Another great dollar bin find. I don't know the entire back story to this series. These were nice, glossy Mando paper books published in 1983. I'm running on the assumption that Sea Gate was the distributor, perhaps undertaking to get these books into mainstream bookstores. The other two volumes from this series feature Frank Frazetta, so Berni's in very good company. I remember an advertisement for the Frazetta books stating that volumes by both Wrightson and Neal Adams were on the horizon - but obviously this whole enterprise fizzled out before too long. That's too bad, because I'm a sucker for inexpensive, high quality reprint books. This book features an interesting selection of early 70s horror work. As much as I love the Swamp Thing, it's nice to see something else reprinted. Two of the stories are from House of Mystery, and the other two are from Plop!, of all places. The Highlight for me is 'The Gourmet' from Plop! #1. The fine tale (featured on the cover) was written by Steve Skeates, and may be the best EC story published by a company other than EC. This is a great little book, and I highly recommend keeping an eye out for it.Friday, April 03, 2009
Hidden Gems: Masterworks Series of Great American Comic Book Artists #3
Another great dollar bin find. I don't know the entire back story to this series. These were nice, glossy Mando paper books published in 1983. I'm running on the assumption that Sea Gate was the distributor, perhaps undertaking to get these books into mainstream bookstores. The other two volumes from this series feature Frank Frazetta, so Berni's in very good company. I remember an advertisement for the Frazetta books stating that volumes by both Wrightson and Neal Adams were on the horizon - but obviously this whole enterprise fizzled out before too long. That's too bad, because I'm a sucker for inexpensive, high quality reprint books. This book features an interesting selection of early 70s horror work. As much as I love the Swamp Thing, it's nice to see something else reprinted. Two of the stories are from House of Mystery, and the other two are from Plop!, of all places. The Highlight for me is 'The Gourmet' from Plop! #1. The fine tale (featured on the cover) was written by Steve Skeates, and may be the best EC story published by a company other than EC. This is a great little book, and I highly recommend keeping an eye out for it.
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4 comments:
I had completely forgotten about these. I do remember being very disappointed when they never really took off. I'm not sure whether or not I had the Wrightson volume, but I'm pretty sure I had the Frazetta one.
Fr. Dan
The lack of future volumes may well have had something to do with the 1984 death of Phil Seuling. Seuling was the guy behind the New York Comic Art Convention and is generally credited with coming up with the idea of direct market distribution when he created his Seagate company in the mid-70's. As I recall, this reprint operation was Seuling's baby all the way with DC simply footing the bill which is why the Seagate tag on the cover.
I remember these as well (and own the Frazetta volume). I first caught sight of them in ads in the back of Cerebus of all places. (Sea Gate I think had an ad and listed a whole whack of items including this but with a cover illo).
I had never even heard of Frank Frazetta at the time I bought it, but it was advertised in Cerebus and it featured the Shining Knight from All-Star Squadron so I figured you couldn't go wrong...
I loved, loved, loved the Frazetta issues. I don't think I picked this one up, as I was not really into the "mystery" books until much later on.
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