Labor Day is in the rear-view mirror, so let’s think about the holiday gift season? Sure, why not. It’s never too early to start thinking about upcoming goodies for the comics and art book enthusiast, or for retailers to start setting aside some budget for stock to have as gift buyers turn up.
As I was brainstorming ideas for this column, many of the best gift-ish books that came to mind have a certain House of Ideas flavor about them. Mavel Comics has been rather promiscuous in issuing licenses to publishers of all stripes, and those partnerships are bearing fruit with fantastic editions from everyone from Hachette, Abrams and Bloomsbury to Fantagraphics. I’ll throw in a few non-Marvel books as well, but tip of the hat to the licensing and publishing team. Hope they give you a corner office in Burbank!
Massive Treat for the Spider-Fan. Patrick Reed’s Spider-Man Total Universe (Black Dog & Levanthal/Hachette), just published this week, is an encyclopedic look at our favorite web-head’s entire career in the comics from 1962 to the present. Clocking in at a massive 832 pages, this book summarizes every issue, every storyline and every guest appearance of Spidey through the ages, with gorgeous art reproduction throughout. Currently out in hardcover, $80. Seriously, don’t miss this one.
Marvel Age monographs. If you prefer something at a more micro scale, Bloomsbury has been putting out very cool paperbacks covering a particularly significant moment, character or story arc in Marvel Comics history, written by industry-adjacent experts. They are roughly analogous to the 33 and 1/3 series covering music, similar in format and cost, but with lots of nice color artwork. Check out Chris Ryall’s take on Daredevil: Born Again, Stuart Moore’s Doctor Strange: A Decade of Dark Magic (1965-75), Ted Adams on The Ultimates or a history of Marvel’s expansion in the late 60s-early 70s by Paul Levitz, plus plenty of others. I’m working on my own contribution to this series for next year. $10-13.
Fantagraphics “Lost Marvels.” Fantagraphics has been reprinting the Atlas-era comics for some time, but has lately moved into doing mainstream-ish Marvel titles from the 60s-80s that have not been previously reprinted. In addition to the Tower of Shadows, Howard Chaykin and Barry Windsor-Smith collections that came out earlier, there’s an oversized collection of Savage Tales (from the 80s) at $65 and the first volume of Gil Kane Rarities hardcover at $39.99.
Into the Abramsverse. Wait, there’s more! Flush with the success of John Byrne’s X-Men: Elseworlds and the rest of its deluxe original Marvel Arts graphic novels curated by Alex Ross, Abrams is bringing us several more alternate spins on the Marvel universe by top-tier artists. Alongside the recently released Marvel Dimensions by Alex Ross (Hardcover, $29.99), Doctor Strange: Endless Nightmare by Kevin J. Anderson, Raúl Allén, and Patricia Martín is being published this week as well, at $25.99 for a 64-page hardcover.
Beyond Marvel: Treats from Europe. Tucked in the back of the San Diego Comic-Con exhibit hall, I discovered Epicenter Comics, an independent publisher reprinting some of the classics of European comics in really nice hardcover editions, including slip-cased collections of heretofore unseen-in-English work from Sergio Toppi, Albert Breccia, Alvar Mayor and many others, all at very reasonable prices ($50 for a slipcase of 3 hardcovers in the case of the Toppi and Breccia ones). I’m not sure about their distribution, and this would be a special-order item for connoisseurs, but these are definitely nice books featuring great stories and art.
Heavyweight Champion of Narrative Art. This week my social media feed is filling up with photos from all the lucky bastards who got to go to the opening of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Arts in Los Angeles. Established by George Lucas, this museum looks like it has everything, from murals and paintings and original comic art to production and animation work and more. If you’re like me and have your nose pressed against the glass until your next trip to LA, Taschen has just come out with a two-volume slip-cased catalog of the museum’s collection to give us a look behind the curtain. These giant books are shelf-bombs but they rarely disappoint in terms of breadth and reproduction. $200 for what is certain to be a cinderblock-sized chunk of arty goodness.
DC Compact Comics line keeps getting less and less compact. I can’t give Marvel all the love here without mentioning DC Comics’ ongoing and quite successful reprint series of some of their classic storylines in portable format. DC keeps adding new and juicy titles to the roster, including some seminal Vertigo and Elseworlds books. All great values at $9.99 each.
There’s not much that will get me to look past the final days of summer and the scary season of Autumn, but spending a little time drooling over nice art books and reprints will do the trick!
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
Rob Salkowitz (Bluesky @robsalk) is the author of Comic-Con and the Business of Pop Culture, a two-time Eisner Award nominee, and a proud longtime contributor to Eisner-nominated ICv2.
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Source: ICv2
