Weird Graphics Books

With art that looks like something Basil Wolverton might've done if he'd drawn used his feet & keeping his eyes closed this is a great collection of early '40's superhero comics. Plot? Characterization? No way! This was when action & good beating evil were what superhero comics were all about. And I've seen enough G-A stuff to know that this may not be the best but it sure ain't the worst (wait til Marvel reprints USA Comics #5, now THAT was the worst!).

Oh, its also very well made and the story about Fletcher Hanks himself is both touching & disturbing as well as a change from the usual text format.

Wonderfully bizarre naif stories. The final chapter recounting the background of the creator is as interesting as the actual stories.

If you enjoy strange and forbidden comics like The Monster of Frankenstein then Mr. Hank's odd 4-color creations will not disappoint you. The comics are almost as odd as the artist himself!

What is this?!?! Giant ants in the jungle and amazing power beams?!?! Sure, WHY NOT? Space Sorcerers? Makes sense! Every story involves criminals with some form of bombing planes!?!?! Keen!
Nothing I can say THE BELIEVER magazine's article about Fletcher Hanks hasn't said better, but its an amazing book well worth owning.

On at least a superficial level, I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets by Fletcher Hanks is an unimpressive collection of comics from the late 1930s and early 1940s, and it is apparent why the comics have remained obscure. The art is okay but the writing is definitely missing something, such as characterization or plot development.

The greatest number of stories feature Stardust, "the most remarkable man who ever lived." This blond giant lives on a distant asteroid where his seemingly omniscient technology detects evil doings on Earth, usually involving world conquest or mass murder. Equipped with strange and powerful weapons, Stardust metes out justice. He is so utterly powerful, however, that no foe stands a chance against him, and suspense is never really an issue.

Of only slightly more depth is Fantomah, "the most remarkable woman ever known," a jungle girl with vast supernatural powers which she uses to stop people from exploiting the people and beasts of the jungle. When she uses her fullest powers, she changes from beautiful woman to skeletal monster, but she is essentially a scaled down Stardust.

There are also standalone stories featuring lumberjack Big Red McLane taking on the Red River Gang and one with Buzz Crandall stopping Lepus the Fiend (who utters the line that is the title of this book) from forcing Earth and Venus to collide.

As mentioned before, on the superficial level, these stories are quite mediocre, but as I read through the book, I realized that they are not meant to have the standard qualities one would associate with good stories. Instead, they are tales of divine justice. With their near omnipotence, Stardust and Fantomah (in particular), punish evil with fierce, often ironic justice. For example, when Stardust stops one villain from robbing Fort Knox, he gives the crook his share of "gold" when Stardust feeds him to a monstrous golden octopus. (Unlike many superheroes, Stardust and Fantomah have no qualms about killing.)

The best writing is actually in the comic-form afterword by editor Paul Karasik, which deals with Karasik's attempts to find out more about the mysterious Fletcher Hanks. He tracks down the son, who describes his father as a thoroughly unpleasant man. Karasik (and the reader) get some insights into Hanks, but he remains mostly an enigma.

This book has a certain nostalgic charm but I don't know if they are really worth owning unless you're a real comics completist. If you are, then pick this up; otherwise, approach this book with caution.

EC, in all of its incarnations, help shape and influence my own art, WEIRD SCIENCE not withstanding. Buy this you must! BTW mine was printed upside down. Odd.

EC comics weird science rocks! If you are a fan of 50's sci-fi movies you'll love this stuff.

I bought this for my boyfriend and he is enjoying it very much. He says that the illustrations are better than he thought they would be. He recommends this book.

Terrific collection of the first six issues of a favorite comics from my childhood. Hard cover, vivid full-color reproduction on high quality paper, with short bios and backgrounds on key players in the comic's conception and production. If you enjoyed Weird Science, this book is a must.

Here's a listing of this edition's stories:

From the May/June 1950 issue:
1.) "Lost in the Microcosm" by Albert B. Feldstein (Script) & Harvey Kurtzman (Art)
2.) "Dream of Doom" by Feldstein (Script) & Wally Wood (Art)
3.) "Experiment ... In Death" by Feldstein (Script) & Jack Kamen (Art)
4.) "'Things' From Outer Space!" by Feldstein (Script & Art)

From the July/August 1950 issue:
5.) "The Flying Saucer Invasion" by Feldstein (Script & Art)
6.) "The Meteor Monster" by Feldstein (Script), Harry Harrison (Pencils) & Wood (Inks)
7.) "The Micro-Race!" by Feldstein (Script) & Kamen (Art)
8.) "The Man Who Raced Time" by Feldstein (Script) & Kurtzman (Art)

From the September/October 1950 issue:
9.) "Destruction of the Earth!" by Feldstein (Script & Art)
10.) "The Sounds from Another World!" by Feldstein (Script) & Kurtzman (Art)
11.) "Machine from Nowhere" by Feldstein (Script) & Harrison (Art)
12.) "The Eternal Man" by Feldstein (Script) & Kamen (Art)

From the November/December 1950 issue:
13.) "Panic!" by Feldstein (Script & Art)
14.) "The Radioactive Child" by Kurtzman (Script & Art)
15.) "House, in Time!" by Feldstein (Script) & Graham Ingels (Art)
16.) "I Created a ... Gargantua!" by Feldstein (Script) & Kamen (Art)

From the January/February 1951 issue:
17.) "Made of the Future!" by Feldstein (Script & Art)
18.) "Return" by Feldstein (Script) & Wood (Art)
19.) "The Last War on Earth" by Kurtzman (Script & Art)
20.) "The Man Who Was Killed in Time!" by Feldstein (Script) & Kamen (Art)

From the March/April 1951 issue:
21.) "Spawn of Venus" by Feldstein (Script & Art)
22.) "Man and Superman!" by Kurtzman (Script & Art)
23.) "Sinking of the Titanic!" by Feldstein (Script) & Wood (Art)
24.) "Divide and Conquer" by Feldstein (Script) & Kamen (Art)

I thought I'd go into withdrawal permanently after Calvin and Hobbes stopped running. Thank goodness for Lio and also Brewster Rockit (also well worth checking out). Lio makes the Addams Family look like a well adjusted family. A bargain at twice the price!

What a wicked sense of humor. I love this cartoon. I think you have to have a warped send of humor to really enjoy Lio but for those of us that do this is a wonderful collection of the cartoons.

Another reviewers comparison to Charles Addams is spot on. Dark humor, but so very well done.

Lio is both humorous and well drawn, a rare find on the comics page these days.

A comic not for everyone, but enormously funny to anyone who enjoyed the ADDAMS FAMILY or the MUNSTERS.

Lio is the heir apparent to Calvin and Hobbes; he seems a little strange when you first read his comics, but very engaging and a true lover of nature and all animals. Can't wait for the next Lio; meanwhile it is ready him in the comic pages!

I had read Penny Arcade now and then in the past, but didn't follow it on a regular basis - then while browsing the comics and manga section of the bookstore, the title of this volume just jumped out at me, as I am a cockatiel owner who loves birds in all their weirdness.

The title of this book (even though the contents have little to do with birds :) ), plus my passing interest in Penny Arcade, and great love of video games made me decide I needed this book. And I enjoyed it thoroughly. I love the art, I love the gamer humour, I love Gabe's Appendix... in short this book is a lot of fun. Highly recommended for fans of gaming and Internet culture. I plan on collecting the rest of the volumes in the very near future!

This collection of the Penny Arcade comics covers an entire year of their work. While they don't do story arcs very often, the work included is still fantastic, and introduces some of there newer repeat characters.

This book was great! Jerry Holkines never lets up on the wit factor. Laugh out loud!

As with the last three volumes, this book delivers exactly what it promises: a year's worth of side-splitting, laugh-out-loud comics. Holkins' writing is, as always, uncompromisingly witty, and Krahulik's art improves every year.

The only noticeable improvement to the compilation would be a little extra material in the rear of book. The full color, full page art included in the previous volume blew me away, and it would be nice to have something that breathtaking in all of their publications.

The fourth, full-color collection of strips from the popular webcomic series Penny Arcade, Birds Are Weird continues the tradition of utterly irreverent, largely video game-themed humor. Due to severe cursing and the occasional phallic reference, Penny Arcade is not a comic for young children or the easily offended; and yet its humor has that irresistible effect. Bonus sketches, short text vignettes and a paragraph of extra commentary for virtually every strip enhance this anthology, offering new insights into Penny Arcade's random madness even for readers who have already seen the strip's archive online. "'Yeah, so I was looking at iPods today. I thought about you.' 'Oh yeah? Pretty great huh?' 'Oh yeah, real good. Then I got it up to the register, came to my senses, and bought a thirty dollar discman instead.' 'Yeah but the iPod doesn't skip.' 'Neither does this. It's cushioned by about three hundred and eighty dollars in cash.'" A sidesplitting collection and great gag gift, especially for the technogeek generation.

This book is a just a page turn and a smile in every aspect of production. It's unique and even the most die hard fan will learn something or appreciate the way its presented in this context. I was sad there wasn't more pages to read. But I can always read it again and have a second round of belly laugh's :) Good Buy and the money goes to charity if you buy the full priced version, great idea and well executed !

Weird but true is a great book, and yeah it is very cheap although I had to pay more I got it in a book store. This books gives you many cool pictures and facts that you don't know about cartoons. They give you quickies, there are no full articles in this book, just quick facts maybe a sentence or two. Heres one, did you know KISS had blood take from them to mix into their comic book? Heres an amazing fact I liked, fulfilling marvel comics write Mark Gruenwald's dying wish, the ashes of his cremated corpse were mixed into the ink used to print the Squadron Supreme comic book ! Talk about ghost writers! This is a cool book and fun to read for an hour. But there are no colored pictures in this book, everything is black and white, I wouldn't suggest giving this to a kid either it's not suitable for a child!

zany, crazy , wacky, funny, surprising, sexy, educational, politically incorrect. and WEIRD!

I've never seen such a thorough search of background information about cartoons and comix! This thoughtful and obviously painstaking task of compiling such detail is mindboggling. If you love toons, you can't miss this book! If you WANT to love toons, you should read this book! You won't be able to put it down. This collection of fun and weird factoids is a literary bag of potato chips.

I loved this book and if you're any sort of a cartoon fan, so will you. It's one of the few books on animated cartoons and comics that I've seen that actually evokes the fun of the artform. Lots of great drawings (many unpublished and rare) and lots of totally useless cartoon trivia to amuse your friends. Plus, it's just so darn cheap. This book is hard to find in stores but I hope it's successful so we can see the second planned edition come to life.

One thing that's evident about Pete Von Sholly right off the bat is that he is a monster kid...one of those lucky enough to have grown up in the period of the late 50's to the early 70's with late night horror films hosted by those zany horror hosts, as well as magazines like Famous Monsters of Filmland and Monster World. His love and reverence of the era comes through loud and clear in his work. If you've never seen his art, Von Sholly uses a combination of digital photography and effects as well as traditional art to create a unique look. His "stars" are real people, digitally photographed, who then can be manipulated much like a film director does with actors.

This book is decidedly more gory and horrific than his previous book for Dark Horse, Morbid. While there are still humorous elements that are a staple of his work, those take a back seat to pure horror for the most part. In the opening tale, "The Bone Duster", two punks break into a museum to rob the place and only have to worry about the janitor who, curiously, has not aged much in decades. The punks soon find out why...

"Nearly Departed" is a modern day twist on Frankenstein that features about the most bizarre necrophilia scene ever put on paper, not to mention a zombie mother nursing her baby. Doc Lennox is one sick puppy!

Tuxford Noodlefactor, previously seen in Morbid, returns in a new adventure called "Fear My Thumbs" as the nerdy, video game freak is sucked into the television and into the game called "Badbugz" to again save the day.

"Seafood" is an H.P. Lovecraft-inspired story about a mysterious "man", completely covered in a hat, overcoat, and scarf who visits a sushi bar in a little town known as "Innsmouth". Let's just say this guy knows a little bit about fish!

In "Night Gaunts", Sholly excerpts a portion of Lovecraft's "The Fungi from Yuggoth" with his own twisted imagery.

In all there are eleven stories in the book and there's not a weak one in the bunch. A true feast for monster fans and another great effort from Von Sholly!

Reviewed by Tim Janson

Easy to read. All the science is up to date (as of 2006), but the book put's it all into clear writing so you don't have to be a scientist to understand the issues.

It's nicely drawn as a comic book, and the characters have interesting dialogue. The comic book format makes it easier to read without getting bored or losing focus.

It's the best introductory book on climate change that I've come across, and now I'm buying copies to lend out to friends. It seems like climate change is finally a matter everyone is getting interested in, and most of us need to be caught up on what the current projections and scenarios are. This book has an introduction by George Monbiot (who spent the past 3 years researching global warming for his 2006 book "Heat").

I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did!

While scrolling through the list of Peanuts books available through Amazon.com, I couldn't help but notice that NONE of these wonderful books has yet received any customer reviews. So let me be the first -- you will NOT regret buying a Peanuts book by Charles M. Schulz! In fact, my personal observation about Mr. Schulz is that his newer strips are even better than the older "classics"! This is a genuinely gifted person. Show your love and respect for "good ol' Charlie Brown" -- buy as many Peanuts books from Amazon.com as you can possibly afford! Your descendants will be profoundly grateful -- and you'll have lots of fun (re)reading them yourself!

A fine collection of the stranger part of the history of the Old West. Good cartooning, & absorbing reading.


There is a sub-genre of Westerns, growing in strength, called the Weird West.

Anybody who likes this book would enjoy--Daisy Kutter: The Last Train
Or
The Riot at Bucksnort and Other Western Tales (The Works of Robert E. Howard)

This collection of black and white entertaining comic-style renderings of vignettes about the West is really well put together. Most of the stories concern actual events from the times of Manifest Destiny to Turner's "End of the Frontier", though there are few ghost/supernatural stories set in a western setting for the reader looking for items of a "weird" bent.

Note: Everything included in the collection is backed with bibliographic citations. Thus this collection with judicious use could be used as a supplement to a study of American History.

The Old West is full of legends. And you'll find a passel of 'em in this volume from Paradox Press. Many of the stories spotlighted here are a mixture of American history and mythology. But as the Unsinkable Molly Brown (who is featured in the book) would say, "It makes for a good story!"

Paradox press adds another "Big Book Of..." that shares the same flavour of it's "brothers". A wide style of illustration helps the feel of this book, as do the wide array of "tales" culled from the period. Nice that they included several not-so-well-known tales. Note: this is NOT a refrence guide, but an rather enjoyable read.

One of the many "Big Books" from Factoid Press, this volume delivers up a multitude of disturbing, humorous, and crazy tales from the West of yesteryear. Cleverly (and sometimes graphically) illustrated, this book would probably not be a good read for anybody who believes that the Old West was John Wayne-esque, where the good guy always won the duel and got the lady. The real West was more like a spaghetti western, where even the good guys were cut from a dubious cloth. Included in this volume are the stories of the ill-fated Donner Party (who were forced to dine on one another), Six Gun Slade (whose treatment of his opponent was surely an inspiration on Quentin Tarantino), Liver-Eatin' Johnson (the name says it all), Cowboys vs. UFO's, the slaying of a prehistoric bird in Arizona, and many, many others. Perhaps most amazing was how frequently people crossed the line from outlaw to lawman- it's almost as if being a murderer or train robber was a necessary prerequisite for a law enforcement job! The role of blacks, women, and homosexuals is discussed with refreshing frankness, and the clash between Anglo, Spanish, and Indian cultures is addressed as well. This book is entertaining and educational at the same time, and highly recommended to anybody with the slightest interest in what went on in the real Old West.

Robert E. Howard (1906-1936) was and is still the best story teller wordsmith of action, adventure, horror, and more of all time! The Weird Works is some of REH's best stuff! My favorite in this book is Queen of the Black Coast that has Belit who is Conan's true love. Belit is the first woman Conan stayed faithful with up until her ____. The poem To A Woman ("Though fathoms...") Moder American Poetry Galleon Press, 1933 is really creepy. Just the way I like um! REH was a genius. Must reads of his:
The Last of the Trunk by Paul Herman, Blood & Thunder by Mark Finn, One Who Walked Alone by Novalyne Ellis REH's girlfriend, The Black Stranger, Lord Samarcand, Solomon Kane, Kull, All Conans, Bran Mak Morn, Cormac Mac Art, etc. My favorite is The Beast from the Abyss about cats. You can find this on REH websites. It's a real treat. Tell others about REH and keep visiting your local bookstores. I found some really inexpensive and out of print books of REH at some local Used Book Stores. MUST READ - Two Gun Bob! Most current one I read and Superb insight into REH's mind and stories. Neat factoid, REH had only visit the sea shore once in his life! Get Two Gun Bob before it's gone!

This collection of stories by the illustrious author of Conan and Brak Mak Morn, Solomon Kane, and legendary others, takes readers into the golden age of sword & sorcery that was written better back in the day.

Written grammatically correct in Old English that past authors like Edgar Rice Buroughs and Howard made this a refreshing reading experience that takes one back to yesteryear of high end adventure fantasy.

A must read for Conan fans.

More Cthulhu work, and a Bran Mak Morn/Kull crossover, and one Solomon Kane story.

Weird Works 3 : The Black Stone - Robert E. Howard
Weird Works 3 : The Children of the Night - Robert E. Howard
Weird Works 3 : The Dark Man - Robert E. Howard
Weird Works 3 : The Footfalls Within - Robert E. Howard
Weird Works 3 : The Gods of Bal-Sagoth - Robert E. Howard
Weird Works 3 : The Horror from the Mound - Robert E. Howard
Weird Works 3 : Kings of the Night - Robert E. Howard
Weird Works 3 : People of the Dark - Robert E. Howard
Weird Works 3 : The Thing on the Roof - Robert E. Howard


A Cthulhoid type venture. Not somewhere you want to be. Fairly proficiently done.

3.5 out of 5


Anthropological arguments and reminiscences over Cthulhu cults.

3 out of 5


Turlogh Dubh O'Brien gets some inspiration from Bran Mak Morn in beach side battle.

3.5 out of 5


Kane is following a band of slavers, and is unable to help himself when he sees them stop and start to whip a girl to death. Despatching many, he is overcome by the dozens of others, and forced to march as a slave.

A nasty supernatural end awaits his captors, where his possession of the Bast-headed staff of N'Longa in the past is no bad thing.

3.5 out of 5


Swords in the storm, serpent ships, swimming with sharks, and a sheila scheming with religion.

3.5 out of 5


If an old priest tells you that the body in the tomb is an undead Spanish nobleman, and you happen to be a credulous cowboy, next time, believe him!

3.5 out of 5


Bran Mak Morn has leadership problems. Wulfhere's Northerners will not follow him, or Cormac, prince of Erin, they demand a King. Consulting with Gonar, who talks to his ancestor in Kull's time, and summons Kull, King of Valusia! Kull likes Bran, as he reminds him of Brule, and agrees to lead the Northerners. Wulfhere challenges him to combat. Big mistake for Wulfhere.

With Kull's help, Bran manages to hold the Romans for now, at some significant cost.

4 out of 5


"I came to Dagon's Cave to kill Richard Brent." 10 out of 10 for courage, minus several million for common sense. Luckily, there is a bit of reincarnated presence ancient barbarian named Conan and other action here so not everybody dies.

4 out of 5


A book collector acquires a copy of Nameless Cults. It motivates the man he got it for to go back to th temple of the Toad God.

The amulet he acquires there has very unfortunate consequences.

3 out of 5

This third volume in the series comes with beautiful cover art by Stephen Fabian and nine superb short stories (plus two poems) by the master of heroic fantasy. Every tale in the book is a great read, several of these being Lovecraft inspired, and there are fascinating characters: Cormac of Connacht, Solomon Kane, Black Turlogh, and Athelstane. I highly recommend it, and expect this series to only get better.