2009 turned out to be a great year for printed books. In fact, thinking about it, I realize that a plethora of books like that was only dreamed of by me 5-10 years ago...and 2010 looks even better! So tried to think of the books that I really enjoyed in 2009 and here are my "picks":
Books:
Flash Gordon by Al Williamson. All of Al Williamson's Flash Gordon strips reprinted (most from the originals) in a large black and white format. I loved looking at all the storytelling tricks and all the wonderful detail. I would love to see the same treatment done for Al Williamson's "Star Wars" and "Blade Runner" comics.
Dames, Dolls, And Gun Molls: The Art of Robert A. Maguire. Wonderful collection of paperback cover art by Maguire. Everything from crime noir and barbarians to romance novels. The book is full of great reproductions and there are even original photo reference that was used by Maguire. I loved seeing the covers and the different types used in design.
Spies, Vixens, and Masters of Kung Fu: The Art of Paul Gulacy. This was real fun. I have not been a huge fan of Gulacy's work throughout the years, but this books pulled together all of his best covers, pages, and illustrations. After I read this book I went back and started picking up his work. In a $1 box, I found his 5 part "Prey" storyarc and and just loved it.
Best comics reprint:
Grimswood Daughter by Kevin Nowlan. All sorts of extras including newly re-inked pages and all the artwork reprinted from original in black and white.
Best used book purchase:
In 2009, I "discovered" Steranko. I think it started with me buying a copy of "Tower of Shadows" #1 for 50 cents and I loved his story in it. So I went on and bought Captain America and Nick Fury reprints...again, loved it. I already had "Red Tide" and I got to re-read it..yap, loved it. So I went on e-bay and bought a French reprint collection of his Outland adaptation. Now I am looking forward to his new book from Vanguard in 2010.
4 comments:
I heartily agree with the Grimwood's Daughter collection!
How about the Dave Stevens "Brush With Passion" book?
...and the Starlin Warlock reprint hardcover...
"Brush with Passion" was excellent...but it got published in 2008 :) I actually had a similar issue with James Jean book of "Fables" covers. I wrote it up and then found out that it was published in 2008.
The "Rocketeer" collection was good, but it was not *awesome* to be one of the best books.
I forgot about the Warlock reprint...that was sure nice, even the colors were done right AND some of the reproduction was better than the original printing (I was always unsure what the background on Warlock cover #15 was...until I got the reprint).
Anything else that I forgot?
2008? Man...time flies.
That's actually the problem I'm having replying to this topic.
I can't remember, off hand, which books were printed when.
And I haven't had a chance to go through the unruly piles of books in my studio.
Alex, you should invest in reading copies of the original Steranko Marvel comics. The reprints don't read right. Steranko used the ad pages in the comics to pace and design his stories around. Without the ad pages, the stories lose their pacing and rythm. Do a comparison and it will become very apparent.
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