Comic Strips and Panels Books

If you could somehow harness the powers of pure awesomeness (even more rare than dark matter) and contain it in the form a book, this would be the end result...

Proudly display it on your coffee table, or wear it around your neck; just spread the word of PBF!!! Either way, it is by far one of the best Graphic Novels you will have ever owned.

Ever!!!

I'd read a lot of these comics on The Perry Bible Fellowship website, but my goodness, it is just so good having them all printed in a lush, glossy-paged book. Truly, the sick humor comes to life in a way that the internet simply could not dream of. Buy this book. Seriously. You won't be sorry.

I absolutely love the Perry Bible Fellowship. Hysterical from comic number one to whatever the end is. My only issue is with the incredibly small amount of new material there is in it. Honestly, 98% of the comics that are in this book are accessible for free on the website. The only ones that are new are a couple "deleted comics" and some "alternate endings" to some comics. The book is in an attractive hard cover with a red ribbon book mark, and is wonderful as a random pick-up or bathroom reading book. I had it on my bookshelf and on two separate occasions I had people who have never heard of PBF thumbing through. They thought it was hysterical. So do I, and so will you.

Not for everyone, these comics are equal parts demented and hilarious (and maybe sometimes just stupid--but in a funny way). Clever, but not in a pretentious, look-how-clever-I-am way. Really, if you want to see if this is your thing just check out the website. If you like it and want it in book form so you can show it off to your friends or just support the creator, I'd definitely recommend it. It's good quality and well put together with just a few extras that you don't get on the website.

I'm so glad that I bought this - somehow the comics are even better when printed. It's one of those books you can leave on your coffee table (not while kids are around, though) to make your friends scratch their heads and laugh. The author definitely has a cracked sense of humor, but with each comic strip being a story within itself I just can't get enough!

This first book of stone soup is wonderful. I finally understand where the characters began and laughed all the way through. The drawings are less refined than the most recent comics, but I enjoy seeing the figures improve as the writing gets sharper.

How completely, utterly *refreshing* to read a comic strip where the female characters don't value themselves based on their waist measurements, their spendthrift shopping habits, or by how men see them. How wonderful and hilarious to see a comic-strip Mom who's got better things to do than become the family doormat -- Val's no-nonsense dealings with the kids is a refreshing change from the usual Mommy-clean-my-mess (from husband as well as kids) in most family comic strips. Of course STONE SOUP is feminist (Oh! I just said the "f" word!) -- it dares to presume that female characters can carry a comic strip all by themselves, and be funny and interesting in and of themselves, and that families come in all shapes and sizes. Naturally it's taken years for Eliot to come out with a *second* collection of these wonderful strips while the bulimia manual CATHY and the formulaic mommy-doormat FOXTROT are on their umpteenth releases -- some people are just so *threatened* by real women, aren't they?

I read a lot of comic strips and most make me smile, some invoke a chuckle. Stone Soup is the only one that makes me laugh out loud over and over. My refrigerator is covered in Stone Soup and so is the wall of my cubicle at work. BUY THIS BOOK AND THE SECOND COLLECTION, YOU WON'T REGRET IT!

There seems to be a lot of debate going on in the previous reviews over whether or not Stone Soup is feminist. My opinion: of course it is! And it's quite refreshing to see a comic strip that isn't afraid to be. Better yet, the strip is never preachy and, unlike Foxtrot (to which it gets compared frequently), it's almost always funny. I've also seen a lot of comparisons to For Better or for Worse (helped along perhaps by the fact that Lynn Johnston wrote the introduction to this collection) which I find closer to the truth. The big difference there is that unlike FBoFW, Stone Soup is almost never sentimental. Eliot always finds a way to squeeze a laugh out of good times and bad, without dwelling on her storylines or overdeveloping them. While her focus may be on single mothers, her humor is accessible to one and all. And of course, it helps that Val and the gang always manage to keep their sanity intact at the end of each story!

Someone below called this a feminist comic strip but I think that's misleading, especially given the current difficulties in just defining that word. Yes, it happens to have several female characters, and yes it's not a stereotypical mom-dad-dog-2.4-kids-wagon-picket-fence family, BUT: This strip is about all of us, everyone of every sex and age and family style, and it's enjoyable to (and enjoyed by) a wide range of people -- even ordinary traditional people and even (gasp) men! My husband loves it, my 60-something dad loves it, and so on. I think the publisher's blurb on the back of the second Stone Soup collection ("You Can't Say Boobs On Sunday") got it right: "Anyone who's ever had a family, been in a family, or known a family seems to love Stone Soup. ... Readers see themselves and their families in Stone Soup, and they love it." That goes for people who don't consider themselves family-oriented, and for people who do.

Everyone I've known who's read any Stone Soup has enjoyed it and wound up quoting or passing around some of the strips.

Recommended reading for everyone except total grumps, I say.

Gosh who wouldn't love this book; each and and every character has a real-life personality to enjoy. Jan Eliot's comic strip is a must read for anyone with a good sense of humor. Every strip is fun to read, time and time again. I really like to see how the family grows. A MUST READ

Jan Eliot has done it again with her Third Collection of Stone Soup. I laughed all the way through the book the first night I received it. Stone Soup makes life look livable. To see what Val and Joan are going through is just hilarious! This book is worth buying and saving for years to come; too look back and laugh some more!

Jan Eliot has put together quite a strip with Stone Soup. It's the story of a widow raising two young daughters. The comic strip depicts the day to day tribulations and challenges of being a struggling single parent who must balance her career and family without going crazy. Eliot's portrayal is funny because it's accurate--everybody will remember how hard it was to be a teenager. The family is not perfect--they quarrel and fight--but at the same time really do love each other, and Eliot is able to portray this with sincerity but avoids phony sentimentality. The name "Stone Soup" is taken from the old folk tale about making something out of nothing, which is appropriate for the strip. I believe Stone Soup will become one of the most popular family strips in the funny papers. Did I mention the art work is excellent too?

I picked up Jan Eliot's first collection of "Stone Soup" by chance, and was impressed enough to order the next two. This, the third volume, collects strips that follow the adventures of the Stone family. There's Val, who raises two kids while struggling with workaday woes and finds sudden romance with a motorcycle cop. There's Holly and Alix, Val's daughters, who struggle as kids do against Val and against each other. There's sister Joan, who tries to raise two-year-old Max while running a copywriting service from home. There's Gramma, who lives with the lot of them and offers a constant critique of their lives and lifestyles. There's neighbor Wally, who, after a long and epic struggle, has at last made the romantic connection with Joan. A bunch of finely-drawn characters---in both the "literary" and "cartoon" sense.

It deals with any number of hot button nineties issues: the nature and place of women, life at work and home, the struggle to make ends meet, modern romance, child-rearing. Turn to nearly any page, and you're sure to find something profound and thought-provoking. Plots spin out over several pages, and one-strip gags are frequent. Certainly it held my interest.

My only regret: trying to catch up to the presently-running strips. I can only hope there will be further volumes.

Oh, and did I mention it's extremely funny? It's extremely funny...

You must read this!! The story of two single mothers,always broke, three children, a grandmother, and a dog girl hyperactive interacting with the boyfriends of the two young mothers can be very boring or an amazing fun. You will start reading from page one to the end, and them try desperately try to buy the other two books of the collection. Remember that you can take a daily peak on your newspaper, and if not demand the editor to publish it.

As always, I immensely enjoyed this collection of Stone Soup comic strips. It covers a lot of demographic ground, from toddlers to teens, and from middle-agers to golden-agers. The characters are endearing, the writing is lively and funny, and the situations are eerily familiar. In short, what's not to love?

This is the fourth collection of "Stone Soup" strips to come my way since I discovered them last May. This one takes it almost up to where I joined in with the daily releases. I'm happy to have a lot of laughs, and to learn something more about the goings on among them.

There's something for everybody in "Stone Soup." There's Val, who's the glue of the whole strip. She struggles with an awful job while raising her devil children Holly and Alix, dealing with her live-in sister Joan and her two-year-old Max, and her mother as well. All this barely leaves her time to pursue a relationship with handsome motorcycle cop Phil Jackson.

There's Joan, a single mom struggling to raise her two-year-old, while her own financial shortcomings force her to live with Val and the rest of her family. She's engaged to Wally, the next-door neighbor, but has a serious case of cold feet, largely because of her disastrous first marriage to Leon.

Wally, meanwhile, wants badly to be a husband to Joan and a father to Max. But he's had his fifteen-year-old nephew Andy come to stay with him, more-or-less permanently, and Wally has to deal with all the strains of raising an adolescent male. This while trying to persuade Joan to "set the date" for their wedding.

All of them spend their time cracking wise, usually at each other's expense. In this collection, it all comes to a happy ending...but half the fun of comic strips is getting there. There's plenty for anybody to laugh at along the way.

Oversized, you can really see the artistry that's not always as easy to perceive in the comic books these images are drawn from. If you're into Buffy the TV Series, this will feed your cravings for new Buffy stuff. If you appreciate comic art, you don't even have to be that into Buffy.

Dark Horse Comics used many different artists to produce the ongoing Buffy series of comics. The artists vary in style, some are immediately likeable, some stretch the Buffy "look".

I got into this book after discovering the comics, revitalized by Joss Whedon's participation in a new series of comics that extends the tv series. Joss and friends are now continuing the story in comic form (multiple Buffys, thousands of Slayerettes, evil Slayerettes, Zander as Slayerette Watcher, etc etc etc - great stories). I've never been that into comics before, but these give me a good hit of Buffy and take the "Buffyverse" in some interesting new directions.

Here's links to the comics- note- there are a LOT of Buffy comics, I suggest the Omnibus volumes to read the back issues.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Volume 1: The Long Way Home

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus, Vol. 1

The artwork is gorgeous. Great for any fan of the series.
(The only downside is that it's a paperback, and a big one at that, so it's going to get frayed around the edges)

This book is huge (read as: ginormous). And when I say huge, I mean huge in every way. The pages are thick, making the 190 pages feel like 300, and as far as height, this is the Yao Ming of trade paperbacks. I'm not going to go on and on about how big this thing is, but I have to add that I literally cannot fit it on ANY of my shelves.

The book is pretty much made up of huge renditions of certain covers, panels, and promotional pics from the original Buffy run by Dark Horse. The art is of varying quality, but the way it was put together was quite masterfully. Scott Allie takes us on a trip down memory lane as he explains certain pieces, giving us background info on the artists or what was the reason for each cover. Often, his commentary offers some really cool tidbits, but other times he leaves us wanting a bit more. Many pieces that I would have liked to know more about were left unexplained, which isn't really that cool in a book like this. However, that little flub is made up for by the sheer quality of this book, because when it comes down to it, we do get a lot of new factoids from the man with the plan.

There are many different styles in this book--some great, some good, some okay, some...not so much--from a long list of different artists who have contributed to the title. One of the most interesting aspects of the book is that it shows how the long term artists have evolved over the course of the series, often drastically changing their styles. The best part about this book is probably the painted covers from the later issues (post-Season Five and on), specifically the art taken from the wonderful illustrated prose novel "Creatures of Habit." Overall, this won't disappoint. Even if a lot of the art isn't good, it's amazing to see so many different takes on our favorite characters.

With the quality, size, and very low price of this book, all I have to say is: "Don't be a goon. Buy it."

8/10

It seems like such an obvious good idea.
It's a wonderful glimpse into the creative process.

Just received it last night, and I'm already half through it. I haven't done that since I was eleven and got Stan Lee's How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. Not that this book has any similarity to that one. This is not a how to book. Its a more intimate, than any instructional book. Its a similar difference in experience to watching a biography to reading someones private correspondence. The presentation adds to the feeling as well.

Better than seeing pencils, better than watching a demo, or hearing someone try to explain the creative process. You actually see it and are part of it because this is what the artist sees, while he is in the process.

As a comic book fan for years and creative hopeful (which I believe is a large part of the intended audience), I hope this is first in a long line.
Great job, thanks Mr. Gertler.

This is a great text that takes you through the creative process of several unique writing styles. The variety of script and drawings from a host of authors, really made this book encouraging to the aspiring comic writer. I'm looking forward to getting Panel Two when it comes out.

One thing that's bugged me in my various efforts at writing a comic book script is that no reference I checked seemed to agree as to what format is right. As this book explains, that's because there IS no "right" or "wrong" format, just different ways to do it.

Every script in this volume shows you something. Gaiman's reads like a personal note to the artist, Wolfman shows how plot-first can work, McDuffie shows you how to work in a recap, Kevin Smith shows a more movie-script style of writing and Kurt Busiek's entry... heck, when I read the original comic book I thought it was one of the greatest comic book stories I ever read, but the script for "The Nearness of You" just made it all the more powerful.

If you want to try to write comics, you could do a lot worse than picking up this book.

Jan Eliot's second Stone Soup collection is funny and wry, with very realistic characters and a sense of humor *and* plot. Stone Soup is a family-based comic strip that fans of Foxtrot should enjoy; some elements of the two strips are similar.

Val Stone is a widowed, working mother of teenaged Holly and preteen Alix - and they share their house with Val's sister, Joan, Joan's two-year-old son, Max, and Joan and Val's mother. Also, in this collection, they add Biscuit, who deserves not only a special mention but a special prize - Most Realistic Pet in Comic Strip Land. Val and Joan have too much to do, too little time, and too little money...a common story. But Eliot makes it fresh and fun.

My only complaints about this collection come from the Sunday strips. As in the first Stone Soup book, the Sundays aren't in color. Also, for some reason, some of the Sunday strips in the second book are repeats from the first book - strange, because nothing else seems to be.

All in all, though, a good collection, well worth any comic strip lover's time - as is Eliot's explanation of the title in her preface.

The publisher's blurb has it right: anyone who's ever been in afamily or known a family seems to like Stone Soup. You'll appreciatethis strip for mirroring the ways in which your family makes you nuts, the ways in which your family makes you smile, and the ways in which your family and other people's families really make you wonder.

The specifics of the characters' bios matter less than their wit. For instance: There's a toddler boy here named Max -- but his humor is for everyone, not just toddlers and parents. We all have our inner toddler, and we all know people who act like toddlers, and these strips are just plain funny, no matter where you're coming from. That holds for the other Stone Soup characters too.

This is a strip that winds up passed around among friends, pasted on the fridge, and re-read many times. If you need some empathy OR a good laugh, do yourself a favor and check out Stone Soup! END

It¡s a very subjetive enciclopedia, with some blanks (don't speak about some old legends from the comics).

Please, please don't let the two negative customer reviews ("Marred by negativity" and "Too anecdotic, too unbalanced") dissuade you from finding and enjoying this wonderful book on comics.

The more you love comics, the more you will love this book; and the more you know about comics, the more you will appreciate the information presented in this "encyclopedia," brilliantly edited by Jackie Estrada.

The book's encyclopedia format deliberately mocks the serious, all-inclusive reference-book model. Entries are arranged alphabetically, yes, but the subject headings are often quite arbitrary and whimsical. Comics: Between the Panels is NOT intended as a comprehensive history of comics, nor has it any pretensions of being one.

It is a bit of an insider's take, since co-author Mike Richardson is president of Dark Horse Comics, and a lifelong comics enthusiast and student of the medium. He is well acquainted with many of the comics creators profiled in these pages, and the entries contain excerpts from hundreds of interviews featuring personal recollections, reflections and minutiae that make the hobby come alive. Gossipy? Absolutely.

The book has a very contemporary slant, and takes a geek's-eye view of the comics industry, comic collecting, comic book grading, and creators' pecadillos. If the tone is often breezy and irreverent, it is nonetheless witty, well-written, and sometimes poignant, as when recounting the tragic falling-out between longtime collaborators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. It can also be wickedly snarky, as in the entry for early mail-order comics mogul "Rogofsky, Howard."

The book is chock-full of color plates, sidebars, photographs and drawings. It's visually exciting and invites casual browsing, with an attractive page layout and design.

First published in 1998, the book holds up very well seven years later, validating Duin & Richardson's rather jaded view of the industry as a whole. Plus ca change...

Still, it is a sense of joyful appreciation that comes through most clearly in this book. Comics: Between the Panels is an indispensable book for anyone who loves the medium, warts and all.

500 pages and 670 illustrations about comics might seem like a good deal for comic lovers, but think again before you invest in this encyclopedic volume, unless you have an obsession for details and writers of the 30s.

No matter if you know a little about every Marvel, DC, EC and Image Comic book ever published, you will still find plenty of information about rare titles and anecdotic situations of the industry you never heard before. That on the positive side. On the negative side, it is not very encouraging to read only 50 or so pages about your favorite topics, and spend the rest of the book learning about rare cult titles and "legend" writers.

Also, the book is a little or too much unbalanced. There are six pages, four illustrations and two text boxes devoted to the story of mile high comics. On the other side, there is less than one page dedicated to The Fantastic Four, one of the key titles to understand comic book history. Spider Man is mentioned only nine times in 500 pages, while Frank Frazetta (who?) appears 46 times. Jimmy Hendrix is mentioned one time.

Good for a library. Too much detail for the average reader.

Curious about the behind-the-scenes to the wondrous world of comics? Look no further! This massive book is everything you wanted to know about comic books, but were afraid to ask! What's great about this read, is the stories behind the creators are pratically more fantastic than the comics they're creating. Mike Richardson and Steve Duin add a stylish and humorous flare to the writing, making it the most enjoyable encyclopedia I've ever read. Comic book fans beware! Within a matter of hours, this book could transform you from a mild-mannered comic reader, into an omniscient virtuso with the comic book medium. This book must be read!

500 pages and 670 illustrations about comics might seem like a good deal for comic lovers, but think again before you invest in this encyclopedic volume, unless you have an obsession for details and writers of the 30s.

No matter if you know a little about every Marvel, DC, EC and Image Comic book ever published, you will still find plenty of information about rare titles and anecdotic situations of the industry you never heard before. That on the positive side. On the negative side, it is not very encouraging to read only 50 or so pages about your favorite topics, and spend the rest of the book learning about rare cult titles and "legend" writers.

Also, the book is a little or too much unbalanced. There are six pages, four illustrations and two text boxes devoted to the story of mile high comics. On the other side, there is less than one page dedicated to The Fantastic Four, one of the key titles to understand comic book history. Spider Man is mentioned only nine times in 500 pages, while Frank Frazetta (who?) appears 46 times. Jimmy Hendrix is mentioned one time.

Good for a library. Too much detail for the average reader.