardstock cover coating rating: 5 out of 5. Nice thick waxy lamination on the cardstock cover.

Buy THE WARLORD: THE SAGA TP at InStockTrades!

Review- SHOWCASE PRESENTS WARLORD VOL. 1

SHOWCASE PRESENTS WARLORD VOL. 1 (DC, 2009; Softcover)

Collects 1^st Issue Special No. 1 and The Warlord Nos. 1-28 (cover dates November, 1975- December, 1979)

Writer and Artist: Mike Grell

Inker: Vince Colletta

I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I only discovered Mike Grell over the last couple of years in those DC Bronze Age phone books like House of Secrets, etc. I was so blown away by Grell's artwork that I did a search online to see what else he had done. Warlord was at the top of the list, and for good reason.

The gist- Travis Morgan is a pilot whose plane passes through a hole in the Earth's crust, ending up in Skartaris, a “world” beneath the Earth's crust where the sun always shines. Skartaris is actually Atlantis, which sank into the ocean ages ago. It's a mix of high-tech and primitive civilizations, with a healthy assortment of dinosaurs and monsters as well. Magic and science exist side by side, and as Travis goes along he becomes known as The Warlord. This is sword and sorcery, science fiction high adventure at its finest.

Mike Grell's writing and artwork are great. I am impressed at the amount of violence that he was able to get by the Comics Code Authority back then, implied or otherwise. This was both timely and way ahead of it's time compared to what was on the stands in the late '70s. He makes great use of double page spreads, and uses what could be the first vertical page layouts, definitely the earliest ones that I've seen. Perhaps someone could point out if there were earlier ones. I am not a comics historian, merely a student of the artform. 

I like how Grell has a push and pull approach to his writing. He'll have dense, text packed captions for pages, and then launch into dialogue and caption free splash pages and double page spreads during action sequences. This is highly effective and was fairly innovative during the Bronze Age. It's definitely a precursor to the approach used in modern day comic books.

I guess that there's a color collection of some of the early issues out there, but it's long out of print and not cheap. I'd love to see DC do Archives or another full color, preferably hardcover, collection of this material. For the time being, this 528 page black and white phone book will have to suffice. I wish that there were more volumes in this line. There are plenty more issues for DC to collect.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 5 out of 5. 

The OCD zone- These phone books are great for what they are: Inexpensive, in depth primers on characters. They are printed on cheap pulp paper, which is fine at the price point.

Linework restoration rating: 5 out of 5.

Color restoration rating: Not applicable. It's a black and white reprint.

Paper rating: 3 out of 5.

Binding rating: 4 out of 5.

Cardstock cover rating: 5 out of 5.

Review- SHOWCASE PRESENTS: THE WITCHING HOUR VOL. 1

SHOWCASE PRESENTS: THE WITCHING HOUR VOL. 1 (DC, 2011; Softcover)

Collects The Witching Hour Nos. 1-19 (cover dates March, 1969- March, 1972)

Writers: Denny O' Neil, Steve Skeates, Gerry Conway, Marv Wolfman, and others

Artists: Alex Toth, Nick Cardy, Jack Sparling, Dick Giordano, Jose' Delbo, Sid Greene, Vince Colletta, Bernie Wrightson, Mike Sekowsky, George Roussos, Michael Kaluta, Neal Adams, Gray Morrow, George Tuska, Gil Kane, Wally Wood, Lee Elias, Joe Orlando, Tony Dezuniga, Don Heck, Carmine Infantino, Frank Giacoia, and others

I love these monster phone books, as they are among the best entertainment values on the planet. Where else could you get 550 pages of comic books for $19.99 MSRP? While many fans grumble about the lack of color, the black and white format works really well on these Horror comics. Another nice thing about these being in black and white is that you can really see the fine linework of the art. While I would love to see these done in Archives or other hardcover format, these Showcases are terrific placeholders until such books become available, if ever. 

These comic books are admittedly tame by today's standards, but they are fun, traditional Horror stories. Like the old EC Comics, there are three hosts, in this case the Three Witches, who take turns trying to outdo each other with their stories. This format continues until issue 16. While the Three Witches telling stories are still an integral part of the title, there are also several reprinted stories from earlier in the decade. 

There are some fantastic artists on this title. Just take a gander at those names up top. It's a veritable who's who of Silver Age greats. Nick Cardy's covers are genius. He really creates an eerie, creepy atmosphere. Gray Morrow is another tremendous artist whose work was head and shoulders above many of his peers. Pretty much every artist on this title was good, although you occasionally get a subpar artist like Jerry Grandenetti (not pictured here). 

Issue 12's Double Cross (by Steve Skeates and Gil Kane) is hilarious. Enlightenment through a yoga class causes a housewife to see things as they really are, in terms of good vs. evil. It turns out the school is really a front for a Satanic cult, and they were just trying to steal her soul. I adore early '70s “Hollywood” Satanism nonsense like this. This sense of non-ironic fun is what makes these such fun reads.

This book is a welcome addition to DC's Showcase library, and a terrific companion to The House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Secrets of Sinister House, and Ghosts Showcase Presents volumes. Keep these Silver and Bronze Age Horror anthology collections coming, DC!

The OCD zone- DC's table of contents are more detailed than Marvel's in these phone books. They list each cover's artist, something that Marvel's Essentials do not do. Also, I love the fact the pages are numbered. This is another shortfall with Marvel's Essentials. Aside from that, these phone books are neck and neck since DC decontented the paper stock to the same pulp paper that Marvel uses. For 20 bucks and this many pages, though, who cares?