PREVIEWS Flip-through October 2024

[@jeremystone286]

Loved it as always! DC should use you for the cover blurbs on Longbow Hunters: “There’s worse shit you could spend your money on” “I can’t say it’s good, but I enjoyed it” 😂😂😂 Actually, I feel the same way. I loved the series when it came out. Over the years I have read a lot of negative criticism in TCJ and elsewhere. I’m currently about halfway through a reread and loving it! Not sure I would if I hadn’t read it when I was 16-ish. The Bess horror books are comics. They are caption-heavy but definitely told in a sequential comic style. I think Magnetic’s description is a little misleading. They are not artist’s editions as we know them (at least they don’t appear to be to me), but they don’t have they don’t have the gray tones and other effects added to the original French versions. Maybe they are scans of the original art, but you see very little, if any, process - it just looks like black and white. They are beautiful though. I’m really enjoying Paklis. I’m also really enjoying the new Den editions. Villarubia is not recoloring but attempting to color to Corben’s wishes using original art as the base. Arguably, some earlier editions still look better, but he’s not trying to change the colors. On the Bilal book (Exterminator published by Humanoids), he was asked to recolor. That’s my understanding anyway.

[@comicsprogressive]

Glad to see your insights. Picked up Charles Burns' The Final Cut yesterday, can't wait to dig in!.

[@Vicshade]

The cost of some of these does take your breath away. I love Brian Bolland but that price is steep.

[@MauditePart]

Hello Colin! Thanks for the video. I've been following Manara's works very closely. Dark Horse already released Caravaggio Vol. 1 before the pandemic. They were scheduled to release Vol. 2, but it never materialized, so I bought the edition integrale and the "oversized" artists edition of both volumes. If these are erotic, they are "R" with close attention to historical detail. The same can be said for Manara's adaptation of the Name of the Rose. There are numerous - the term risqué doesn't even really apply - adaptations of French and Italian classic literature from Manara that deserve an American audience. Fantagrsphics could reprint those, but will a non erotic Manara generate wide enough sales in the USA? Who can say? My bottom line here is that the moral climate has changed in Italy, and with it, Manara's penchant for beautiful and bizarre erotica. Yes, Manara has resigned himself to creating something akin to the Classics Illustrated of Europe! As for the Bess adaptations of Gothic Horror, Magnetic did a very nice job, and if they plan to present the artist's editions, more power to them. Are these essential? I don't think you'd enjoy them. They are text and illustrations. Beautiful illustrations, but we all know these stories back to front. The Bolland Artist's edition has been pushed back? The price isn't what scares me away from this work, I am more concerned by how well it function as an example of Bolland's process and not just new printings of very old pages. As always, the long delayed Dark Horse Corben books remain very much hit and miss affairs. The essence of Corben, for me, is what HE did with color in the original editions of his works. Recoloring them seems counterproductive. Villarubia is doing the same thing with the work of Enki Bilal, which seems like an even stranger proposition. 🎃

[@loadingthecanon1919]

Thanks for your comments! Manara seems to have fallen out of favor in the US, but I'm intrigued to see what Fantagraphics does and how well it does for them. I really like Graphitti Designs' artist editions, but I wish there was way to look at the book before ordering it. That's a hefty price for a book that may not satisfy. I'm glad that Corben is getting a deluxe reprint, but I agree with you about the coloring. Who's doing the Bilal books that Villarubia is working on? I'll keep an eye out for that.

[@ChaosandComics]

I haven't read my Bess, Dracula and Frankenstein, they really are beautiful. Can't comment on how the read quite yet though.

[@loadingthecanon1919]

Are they all comics? Not illustrated books?

[@ChaosandComics]

Dogman here, I rule.