Library-Bound Comics: 1960s and New 52 Legion of Super-Heroes; 1970-1971 Aquaman; New 52 Wonder Woman; and New 52 Action Comics correction

A couple of weeks ago I got the much-anticipated email from Herring and Robinson Bookbinders out in California that my most recent batch of library-bound comics were ready, and about a week after that I received the books. The turnaround from shipping the books out to getting them back this time was about seven weeks, I think, which pleased me mightily. It also pleased a colleague of mine who dipped his toe into the wild world of comic-book binding by sending along three volumes of his own comics, to whom I had high-balled the estimated turnaround so he had a nice surprise. This post is, of course, only about my own books, but it sounds like he will do at least some more volumes, when he can piggy-back onto one of my orders.

"What's this you say about binding comic books...?"

... as in several of my past posts concerning one of my far too many intermittent obsessions (see various posts with key-word "library-bound comics" [link])...?  Well, here's a little something more, courtesy of a video blogger who posts various comics/pop culture stuff under the name of "ROH," from ComicFest 2013 back in June.  About five minutes about Herring and Robinson Bookbinders [link], whom I use for my comic binding, starts about 1:14 into the video:

Fascinating stuff!  Top-notch craftsmanship by incredibly nice people.

Makes me want to get off my duffer and finish prepping my latest volumes for binding....

Cheers! -- and Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Library-Bound Comics: Grant Morrison's New 52 Superman in Action Comics; “Retroboot” Legion of Super-Heroes; and Young All-Stars

A few weeks ago (Monday, 1 July), I received a box with my four most recently library-bound volumes of comic books, which I had sent off to Herring & Robinson Bookbinders about three months ago. I had been looking forward to this shipment for some time, because it contained what I consider one of the highlights of DC Comics' New 52 “reboot” that launched in September 2011 with the appearance of the new Action Comics #1, featuring Grant Morrison's revisionist version of the origin of Superman and his earliest adventures. Also included were two volumes completing the pre-New 52 Legion of Super-Heroes as well as a single-volume collection of the full run of Roy Thomas' Young All-Stars sequel to All-Star Squadron.

Library-Bound Comics Review – Aquaman: The Atlantis Chronicles (DC 1990-1994)

Bound by Herring and Robinson
Book Binders, 2012

Written by Peter David, originally published by DC Comics as two miniseries: The Atlantis Chronicles (1990) and Aquaman: Time and Tide (1993-1994)

This is part of that most recent order of library-bound comics that I got back from the bindery in the past few weeks. I've mentioned my early love of the character of Aquaman several times in this blog, most notably here I believe, as well as my decades-long disappointment with how the character was treated – basically from the mid-late 1970s until very recently. Among the most distasteful developments, for me at least, were those presided over by Peter David in the 1990s resulting in what I called a “character … quite unrecognizable to me – angry, long-haired, bearded, half-naked, sporting a harpoon instead of one of his hands” – and started with the two mini-series that I have now bound for my personal library. Whyever would I do such a thing?

Well, as I briefly explained in the first previous post referenced above, “although I did not like what little I knew [from his guest appearances in other comics and so forth] about where … David would ultimately take [Aquaman] in the 1990s, I had heard nothing but good things about [these] two miniseries … with which he began his several years' association with the character. Most specifically, the podcasters at Comic Geek Speak recommended them in their “Spotlight on Aquaman” episode (#840, 5 May 2010). In my recent … renewed enthusiasm for the character, I decided to acquire the issues and bind them....” And over the past couple of weeks I've read them. Here are my thoughts.

The Atlantis Chronicles

This hefty seven-issue miniseries – each issue is double the length of a standard comic –, drawn by Esteban Marato, purports to be a comic-book adaptation of newly-discovered historical writings from the lost civilization of Atlantis … after it sank beneath the waves thousands of years ago.

#1 (Mar 1990), “Chapter One: The Deluge,” begins the story of Orin and Shalako, brothers, king and priest, embodying a conflict between science and religion in the advanced continental civilization of Atlantis. His ruling city of Poseidonis being constantly assaulted by barbarians, Orin oversees the construction of a protective dome. Shalako predicts that this will bring the wrath of the sky-goddess Suula – which seems fulfilled when an asteroid seeming to bear the visage of a death's-head strikes the ocean, sending the waters to overwhelm Atlantis.

A text page consists of a memo between members of DC Comics' editorial regarding the adaptation of the newly-discovered writings, which the discoverer Prof. R. K. Simpson has been unable to get published by a scholarly press. After various “big-name” writers reject the job, Peter David gets it largely by default: “O.K. If he's the best you can do – Dick [Giordano]” ROFL!

#2 (Apr 1990), “Chapter Two: The Vanished Sun,” takes up months later, when life in the darkness of the ocean's depths is slowly driving the people of Poseidonis insane, although they had survived the disaster because of the protective dome and manufactured air. In the midst of this, Shalako leads his followers away from Poseidonis to the ruins of the city of Tritonis, where he constructs a hard-water dome by concluding a murderous pact with “the dark gods” to whom he now gives his allegiance.

Sometimes the issues have more than one chapter – “Chapter Three: Transfigurations.” Expeditions he sent out to determine if any land remains above the waves having vanished, Orin's scientists devise a way to mutate the Poseidonians into amphibious air-/water-breathers, freeing them from their imprisonment within the dome. Orin offers the same serum to the new Tritonians – who take it against the will of Shalako. Their prophet curses them for it – and their mutation continues such that they are fish-scaled from the waist down. The Tritonians rise up and kill Shalako and his family – all but his son Dardanus who disappeared into the city's catacombs.

#3 (May 1990), “Chapter Four: The Flowering of Youth, the Rightful Sinking of Age.” Fifteen years on, intense prejudices have developed between the Poseidonians and the Tritonians. Shalako's son Dardanus comes out of hiding, pretty obviously as insane as his father had become, stirring up the hatred. At court in Poseidonis, Dardanus attacks Bazil, the fiancé of Orin's daughter Cora, and is banished. But he returns to rape her on the eve of her wedding, fathering a fully-scaled humanoid monster named Kordax – but we don't find that out until later. The Poseidonians themselves continue to mutate, although not so radically as the Tritonians had. They are getting more dependent on constant hydration (up until now they had retained an air-breathing environment inside the dome, moving back and forth into the water at will), and developing fins on the backs of their calves. Orin begins considering the practicalities of flooding the dome.

Text pages resume with this issue, from here on out: Here is the first of two parts dealing with religion in ancient Atlantis and its worldwide impact, embodying a clever mix of reality and fiction even in its faux bibliography.

#4 (June 1990), “Chapter 5: Full Scale War,” focusses more on Cora and Bazil's daughter Fiona and the current Chronicler, Regin, who are lovers. Regin writes on the eve of battle, tracing the history of how the Poseidonians and Tritonians eventually came to war. Although it was perceived that the Atlanteans' lives are also extended greatly by the serum, dehydration was increasingly a problem. But the Tritonians had it worse, because their second generation were born with fully fused fish-tails rather than scaled legs, making them a merpeople absolutely unfit for an air-environment. Dardanus blamed Orin, who orders the flooding of both the domes, which are retained to keep larger predatory sea-creatures out of the cities. Cora's life-long torment is exposed when the Tritonians discover Kordax, who had been exposed as an infant and presumed dead – a fully-scaled blond-haired mutant who can mentally control sea-creatures. Orin abdicates kingship to make Cora queen – but when Dardanus demands Kordax be recognized as her heir instead of Fiona, and threatens war, Cora happily obliges. A cliffhanger ending has a mysterious giant sea monster attacking the Poseidonians at Kordax's command.

#5 (July 1990) contains two chapters. The first, “Chapter 6: The Stuff of Legends,” recounts the climax of the family feud between Orin and Shalako, told in mythic terms that it's strongly hinted may be the Chronicler Regin's molding mundane events to give the Atlanteans new beliefs that unify the peoples. There is an extensive exchange between Regin and Fiona, years later, that bears quotation:

Regin: “I tell them the origins of our beliefs. I tell them what happened, how it happened, and why.”

Fiona: “And that's all you have ever done, Regin? Merely reported what you saw?”

Regin: “Well, of course. What else? … I am not sure I understand your implications.”

Fiona: “You understand perfectly.”

Regin: “We're not going to discuss this again, are we? … I saw what I saw. And the people of Atlantis believed because ...”

Fiona: “Because they wanted to believe. … For many years I have refrained from discussing this with you, beloved Regin. … I was there too, remember. And while you spun your very convincing tale of epic struggles between godly messengers … I found small pieces of rock caught in Dardanus' armor. Rock that could have been the remains of several large boulders you, in your anger, pushed down upon Dardanus after he killed Orin. … And then you could have moved Dardanus' body away from the landslide, so that you could claim the wrath of Shalako had crushed him. … There are rational explanations for all things, if one allows oneself to look.”

Regin: “Fiona … I do not create history. I report it. What you suggest … it would be inappropriate. … Although...”

Fiona: “Although...?”

Regin: “Just at the battle's eve … Orin spoke of how Atlanteans no longer believed in the gods since we sank. Nor even believed in ourselves! … And how we would consume ourselves if that did not change. … The people wanted something to believe in. … Certainly there are rational explanations. There always are. But sometimes, to survive, people need to cling to the irrational. … To think of matters greater than themselves. … And if I had taken a cowardly, backstabbing assault on Orin … and a subsequent rockslide … and used it to weave a tapestry of belief … Not that I did … But if I had … I would like to think … that Orin would have approved of being the stuff … of which legends are born.”

The need to believe. It reminds me of these words of wisdom from Secondhand Lions –

Hub McCann (Robert Duvall): “Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love … true love never dies. You remember that, boy. You remember that. Doesn't matter if it's true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in.”

“Chapter 7: First Encounter.” Generations later, the blond Atlan brings back evidence of the now-legendary surface world to Atlantis.

Text page: Focusses on Atlan's mother Lorelei, a mysterious figure of whom much more is made of her mystery in the text page than in the story itself. Makes me wonder if this was originally meant to be a longer miniseries and if editorial decisions gutted it.... Or perhaps David followed up on it in the ongoing series that started four years later...?

#6 (Aug 1990) “Chapter 8: Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” begins a story told by an old Egyptian priest to the Greek Solon in more detail than Plato would later relate. Because here, the framing story impinges on history. Solon was, of course, the great Greek lawgiver ca. 600 BC who, according to the philosopher Plato – the historical ur-source for legends of Atlantis – writing over 200 years later, brought back the tales to Athens as he heard them in Egypt. Anyway, the Atlanteans attack the surface world, coming from the North, bringing up the question of Where was Atlantis? More comments later.... The attack is led by King Honsu and his and Lorelei's warrior eldest son Kraken; Atlan is the second son, generally in self-exile from Atlantis because of his blond hair, ever since Kordax considered an ill omen; the third, peace-loving son, is Haumond – who ends up captured by the proto-Egyptians. Haumond meets the ancient survivor of one of Orin's exploratory expeditions, now worshipped as a god in Egypt.

Text page: An interview with the professor who discovered the Atlantis Chronicles.

#7 (Sep 1990) “Chapter 9: Death and Life.” Okay, I'm getting a little more confused. The Atlanteans are the “North Sea Peoples” to the Egyptians, which could simply mean they come from the Mediterranean to the north of Egypt. But then they go through Egypt to get to Athens? …?  … Anyway, Kraken challenges the Athenians to a single combat with their champion to decide the war – and is killed … by the Athenian champion Haumond, his brother. Haumond foresakes Atlantis and the sea. A little predictably (at least, I predicted it) Haumond turns out to be the aged priest relating the story to Solon centuries or millennia later, visited on his death bed by Atlan, who is still youthful. Atlan returns his brother's body to the sea.

“Chapter 10: Tails of the Sea” is a short interlude about sailors with Christopher Columbus in 1492 spying mermaids.

“Chapter 11: Birthrite” begins with three Atlantean children including King Trevis' brother and heir Uri finding what is obviously a drum of surface waste, opening it – and Uri is killed by the toxic contents. By now, the power of the Monarchy has devolved to a council that seems rather dominated by a Shalakan zealot doomsayer Kalandro, but this still causes a crisis because Trevis and his queen Atlanna are childless. Then Atlanna has a dream or vision of Atlan impregnating her and bringing about the union of Orin and Shalako's lines. Atlan furthermore prophesies:

“[Your son] will know joy and sorrow, … darkness and light, for the blood of Orin and Shalako will run through him. … From Orin's line he will have wisdom and leadership. He will be a great warrior. … From Shalako's line, he inherits dominion over the sea creatures. … He will leave Atlantis and return. He will produce a child with a woman from the world of the Dark Gods … and they will both leave him. … He will battle the inner uncertainty caused by his mixed heritage. And he will battle … his half-brother whom I shall also sire, with a woman of the surface. For two brothers must always struggle for Atlantis. That is fate. … The brothers will meet and battle – the surface brother Orm and your son, whom you shall name Orin. They will battle many times. … And when they battle for the final time, the outcome will determine the ultimte destiny of Atlantis … Either it will rejoin the surface world … … or be forever … destroyed.”

As Atlanna swells with her pregnancy, fish revere her … but when it comes it is a breech birth, and the blond baby boy must be delivered by Cesarian. Blond – the sign of Kordax. Trevis takes the ill-omened babe to be exposed at low tide, then suicides. The last scene is the child being raised by dolphins.

And the issue ends with a genealogical chart from the brothers Orin and Shalako through the generations to Orm … and Aquaman.

Despite its somewhat dated style, both in writing and art – and the fact that I'm not a huge fan of Peter David – I really enjoyed this tale. It is a marvelous work accomplished on a broad historical/generational canvas drawing in a lot of real world lore and legend, giving it all a twist in an attempt to transform Aquaman's story into a mythological, almost Biblical epic. Esteban Marato's art is good, while limited by pre-millennial printing and not helped by the rather garish colors that resulted. It is a shame that DC has never seen fit to reprint this miniseries as a collection. Were they to do so, recoloring it with modern technology could result in a work of real visual beauty that would better convey the sense that most of this epic takes place in the ocean's depths.

One thing to bear in mind. Although it was not marked as such, it is definitely an adult story. There is bloody violence, yes, but also quite a bit of sex including nudity, particularly in the last issue. But even earlier, Dardanus' rape of Cora is depicted quite brutally.

Aquaman: Time and Tide

Four years later, David would return to Aquaman, this time to stay for about seven years. A new ongoing series was kicked off by this four-issue miniseries – four standard-length issues, so it reads very quickly compared to the tome that it belatedly picks up from.

#1 (Dec 1993), “Flash Back,” begins with Aquaman alone in his cave reading the Atlantis Chronicles, specifically the ending written by his mother Atlanna, whom he believes to have been delusional in her tales of ancient gods and prophecies. He starts adding his own remembrances, beginning with the first time he was called a “hero” after getting caught up in a confrontation between Barry Allen Flash and the Trickster. This is basically Aquaman's introduction to the modern surface world. (Barry's the one who dubs him that.)

More so than the Atlantis Chronicles, it's immediately apparent that here Peter David indulges in a bit more of his trademark offbeat humor. Although it's an aspect of his writing that I don't really care for, I must admit that there is a hilarious bit with Aquaman talking to sharks, playing on the lack of short-term memory that fish apparently have.

#2 (Jan 1994), “Fish Tales,” continues Aquaman's attempts at writing his own history, mainly telling how he was raised by dolphins after surviving exposure as a newborn on “Mercy Reef,” up to his learning a cruel lesson of the reality of the “circle of life” under the sea. His first encounter with humans results in his dolphin “brother” being accidentally caught in a ship's screws, mortally wounded, and necessarily being left to be eaten by sharks.

#3 (Feb 1994), “Snowball in Hell.” Between issues #2 and #3 we know from his inner'logue that as a teenager he took up with Arthur Curry the lighthouse-keeper – who then abandoned him. He wandered north to Alaska, where he saves an Eskimo girl named Kako's life from a polar bear – evidently pissing off some kind of goddess who curses him that those who love him are doomed. He and Kako fall in love, so of course Kako is the first victim – being attacked and left for dead by her cousin Orm, the bastard son of her aunt (if I understand correctly). Young Aquaman has a vision in which he contends with the northern goddess and manages to save Kako's life again – but when he tells the tale of what he thought was just a dream, the shock of the implications in his defying the goddess Nuliajuk kills Kako's grandfather who had grudgingly taken him in. The family drives him away; when he returns after a time, their home is abandoned.

#4 (Mar 1994), “King of the Sea.” Years later, when Aquaman is king of Atlantis, on the day of Arthur Jr.'s birth, Orm returns as the Ocean Master and challenges him for kingship of the sea. Not knowing who he is – he never encountered him before – Aquaman ridicules him and drives him away. But Ocean Master returns with a huge submarine to attack Atlantis. He captures Aquaman and Aqualad, then subjects them to the stereotypical villain's boasting – whereupon Aquaman realizes the truth of who Ocean Master is and what he had done to Kako. Meanwhile, Mera's interference in effecting a rescue inadvertently keeps Aquaman from killing Orm right then and there – and Ocean Master escapes, obviously to beleaguer our hero again in the future. … And ruminating on these events, Aquaman realizes perhaps his mother was not insane. Or perhaps he is.

As much as I liked the Atlantis Chronicles, and even enjoyed Time and Tide on its own terms, I prefer the more traditional origin – of an Atlantean princess-in-exile taking up with Tom Curry the lighthouse-keeper and bearing him a son – which has more or less been “retro-retconned” back into play by Geoff Johns over the past couple of years. I'm sure there's a way most elements of the Atlantis Chronicles could still be made to work with that origin, but I don't know if that's the way things will play out.

As to Time and Tide itself, along with the somewhat satirical tone that I don't care for (a personal shortcoming, I know... ;-) ), I find the art 'way too cartoony, much more dated than AC. And it ain't helped overall by the “present-day” Aquaman's mullet, which looks laughable in itself.

Oddly enough, however, I did enjoy reading it. I won't be in a hurry to reread it though. Atlantis Chronicles, on the other hand, may well be reread sooner rather than later.

And, given that I now know, after looking at ComicbookDB.com, that Peter David's subsequent monthly series which launched out of this within six months with the long-haired, bearded Aquaman, has by issue #2 already had piranhas chew off his hand and replaced it with a harpoon – to me the visual symbol of an “Aquaman” who is in no way “mine” – I don't think I'll bother continuing down this road. The current series by Geoff Johns is too good to sully with that image. And there are the three Showcase Presents volumes that I largely haven't read, bringing his adventures in the Silver Age up to the point where I was reading in 1968, where I have two years (1968-1969) similarly library-bound. In fact, with 2011's publication of the collection, Aquaman: Death of a Prince, they have left only a couple of years' gap in reprinting his Silver and Bronze Age adventures up to the event that, for me, started transforming a beloved character into something I no longer cared to read. I haven't counted pages, but it seems to me that at least another Showcase Presents volume is warranted. Better yet, a couple of color reprint volumes to precede Death of a Prince …. – Hello? – DC? – Anybody listening...?

Cheers!, and Thanks for reading!

* * *

Note:  This is the first of my library-bound comics volumes that I have blogged about as if it were a "real" book.  I'm not sure I'm going to go into such intensive detail in future (he says in vain).  At eleven comics, this one is relatively thin.  More typically, my bound volumes contain upwards of twenty, once even as many as forty, issues.  But if you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you know how I can blather on....

Library-Bound Comics: All-Star Squadron

Today I finally got my hands on my most recent box of library-bound comics from Herring and Robinson, completing my most recent order with them as described here. The delay was because we were out of town all last week, and the box was delivered to my wife's place of business where it could be signed for, and I had to wait for her to return to work today to retrieve it for me.

As mentioned previously, this is a three-volume set containing the entirety of the 1980s DC series All-Star Squadron, which was Roy Thomas's extensive ode to the 1940s Golden Age heroes of the DC Universe, based on the old Justice Society of America adventures that filled the pages of the original All-Star Comics, plus some, told against the historical background of the early days of World War Two. I've always liked the Justice Society, from the first time I met them as the doppelganger equivalents of “Earth One's” Justice League of America but dwelling on the alternate “Earth Two” back in the 1960s, all the way through this period of the early 1980s when we had new tales set in their original 1940s context, through the lean years after 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths swept away the DC Multiverse and the elder heroes, now an elder generation on the post-Crisis unified Earth, were consigned to a form of limbo, to their resurgence in the late 1990s/early 2000s as the elder generation of DC's “legacy” heroes. I had, of course, read all these All-Star Squadron comics as they first came out in the 1980s, but my original copies fell victim to “The Great Comic Book Sell-Off of 1990.” With my discovery of library binding, I early on decided I'd like to buy up the back issues and have them bound. I picked up scattered issues here and there at the occasional comic shop or convention, but frankly it wasn't happening quickly enough. I had “All-Star Squadron complete set” (or some such) as one of my saved searches on eBay for a long time, and got frequent emails notifying me of active auctions, but they would quickly bid up past my self-imposed limit of $70. A lot of people remember this series fondly, it seems, and the complete sets could go for as much as a couple of hundred dollars. But finally, for whatever reason, perseverence paid off sometime early last year, and I scored a set of the 67 issues plus three annuals for my bid.

As I mentioned previously, last year was a long interim in my comic binding, but early this year I determined that I was going to get this done. All I had to do was buy up several other issues of Justice League of America that had chapters of a multi-issue crossover between the two titles, as well as the issue of that latter series that contained a short insert “prequel” promotional story. At the last minute, I decided I would pull a 1977 issue of DC Special that told the “untold origin” of the Justice Society and include it, too.

With the help of a thread on one of the comic binding discussion boards, I mapped out my set as three volumes and made up the title page/table of contents and valuation pages, prepped them as described in generally in the aforementioned post, and sent them off. Not really caring so much for my previous cover color-scheme of Dark Green Buckram with Gold Print which I used a few years ago for two volumes of JSA [see here], I went with #598 Dark Blue with Gold Print for these. For whatever reason, these three volumes lagged a little behind the rest of the books in that order which came to me a couple weeks ago, but that just gave me another “little Christmas” today.

Here are some pictures:

Yes, same picture as at top, but larger. Do you see my goof? ... 

The dates at the bottom of the middle volume should be 1983-1985. 

 It's my mistake; they printed what I specified.
Incidentally, the flash washes out the color a bit. 

 It's not grey-blue, it's dark blue, almost black.

You can actually see the sacrifice that's sometimes made with
trimming the edges.  Some of the art or, in this case, text on covers may
be trimmed, as from the banner at bottom, "YOU could be in the
SUPERMAN MOV[IE]."

Somebody's curious about what Daddy's doing....

Cheers!, and Thanks for reading!

Library-Bound Comics: Superman, Aquaman, and Warlord of Mars – with details on Preparation

It was receipt of these books last week, on 13 June, that finally spurred me to finish the long-delayed comprehensive account of my Library-Bound Comic Collection as it existed prior to this order, an account I began several months ago and added a little to from time to time but never took the initiative to actually complete. Now that that task is out of the way (obsessive-compulsive completist that I am), I feel that I can move forward.

I actually sent off a total of eight volumes – the most I've ever sent at one time – back on 20 April. So this box, containing five volumes, represents only a partial completion of that order. Actually, by the time of this writing (21 June), I received notice a few days ago that a box containing the other three volumes is on its way, too. But I'm going to go ahead and cover what I received last week. A couple of months turnaround is pretty standard, although I've been reading on the message boards of late that Herring and Robinson is currently being inundated with orders slipping in under the wire – a few weeks ago they put out a notice that there would be some modest price increases effective 1 July. I imagine the increased work load will result in a temporary lengthening of turnaround time.

In the box I sent on 20 April there were the following:

• Three volumes of All-Star Squadron;
• Three volumes of Superman;
• One volume of Aquaman; and
• One volume of A Princess of Mars.

On 13 June, the box I received contained all but the first of the above items.

Since this is my first account of a current binding order, I'm going to go into a bit of detail on the preparations I went through. I'll leave All-Star Squadron for a future blog entry, however.

The three volumes of Superman comprise the foundation of the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths “reboot” of the character helmed by writer and artist John Byrne, beginning with the 1986 six-issue miniseries, The Man of Steel, and continuing with the first 22 issues of the all-new Superman title as well as issues 584-600 of Action Comics, issues 424-444 of the original Superman title, now renamed Adventures of Superman, and the first issues of Annuals for the three titles. I bought these issues as they came out on the stands back in 1986-1988, but had dropped them when John Byrne left. For a little over two years, however, as overseen by Byrne, the original comic book super-hero was reimagined in some of the best stories he's ever had, one epic narrative interweaving among those titles from month to month.

To those comics I added, for this binding project, the first issue of Roy Thomas' Secret Origins from 1986, an homage retelling the first adventure of the original “Golden Age” version of Superman, a character recently (at the climax of Crisis on Infinite Earths) consigned to limbo; a four-issue miniseries from 1987-1988 telling the history of The World of Krypton as newly reimagined by John Byrne; and finally, to round out a third volume that was ending up rather light, I included a round-robin seven-part story from a few years later (1991) that bounced Superman back and forth through time. I had been clued into that story in the first place because it tied in with the Legion of Super-Heroes that I was currently reading, so I had sought out the issues. One of the great things about designing your own comic-binding projects is that you can include whatever and organize the issues however you want!

The volume of Aquaman is similarly idiosyncratic. I gave it the individual title, The Atlantis Chronicles, but it contains in addition the subsequent miniseries Time and Tide. Aquaman is a character who has foundered (floundered?) around quite a bit over the years, and although I did not like what little I knew about where author Peter David would ultimately take him in the 1990s, I had heard nothing but good things about the two miniseries (1990, and 1993-1994) with which he began his several years' association with the character. Most specifically, the podcasters at Comic Geek Speak recommended them in their “Spotlight on Aquaman” episode (#840, 5 May 2010). In my recent (last couple of years') renewed enthusiasm for the character, I decided to acquire the issues and bind them unread for later enjoyment.

For older comics such as these I tend not to remove any ads or back covers, rather preserving the completeness of the individual issues, so that was one task that I didn't have.

Nor did I remove such extranea from the volume I have entitled A Princess of Mars. These are actually from the recent Dynamite Entertainment franchise, Warlord of Mars. Claims by the Edgar Rice Burroughs Estate – and their attempts to use trademark law to trump copyright law – notwithstanding, the early books in ERB's Mars series are in the public domain and available for anyone to publish, adapt, and use however they see fit. I have been buying the individual issues of the various Dynamite series in the franchise pretty much from their inception in 2010, and consider them to be by and large faithful to the spirit of ERB's vision. You can see more of my thoughts in my various blog entries covering the individual issues.

Central to this volume is Dynamite's adaptation/expansion of the first ERB novel, A Princess of Mars, retold in the first nine issues of their main title, Warlord of Mars. I follow it with their first Annual for that series, which tells a story of Tars Tarkas on the eve of our meeting him in that original novel. Then I include the first two story arcs, five issues each, of Dynamite's second title, Warlord of Mars: Dejah Thoris, telling stories of a much younger princess of Helium, long before the advent of John Carter. One major reason I would not consider removing the back covers of these issues is that Dynamite routinely publishes several different covers for each issue, but is gracious enough to depict them all via thumbnails on the inside back cover.

All of the issues I wanted to include in these various volumes having been accumulated, whether from my existing collection or filling in holes via online back-issue vendors, and the order I wanted to place them in each volume having been determined – “mapped” is the common term on the message boards – my first task was to make up a title page/table of contents. I tend to go pretty simple on this, just including some kind of logo and the contents of the volume. Sometimes if there are distinct story arcs, I will specify those as well. I also typically put a publisher's logo at the bottom of the contents, a statement of the replacement value of the contents, and finally a “colophon” regarding the collection and binding of the volume, e.g.:

The calculated replacement value of the comics in this volume at the time of binding was $83, based upon the NM (9.4) values reported at http://www.comicspriceguide.com.

This volume was assembled by

Kent G. Hare

out of his personal collection,

and bound by

2012

These I print out on higher quality paper than mere typing paper, usually using cream colored paper rather than stark white.

Then I have to cut them to an appropriate size to match the dimensions of a comic book. Here are some pictures illustrating my decidedly low-tech process.

My template

I position it to allow for binding loss on the
left and about a 1-in. margin on the right

Lightly pencil around the template

Cut with a razor-knife and a metal ruler along
the pencil lines.  Note:  Use a good cutting
surface to keep your wife happy.

... And the page should lift right up.

Next, I make a simple mock-up of what I want the spine of the book to look like. I don't get fancy – like for most of what I do, OpenOffice or Microsoft Word suffices. I print out one per volume, including a description of what type of binding I want over to the side. That last is a relic of when Herring and Robinson did not have a dedicated Order Slip. They do now, via an online and saveable pdf form (here) (in fact in the past couple of years they have constructed an entire corner of their website devoted to comic binding – here), but rather than trust hand-drawn and -written instructions for the spine, I still do the more or less full-size mock-up that I then print out and reduce via a copy machine to dimensions that will fit in the box they provide. It's not an elegant process, but it works. And for redundancy's sake, I throw a copy of the full-size mock-up in the box with the comics as well.

For filling out the Order Slip, of course, you need to determine what colors and materials you want, and how elaborate you want the “extras” to be. H&R's website shows what-all's available. As I've said before, I generally go for the simplest possible bind to minimize cost. For A Princess of Mars, however, I went for a little extra.

I have bound several other Superman volumes over the past few years, so I have an extablished color scheme. From H&R's Color Charts (here) I got the name and number for #588 Royal Blue Buckram for my cover material, and specified Red printing for the spine.

Similarly, I had bound another Aquaman volume a couple years ago, but with a color scheme I was afraid I could not duplicate. As I understand it, Teal Buckram is no longer in production and available anywhere. However, looking at H&R's Color Charts, #538 Marine Blue appeared very close. Communication with Joel Martinelli at H&R confirmed that they could do Copper printing as well, so that's what I specified.

A Princess of Mars was a new series for me, binding-wise. I wanted this volume to be a little extra special, so I checked out the Imitation Leather cover material. Mars being the Red Planet, the choice was obvious – #1804 Textured Burgundy, with Gold printing.

I filled in the online Order Slip with all the required information, including the various color specifications above for each volume, and printed them out – a total of eight for the box I was sending. Each volume of Superman counts as a separate book, of course; ditto for All-Star Squadron. I also printed out the spine mock-ups, reduced them on a photocopier, and cut-and-taped each onto its appropriate Order Slip.

All that remained then was packing up each stack of comics with its specific Order Slip. I wrap each stack in newspaper, taping it snugly.

The bare stack of Aquaman comics...

... With the table of contents, ...

... The Binding Slip, ...

... And the Binding Slip folded to fit atop the stack.

The stack is bound up in newspaper...

...And at this point I got so caught up in what
I was doing that I forgot to take any more pictures! 

I then put the stacks in a box inside a thick plastic garbage bag (in case the shipper leaves the box where it can get wet), filling in any gaps with crumpled up newspaper so that the box is pretty solid. Tape the box up snugly, take it to a shipper, pay the shipping cost, and off it goes. I generally use FedEx despite the higher fees because it gives me peace of mind. It also gives me a Tracking Number that can be checked online to see its delivery status.   

I figure it's also a good idea to send H&R an email letting them know the box is coming.

Then wait. Generally, from north Louisiana to California, the transit time is about a week. Usually, H&R will send an email confirmation that they have received the box.

Eventually, an email will come that the books are on the way, and you can arrange payment for them.  H&R offers a couple of convenient options.

At the top of this post is a picture of the five books I received last week. Here are a few more pictures, including interiors and details.

Note: At the last minute, after I had printed out the Order Slips, I decided to add more extras to the Princess of Mars volume: Head and Tail Bands, and a Ribbon Marker. I made the changes by hand to the Order Slip – and overlooked the fact that I needed to specify colors. Not to worry. H&R sent me an email pointing out my omission, at which point I specified a Burgundy Ribbon Marker and Burgundy and Gold Head and Tail Bands. I really like the results, but am going to reserve these kind of extras for special books like this one. Call me cheap – I can take it!

I usually put an itemized list of the comics
with their "book values" at the end of
each volume.

Cheers!, and Thanks for reading!