No comments about The Spectacular Spider-Man #220: A Time to Live (Web of Death - Marvel Comics).

No comments about James O'Barr's The Crow: Dead Time #3 (Kitchen Sink Comics).

No comments about What If? #24 : What If Wolverine Was Lord of the Vampires? (Marvel Comics).

2 comments about The Comic-Book Book.

1. There was a time when comics where not collected. They were purchased, rolled-up, traded and then thrown away. However, those four-color wonders had enough of an impact on a few people that, In the 1970's, they decided to create the hobby known as comics. Those few people decided to write "The Comic-book Book."

   "The Comic-book Book," like its predecessor "All in Color for a Dime," is the misty recollections of a group of friends who share the love of this peculiar art form. Each author writes an essay about the genre that affected him/her most. One essay is about the Frankenstein monster, and it's legacy in comics. Another author writes about the romance of the aviator, and how comics entered World War II before America. The Spirit and Will Eisner are the subject of one essay, and the magicians of comics (Mandrake, Zatara, Ibis...) fills another. Each essay is well written, although not particularly scholarly. Many of the authors are writing from memory, as original material was hard to locate.

   The best thing about reading "The Comic-book Book" is being able to glimpse into the past, and see people gushing about comics that carry little or no monetary value. The high prices for golden age comics had not yet appeared, and the affection is genuine. A nice book to read for anyone who loves the hobby of comics.




2. Don Thompson's and Dick Lupoff's' 1973 THE COMIC-BOOK BOOK is even finer than the book that precedes this, the 1970 ALL IN COLOR FOR A DIME. I used to love reading this when I was a child, wishing I could somehow get my hands on reprints of the 1940s comics stories so lovingly retold here (many of which were long out of print when I read this), especially in Maggie Thompson's fine essay on "The Spirit." Now that those old "Spirit" stories have been reproduced by DC, it's fun to go back and read these essays again, and the fascinating background information about the comics creators. the highlight of the whole book is Juanita Coulson's hilarious take on Golden Age superheroines, "Of (Super) Human Bondage": her detailing of the absurdities in an old Wonder Woman story (WW vs. Giganta the Gorilla Girl) are uproarious as well as very forward thinking.

No comments about Marvel Comics Presents #6 : Wolverine, Man-Thing, Master of Kung Fu, & The Hulk (Marvel Comic Book 1988).

No comments about Marvel Comics Presents #7 : Wolverine, Man-Thing, Master of Kung Fu, & The Sub-Mariner (Marvel Comic Book 1988).

No comments about The Batman Adventures # 28.

2 comments about The Spirit Casebook.

1. In this 160 page paperback, The Spirit appeared only as a host (rather like one of the characters in one of the old EC stories, except The Spirit did not make a ghastly pun or crack at the end of each story!) to tell 'true' accounts of haunting or appearances of ghostly apparitions. In most cases the source of each case is given, the majority of these accounts being set in Great Britain over a hundred years ago. While not in the "spirit" of The Spirit (to the letter), this is a wonderfully fun book and truly worth the effort of finding, Eisner fan or not.



2. The previous review appears to be for the Spirit book dealing with Haunted Ghost stories; this book is actually the "Spirit Casebook", which includes many classic tales. The stories are some of Eisner's best; this book is also excellent for anyone just being introduced to the Spirit.
   
   Here's a list of the stories included:
   "Two Lives", "Ten Minutes", "The Killer", "Wild Rice", "Life Below", "Gerhard Shnobble", "Meet P'Gell", "Death Of Autumn Mews", "Christmas Spirit Of 1948", "Lorelei Rox", "The Last Hand", "Visitor", "Fox At Bay", "The Embezzler", "Rat Tat, The Toy Submachine Gun", "Sand Seref", "Bring In Sand Saref", "Satin"
   
   The stories are in black and white.

No comments about Punisher War Journal #11 : Heroes and Villians (Civil War The Initiative - Marvel Comics).

No comments about Superman Confidentail, March 2008 Issue.