Challenge- Flash Gordon: IDW vs. Titan

I occasionally do videos, like the infamous Marvel Vs. DC Omnibus ones that made the rounds at Bleeding Cool a year ago. Those can be seen on my youtube channel, which you can find by watching the video below. My friend, OCD enabler and partner-in-crime Ferjo Byroy swears by the IDW Flash Gordon book. I enjoyed the Titan...but which is superior? YOU decide!

Review- FLASH GORDON: SUNDAYS 1934-1937- ON THE PLANET MONGO

FLASH GORDON: SUNDAYS 1934-1937- ON THE PLANET MONGO (Titan, 2012; Hardcover)

Collects the Flash Gordon Sunday strips from January 1, 1934- April 18, 1937

Writer: Don Moore

Artist: Alex Raymond

The impact that Flash Gordon has had on comic books, the world of science fiction, and on popular culture as a whole is immense. While the character lives on in a new series from Dynamite Entertainment, most people these days seem to know Flash Gordon best from the Queen song Flash from the 1980 feature film. That's how it started for me at least. Flash Gordon started out as a copycat competitor to Buck Rogers, but Alex Raymond's brilliant artwork quickly set it apart. 

There is a great introduction in this book which gives the reader context of America at the time. Bear in mind that this strip predates television and all comic book superheroes. All of these wild scenarios, locales, aliens, and characters are without precedent. You had pulp heroes around this time such as the Shadow, Tarzan, and Doc Samson, but none of them flew around in spaceships, battled Hawkmen, or met and fought entire undersea kingdoms. Kingdoms that predate both the Sub-Mariner and his clone, Aquaman, by the way. 

The writing and artwork are both excellent, especially for the era. This was a tough read for the first third of the book. I had a hard time getting into it. The artwork was great and kept getting better, but the story was dry. Once the writing clicked and there was a serial arc-driven continuity, I couldn't put the book down. If you can look past the faulty science and seemingly cheesy animal names and bear in mind how groundbreaking this stuff was you'll enjoy it. If you read it strictly by 2013 standards you might be disappointed in the story but not the artwork. Alex Raymond is, if not the greatest, in the top five greatest comic book artists of all time. No brag, just the facts. 

One thing that I find kind of funny is how honor bound all of these primitive kingdoms are. Flash usually makes some sort of challenge, beats their king or top warrior, and is granted his freedom or the kingdom. These strips are quaint and fun, especially when taken in their proper historical context. 

For decades these strips were in the hands of private collectors, lost to the mists of time. You could spend a lifetime trying to collect them all and still wind up empty handed. Here you can get high quality presentation at an affordable price, considering the restoration and high production values of this book. I give thanks to the original science fiction fans who saved these strips from oblivion. 

I was surprised at how many scenarios from the 1980 movie were taken from these vintage strips. It makes sense, but it was still surprising since Hollywood always knows best. Now sing it with me: Flash! Aaah-aaaahhh!! Saviour of the universe!

Junk Food For Thought rating: 4 out of 5.

The OCD zone- This material has been issued several times over the years from various publishers. Many fans seem to prefer the IDW books, but I am happy with this book.

BUYER BEWARE NOTICE: There is a recalled version of this book making the rounds. Titan originally published this in May of 2012 and the book omitted two strips and repeated two others. These were recalled and given out to retailers as comp copies. Many of these were dumped onto the secondary market and eBay. Compounding this problem is that the corrected edition, which was released in October of 2012, also states in the indicia that it was published in May of 2012. Titan did everything within their power to remove this inferior, defective book from the market. They should have pulped the run rather than give them out to dealers, as I have read multiple reports of people getting defective copies, even from the almighty Amazon.com.

Linework restoration rating: 4 out of 5. These are straight up scans of the original strips. The first half of the book has a few rough patches, the result of inferior source material. It's not bad by any stretch but is not as clear as the latter half of the book. This is not Prince Valiant quality, but those are sourced from pristine printer proofs. There are a few pages that are iffy but the high quality of the rest of the scans lifts the rating up to a 4.

Color restoration rating: 5 out of 5. Coloring can't get any more authentic than the original material. Since these are scans, this qualifies since they only filtered out the excess yellowing of the pulp paper. I am really impressed with the print quality given the primitive oil based ink four color printing process. Clearly newspapers used superior printing processes than the comic books of the Golden Age, as line bleed is at an absolute minimum here.

Paper rating: 5 out of 5. Beautiful, thick uncoated stock. Plus it has that glorious toxic Chinese ink aroma.

Binding rating: 5 out of 5. Wonderful sewn binding with the casing not glued square to the spine, allowing the book to lay perfectly flat as god intended.

Hardback cover coating rating: 5 out of 5. There is no dustjacket for this book. The image is screen printed on the hardback itself with a reasonably thick coating. I found no scuffs or marks on it after reading the book. The gold color dye in the cover stamping is a nice touch.

Review: The Simon and Kirby Library- Superheroes

THE SIMON AND KIRBY LIBRARY: SUPERHEROES(Titan, 2010; Hardcover)

Collects Adventures of the Fly No. 1, Fighting American (Vol. 1) Nos. 1-7, (Vol. 2) No. 1, Stuntman Nos. 2, 3, and material from Adventures of the Fly No. 2, Black Cat Comics Nos. 7, 8, Captain 3-D No. 1, The Double Life of Private Strong Nos. 1, 2, Fighting American Hardcover (unreleased story from the 1989 Marvel hardcover) and Prize Comics Nos. 7-9 (cover dates December, 1940- October, 1966)

Writers and Artists: Joe Simon and Jack Kirby

This book offers tremendous value, clocking in at 480 pages for $49.99 MSRP, nearly double the page count for comparably priced books in this category. You really can't go wrong with it, even though the stories are formulaic and often tedious. 

It's interesting watching Kirby evolve from his more cartoonish Golden Age style to his more powerful Silver Age style. He really hits his stride on Fighting American, which is odd considering that the writing here reaches a low point. It is downright corny at times. I read the hardcover of the series that Marvel released in 1989 and loved it. That was 5 or 6 years ago, and since then I have read hundreds of Golden Age comics. I think that the novelty of something being old and obscure made me like it more. Now that I am a seasoned Golden Age reader, I can better discern quality over novelty. Fighting American is pure cheese. The artwork makes it tasty cheese, but it is still cheese nonetheless. 

The Black Owl and Stuntman were neat ideas but were a chore to plow through. I wanted out of Stuntman in the worst way, but held on and persevered. Simon and Kirby caught lightning in a bottle with their creation of Captain America, and they tried to repeat the formula first with Fighting American, and later the Shield. The Shield does feature a more polished artwork style for Kirby, definitely one of his first steps toward his Marvel style. 

The Fly is my favorite character in the book. I read it late at night when I was dead tired, but the gist of it has something to do with fly people from another dimension who give a ring to a little boy and when he rubs it becomes The Fly, who is a full grown man. No, it doesn't make any sense, but it seems cool. Also, he has a stinger gun which fires darts that put people to sleep. Just like a real fly...oh wait. I love the faulty logic and science in old comic books. 

One of my gripes about modern comics is decompression. It takes so long for anything to happen. Kirby's style of storytelling is the opposite. He tries so hard to cram so much story into 6 or 8 or 10 pages that he is tripping over himself trying to fit it all in. Dropped plotlines, strip premise, and supporting cast are cast aside and later reintroduced with no mention of how or why. The worst case of this is in Fighting American, where his sidekick, Speedboy, is referred to by his real name twice in the entire 200+ pages, and one of those was in the unreleased story!

The OCD zone- The restoration in this book is interesting. While it employs solids like the Marvel Masterworks or DC Archives, it also fabricates dots on some of the sections of each panel for contrast. While I personally enjoy dots from a nostalgia perspective, these dots are way too perfect, and are at times even distracting. It was nice to finally get a properly colored version of Fighting American, after the abysmally muddy job that Marvel did on their 1989 Masterwork-format hardcover.

The paper is a thick, uncoated stock, and the book boasts sewn binding...8 stitches instead of the 7 used on most hardcovers. I found this to be extremely exciting for some insane reason.