Hardcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Volume 10. Hardcover, 112 pages. Illustrated throughout in color. Clean, tight copy. This tenth volume finds our band of heroes making their way back to the Kingdom of Thule by way of Constantinople and Eastern Russia. Soon they are attacked by a tribe of barbarians who kidnap Aleta for the great Dragada Khan who wants to make her one of his wives. After nearly being killed in battle, Valiant returns to his homeland only to find the threat of hunger hovers over Thule. As Val explores new ways of feeding the kingdom's growing populace, raiders threaten the lives of his family and friends. The volume ends with Val's return to Camelot, a tournament of champions, and the threat of new treachery in Cornwall. This volume also includes an introduction by legendary comics artist Timothy Truman, and a special gallery containing more of Hal Foster's incredible Mountie paintings annotated by comics historian Brian M. Kane.
Hardcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 112 pages. As this fourth volume begins, Prince Valiant, haunted by Aleta, seeks Merlin's wise counsel. This brief episode segues into one of Hal Foster's patented epics, "The Long Voyage to Thule," which ran for seven straight months and featured Valiant's return to his birthplace and reunion with his father. Of course, Foster's astonishingly detailed and evocative depictions of Val's homeland contribute greatly to this sprawling epic. After a series of shorter adventures including "The Seductress," "The Call of the Sea," and "The Jealous Cripple," Val finally decides he can stand it no more and sets out to find his long-lost love. Long-time fans know that his quest will eventually be successful, but Foster throws so many obstacles in the way of true love that the saga "The Winning of Aleta" would end up stretching a full year and a half, well into the next volume.
Hardcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics, 1st, 2012, Hardcover, 112 pages. Fully half of this volume of Hal Foster's epic masterpiece -- again scanned from superb syndicate proofs -- is devoted to the remaining chapters of "The Winning of Aleta," a 20-month (!) epic in which Valiant obsessively pursues his bride to be. Not surprisingly this is followed by a sequence called "Matrimony," which ends with a newly wed queen adjusting to the luxurious, exciting court life at Camelot. But Val's marriage does not signal an end to his adventures. In "War in the Forest" Val is sent out to spy on encroaching Saxons -- unknowingly aided by Aleta, who, disguised as a small knight (and dubbed "Sir Puny") helps prevent disaster. But the 1946 strips end with Val and Aleta unable to return to Camelot and the displaced couple journeying to Thule. Half the strips in this volume also include the delightful "The Medieval Castle," Foster's chronicle of two young boys growing up during the time of the First Crusade -- but by the end of the 1945 strips this series has ended and the Valiant portion resumes its full-page glory.
Hardcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 112 pages. Hal Foster's masterpiece of adventure enters its second decade as Valiant and Aleta journey to "The New World" a 16-month epic that allows Foster to draw some of his spectacular native Canadian backgrounds, and during which Aleta gives birth to Arn and acquires her Indian nurse, Tillicum. Most of the rest of the book is taken up with the action-packed five-month sequence "The Mad King" during which Val, back at Camelot, confronts the evil, fat little King Tourien of Cornwall.This volume will be rounded off with an essay by Foster scholar Brian M. Kane (The Prince Valiant Companion) discussing Foster's depiction of "Indians" as it relates to other interpretations of the times, accompanied by various graphic goodies such as a previously unpublished camping cartoon by Foster from circa 1915, some of Foster's Mountie paintings, Foster's own map of Val's voyage to/from the New World, and more rare photos and art. As always, this volume is shot directly from Foster's personal collection of syndicate proofs, their glorious colors restored to create an unprecedentedly sumptuous reading experience.
Hardcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 112 pages. Hal Foster's masterpiece of adventure enters its second decade as Valiant and Aleta journey to "The New World" a 16-month epic that allows Foster to draw some of his spectacular native Canadian backgrounds, and during which Aleta gives birth to Arn and acquires her Indian nurse, Tillicum. Most of the rest of the book is taken up with the action-packed five-month sequence "The Mad King" during which Val, back at Camelot, confronts the evil, fat little King Tourien of Cornwall.This volume will be rounded off with an essay by Foster scholar Brian M. Kane (The Prince Valiant Companion) discussing Foster's depiction of "Indians" as it relates to other interpretations of the times, accompanied by various graphic goodies such as a previously unpublished camping cartoon by Foster from circa 1915, some of Foster's Mountie paintings, Foster's own map of Val's voyage to/from the New World, and more rare photos and art. As always, this volume is shot directly from Foster's personal collection of syndicate proofs, their glorious colors restored to create an unprecedentedly sumptuous reading experience.
Hardcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 120 pages in color. You might think that birth of Prince Valiant's son Arn at the end of the previous volume would have slowed down Val's adventuring, but you would be wrong. In Prince Valiant Vol. 7, after the baby has been christened, Valiant and Gawain are dispatched to investigate reports of black magic in Wales, ending up in pitched battle at the aptly named Castle Illwynde. Then it's off to Scotland to battle the Picts, and then home yet again for Val to visit his growing boy. Valiant now enters the 1950s: The Thule winter is hard and bleak, and a prince who has designs on Aleta must be dealt with. Then it's another epic-length story, "The Missionaries," in which Val and several of his fellow knights and crew travel to Rome on a quest for teachers who might bring Christianity to Thule. The story also features an escape through the Alps, far too many red-headed girls, and a tragic, life-changing event for the young squire Geoffrey (a.k.a. "Arf "). And Foster charmingly ends the book with "The Prince Arn Story," a three-week sequence narrated by the toddler.
Hardcover. NY, Nostalgia Press/King Features, 1st, 1974, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 128 pages. Reproduces the Prince Valiant cimic strips beginning with "The Prophesy" of 1937, "The Ogra" (1937-38), "The Fairy Morgana" (1938), "Prince Arn" (1938), "In The Service Of King Arthur" (1938-39), "Knight Errant" (1939), "The Grand Victory' (1939-40).
Hardcover. NY, Nostalgia Press/King Features, 1st, 1978, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 145 pages. Contains reprints of material that originally appeared in the Sunday newspapers from May 5, 1946 to January 16, 1949. Color throughout.
Hardcover. San Rafael, CA, Neff-Kane, 1st Edition, 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 196 pages. Hardcover. B/w illustrations and color photographs throughout. Binding tight. Spine straight. Dust jacket unclipped, has some agewear at top and bottom of spine and small tear at top of back cover (see image). Pages and edges clean and unmarked. Black endpapers. Cover boards bound in silver cloth, red gilt title on spine. Conrad's special genius--his ability to convey a powerful message in the black and white of line and mass--has delighted readers for years. Also included are pictures of some his most famous bronze sculptures.
Hardcover. San Diego, CA, Idea & Design Works, LLC, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 328 pages. hardcover with dust jacket. Color Illustrations throughout. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. A lavish book devoted to the most important political satire and cartoon magazine in American history. Published from 1877 to 1918, Puck was regularly a major political battleground and is credited with single-handedly thwarting the third-term ambitions of Ulysses Grant in 1880 and electing Grover Cleveland to the presidency in 1884. Puck did it with art-lavish, color, full-page and two-page center-spread cartoons. It was the first American magazine to publish color lithographs on a weekly basis and, for nearly forty years, was a training ground and showcase for some of the country's most talented cartoonists, led by its co-founder, Joseph Keppler. This retrospective contains nearly 300 full-color plates.
Hardcover. New York, Sterling Publishing, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 183 pages. Hardcover. Full color illustrations. Light wear. Clean, tight copy. The term pulp fiction has always had a certain resonance; but it is the artwork--bold, energized, dramatic, garishly colorful, and frequently grotesque--that has made pulp magazines memorable to so many people. Pulp Art is the groundbreaking--and ultimate--book on one of America's most important and spectacular forms of illustration art. At last, preserved in this volume are most of the still-existing originals created for the pulp covers, never before seen in all their sharply focused, vibrantly colored brilliance. Robert Lesser, a pioneering collector of this work and an expert on American popular culture, has assembled a gallery of these now-priceless originals. The dynamically pulp-flavored text is a complete historical survey of the pulps and their most important cover artists--Virgil Finlay, J. Allen St. John, Rafael de Soto, Hannes Bok, George and Jerome Rozen, Frank R. Paul, and many others. Also offered are critical discussions of individual paintings, as well as the major themes of the pulp magazines.
Hardcover. NY, Harry N Abrams, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Pulp Power gives fans a rare glimpse into the pre-war pulp novel decade of the 1930s, a period of bold action and adventure storytelling that ultimately led to the creation of the comic book and the superheroes we know and love today. This period, a pre-Batman, pre-Superman golden era of American creativity and artistic excellence, starred two main characters in leading roles: The Shadow and Doc Savage. In more than 500 novels written between 1930 and 1940, The Shadow, Doc Savage, and the Street & Smith universe of characters captivated a generation of Americans with their heroic exploits and inspired a new generation of writers to create a pantheon of comic book superheroes in their mold. Street & Smith, the renowned publisher of these novels, commissioned leading artists to provide bold and original cover artwork for their publications, and in Pulp Power, hundreds of these eye-catching covers are reproduced as a collection for the first time. Comics legend Dan DiDio provides context for the cover illustrations alongside a narrative discussion of the influence of the Street & Smith superhero universe on legendary creators such as Orson Welles, Truman Capote, Michael Chabon, George Lucas, Agnes Moorehead, James Patterson, Walter Mosley, Dwayne Johnson, Frank Miller, James Bama, Jim Steranko, Jim Lee, Gail Simone, and many more. Bright, clean copy.
Hardcover. London, Jonathan Cape, 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in a bright, pictorial boards. Approximately 100 pages of cartoon strips in black and white. Paper tanning slightly, clean copy.
Hardcover. Seattle, Fantagraphics, 1st, 2021, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards, 128 pages. Having created one of the most expansive and remarkable casts of characters of any cartoonist who ever lived (under the umbrella of the ongoing Love and Rockets comic book series), acclaimed graphic novelist Jaime Hernandez -- Will Eisner Hall of Famer; Eisner, Harvey, Ignatz, and PEN Award winner; L.A. Times Book Prize winner; and on a very short list of contenders for the title of America's Greatest Living Cartoonist -- has been privately amassing a body of work that no one else has ever seen for over 40 years. Until now. Creating a Love and Rockets-adjacent world, set in the heyday of 1960s and '70s women's wrestling and lucha libre, Queen of the Ring is a best-of book spotlighting the women who are often ignored in pro wrestling in 125 full color illustrations: pin-ups, action shots, fake wrestling magazine covers, all presented in a deluxe hardcover that echoes the lucha libre magazines of the 1960s.
Softcover. NY, Ballantine Books, 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Large format softcover, 64 pages of b&w comic art by Crumb. Introduction by Paul Krassner. Some tanning to edges of wrappers. Otherwise clean.
Hardcover. NY, Abrams, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Introduction by Terry Zwigoff. Includes Bonus Music CD Selected and Compiled by R. Crumb. Bright, clean & tight copy, 240 pages. "Anyone who knows R. Crumb's work as an illustrator knows of his passion for music. And all those who collect his work prize the 'Heroes of the Blues, Early Jazz Greats, and Pioneers of Country Music' trading card sets he created in the early to- mid-1980s. Now they are packaged together for the first time in book form, along with an exclusive 21-track CD of music selected and compiled by Crumb himself (featuring original recordings by Charley Patton, Dock Boggs, Jelly Roll Morton, and others). A brief biography of each musician is provided, along with a full-color original illustration by Crumb.
Softcover. Cambridge MA, Boatner Norton Press, 1st, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, Illustrated with black & white examples of works by Robert Crumb - 4 pages in full color.
Hardcover. NY, Taschen, reprint, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, illustrated boards. "Silly Fool Comics" fills the final page in this sixth volume, with a devilish creature telling the anguished Crumb, "YOU Will Soon Be DEAD!" He was a mere 67, but in his self-absorbed Crumbish way was obsessing about death, when not making intimate and loving portraits of his wife Aline and all the other women who'd tormented his libido since boyhood. Most impressive in this book are his historic tableau, some single page, others multi-page strips, including Piers the Ploughman of 14th century England, My Secret Life by "Walter," Rough Women of the Dark Ages and The Apache Dance, from a 1930s Parisian postcard. His Rapidographed cross hatching is superb as ever and we are treated to long screeds displaying his undimmed brilliance at analyzing the human condition, in a morbid but nonetheless amusing way. One could say there are no surprises in content, as Crumb has produced a consistent body of work over the last 40, if not 50, years, yet each page is also jarringly different from the one before, due to his personal juxtaposition of images. So much is packed in you can spend an hour and find you're only a quarter of the way through, with Crumb bemoaning his mortality, while continuing to prosper, every few pages. A fine stand-alone volume, and must-have completion for the sketchbook set.
Hardcover. NY, Taschen, reprint, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, illustrated boards. "Silly Fool Comics" fills the final page in this sixth volume, with a devilish creature telling the anguished Crumb, "YOU Will Soon Be DEAD!" He was a mere 67, but in his self-absorbed Crumbish way was obsessing about death, when not making intimate and loving portraits of his wife Aline and all the other women who'd tormented his libido since boyhood. Most impressive in this book are his historic tableau, some single page, others multi-page strips, including Piers the Ploughman of 14th century England, My Secret Life by "Walter," Rough Women of the Dark Ages and The Apache Dance, from a 1930s Parisian postcard. His Rapidographed cross hatching is superb as ever and we are treated to long screeds displaying his undimmed brilliance at analyzing the human condition, in a morbid but nonetheless amusing way. One could say there are no surprises in content, as Crumb has produced a consistent body of work over the last 40, if not 50, years, yet each page is also jarringly different from the one before, due to his personal juxtaposition of images. So much is packed in you can spend an hour and find you're only a quarter of the way through, with Crumb bemoaning his mortality, while continuing to prosper, every few pages. A fine stand-alone volume, and must-have completion for the sketchbook set.
Hardcover. New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hard cover in slipcase. Like new in publishers shrink-wrap. A landmark work that pays splendid homage to a forgotten era of seminal American music. Robert Crumb first began drawing record covers in 1968 when Janis Joplin, a fellow Haight Ashbury denizen, asked him to provide a cover for her album Cheap Thrills. It was an invitation the budding artist couldn't resist, especially since he had been fascinated with record covers-particularly for the legendary jazz, country, and old-time blues music of the 1920s and 1930s-since he was a teen. This early collaboration proved so successful that Crumb went on to draw hundreds of record covers for both new artists and largely forgotten masters. So remarkable were Crumb's artistic interpretations of these old 78 rpm singles that the art itself proved influential in their rediscovery in the 1960s and 1970s. Including such classics as Truckin' My Blues Away, Harmonica Blues, and Please Warm My Weiner, Crumb's opus also features more recent covers done for CDs. R. Crumb: The Complete Record Cover Collection is a must-have for any lover of graphics and old-time music. 450 four-color illustrations
Hardcover. New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hard cover in slipcasse. Like new in publishers shrink-wrap. A landmark work that pays splendid homage to a forgotten era of seminal American music. Robert Crumb first began drawing record covers in 1968 when Janis Joplin, a fellow Haight Ashbury denizen, asked him to provide a cover for her album Cheap Thrills. It was an invitation the budding artist couldn't resist, especially since he had been fascinated with record covers-particularly for the legendary jazz, country, and old-time blues music of the 1920s and 1930s-since he was a teen. This early collaboration proved so successful that Crumb went on to draw hundreds of record covers for both new artists and largely forgotten masters. So remarkable were Crumb's artistic interpretations of these old 78 rpm singles that the art itself proved influential in their rediscovery in the 1960s and 1970s. Including such classics as Truckin' My Blues Away, Harmonica Blues, and Please Warm My Weiner, Crumb's opus also features more recent covers done for CDs. R. Crumb: The Complete Record Cover Collection is a must-have for any lover of graphics and old-time music. 450 four-color illustrations
Hardcover. NY, Norton, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 96 pages, in slim decorated slipcase. Robert Crumb first began drawing record covers in 1968 when Janis Joplin, a fellow Haight Ashbury denizen, asked him to provide a cover for her album Cheap Thrills. It was an invitation the budding artist couldn't resist, especially since he had been fascinated with record covers-particularly for the legendary jazz, country, and old-time blues music of the 1920s and 1930s-since he was a teen. This early collaboration proved so successful that Crumb went on to draw hundreds of record covers for both new artists and largely forgotten masters. So remarkable were Crumb's artistic interpretations of these old 78 rpm singles that the art itself proved influential in their rediscovery in the 1960s and 1970s. Including such classics as Truckin' My Blues Away, Harmonica Blues, and Please Warm My Weiner, Crumb's opus also features more recent covers done for CDs. R. Crumb: The Complete Record Cover Collection is a must-have for any lover of graphics and old-time music. 450 four-color illustrations.
Hardcover. London, Arthur Baker, 1st, 1952, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Poor, Hardcover in a poor, worn dust jacket with a large chunk gone from front panel. Book is bright and clean, 180 pages. Illustrated with color and b&w plates by John Leech. A biography of the novelist who wrote of country sports like hunting in a comical way.