The biggest and smallest books I own

I recently bought a very large book, along with some very small books, and WHAT DO YOU KNOW, they were both comic books. These have the distinction of being the biggest and smallest books I own, so let's take a look at these record-breakers. 

In 2022, Taschen published a number of early Marvel collections, reprinting 1960s issues of titles like the Avengers, X-Men, Silver Surfer and the Fantastic Four. These absolutely enormous collections, measuring 11 by over 15 inches, are an impressive sight, and they're shipped in boxes that include additional art.

The Fantastic Four volume weighs over 10 pounds and is 700 pages long, reprinting the first 19 issues of the series and the first annual.

The publisher scanned high-grade copies of printed issues of the book.

The version I got was limited to 5000 copies. I got it for a good price, lower than its original $200 price tag. It seems that they're getting close to selling out, as my numbered copy was 4,526. There's also an absolutely ridiculous $600 version that includes features like a Thing-themed book ribbon, which, okay, I will probably never be able to afford.

The books itself is lovingly designed, with a number of pieces beyond just the 20 collected issues.

There's an introduction by FF writer Mark Waid, and some almost-to-scale scans of Jack Kirby's original art.

The pages themselves are beautifully scanned and presented. This is, honestly, an expensive presentation piece or coffee table book; there are cheaper ways to read the first 20 issues of this series without having to lug out this monstrous version.

One nice feature is that the book includes all of the material from each issue, from cover-to-cover. This means that the letters pages and ads are part of this book, which is really spectacular. The Thing clobbers at a mighty scale in this book!

I've also made some headway into my collection of Marvel Mini Books from 1966. These tiny books reside on a display shelf I'm currently working on and I think they're looking good so far!

These tiny comics - smaller than a postage stamp but with actual original stories printed inside - were sold in gumball-like machines in '66, and there were six in total. Superman actually makes an appearance in the Spider-Man mini-comic! I'm still on the lookout for the Hulk and Millie the Model comics.

A few years ago, Abrams collected these mini-books and reprinted them in (relative) gigantic format. The stories themselves are pretty bland, as you might expect, and Millie's comic has the message of "don't ever get fat!" but I still find them pretty charming. Hopefully I can pick up the other two soon. And, you know, if the $600 Taschen Fantastic Four reprint goes on liquidation any time soon...just let me know. I have no reason to show the My Pet Monster figure in the picture, but I like it, so there it is.

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Oh! And they finally announced the cast for Marvel's 2025 Fantastic Four movie! I am very excited about this! I don't have much else to say except that they are almost certainly going to start filming this soon, and I really hope that some of it will be filmed in New York City, and if that's the case I am going to try really, very hard to be in this movie in some capacity. 

Lastly, here's some great Thing original art I picked up recently. This piece was created by the Inkwell Awards, a nonprofit comics organization. This year, the Inkwells took some pencils by Walt Simonson, printed out a number of blueline copies, and had different inkers ink them. The one I picked up has inks by Guy Dorian, Sr., who has done a lot of work for IDW, notably ROM. This is on 11x17 artboard and will look great...okay, absolutely anywhere, but specifically with one of my folders of Thing art. I almost didn't recognize Ben through his really sophisticated disguise.

New Fantastic Four original comic and cartoon art!

The past few weeks have been pretty good in terms of picking up some neat Fantastic Four items. I addition to some actual merchandise, I've acquired some original art from both the comic book and two of the cartoon series. And what good is a blog if not to show off your stuff? Here's some of that stuff:

Every year at the New York Comic Con, you can find a massive display of original art for sale near the entrance to artist alley. The art ranges from fairly cheap to sell-your-house expensive, and I tend to browse the lower end of the scale. But I've been able to find some deals on nice pieces over the last few conventions, and this year brought in two pages. The first is from Fantastic Four #505, where the FF invade Latveria to set up another epic Reed/Doom showdown. At the end of this storyline, the Thing literally goes to Heaven.

This page features some nice images of the Thing and the Human Torch as they break up some Doombots.

The art is by Howard Porter, with inks from Norm Rapmund. Porter was filling in for Mike Wieringo during his run with writer Mark Waid.

At some point in this story, Dr. Doom takes possession of the Thing's body and uses it to do what we'd all do in that situation, beat a lot of stuff up.

The ol' belt buckle communicator. I don't think the Thing needs the "4" symbol on his costume, but at least it was functional here.

The next page I grabbed (and paid for) is from the more recent Hickman/Eaglesham run, featuring the Council of Reeds, which included, you know, a whole lot of alternate reality Reed Richardses.

I'm a little surprised at how tight Dale Eaglesham's pencils are on this page. I'm not certain if he had an inker on the issues he drew or not.

This page has all four characters together, which is not always easy to find in original artwork. Here we see the Invisible Woman turning invisible for no apparent reason (but I appreciate the effort, Sue). Eaglesham tends to draw a bulky Thing with a smaller head. I'm just glad that we get to see all of those rocks and he doesn't cover them up with a giant costume. Draw 'im how Kirby intended!

This Reed Richards had the power to grow a huge beard (maybe).

My next group includes some production drawings from the 1967 and 1994 Fantastic Four cartoon!

I've been looking for artwork from the very early 1967 show for a while - it turns out that they've been on eBay under a different name (sneak eBay sellers). They had a number of production drawings, but I (of course) stuck with the Thing for now. It's such a weird design - different from really any other version of the character. It's very strange and pretty ugly. But I love it for those reasons.

Each of these three drawings came from the "MoleMan" episode. They're in great shape for being nearly 50 years old.

And I couldn't resist picking up another from the 1994 series as well.

Lastly, I finally managed to add a copy of Fantastic Four #50 to my collection, the final part of the Galactus trilogy. I've now got all three parts! This copy is in decent shape and looks nice next to issues 48 and 49.

That's it for now! I'll be sure to force you all to see more Fantastic Four items soon.

EDIT: This is my 700th post. You're welcome.

New Fantastic Four original art (From FF #508, FF #538 and Marvel Adventures FF #7)

I picked up a few new pages of original art when I was at the New York Comic Con in October. There's always a big setup at the entrance to artist alley that has boxes and boxes of art from dozens of creators for sale, and it's easy to spend hours just pouring through the stacks and seeing what's available. Sometimes I'm taken back by the price tag attached to some of the pages - there are several pieces of newer artwork with asking prices in the four and even five-digit range. It serves as a reminder as to how serious some fans and collectors can get about comic art. I sometimes wonder who has the means to spend ten grand on a Avengers vs. X-Men page from a few years back, but I guess there's always someone.

For my own part, I tend to buy more affordable pieces. The most I've ever spent on a page is around $300, and even then I think I saw my house lights shutter and dim when I completed the transaction. I guess I went especially cheap this go-round, as I picked up some of the least expensive pages at the table, but I still walked away happy and with some neat original art from some recent Fantastic Four issues.

The first page comes from Fantastic Four #538. This was part of the uneven Straczynski/McKone run that was, honestly, sidetracked by the Civil War storyline too often. When Captain American and Iron Man are featured more prominently on the cover than members of the FF, something fishy is going on.

Anyway, the page I bought is obviously incomplete, with only two of eight panels drawn. This page was most likely one in which Mike McKone redrew the two panels to take the place of two earlier ones. I'm not sure if McKone went ahead and drew directly on this page or if inker Andy Lanning worked from McKone's reproduced pencils. I would usually guess that this is only Lanning's work, but there's no reproduced work on any of the other blank panels, so I'm not sure. I'm hoping for the best.

It should be apparent what drew me to this page: two panels of THE THING! For the price, it was well worth it. In this first panel, Ben is visiting Johnny in the hospital.

And then he makes a revelation, or something? I guess? This was around the time that the Thing left the country for France, which was such a strange decision. It was a weird time for the FF.

This second page comes from Fantastic Four #508, during the wonderful Waid/Wieringo run. Howard Porter filled in for 'Ringo on this storyline, so this page is by Porter with Norm Rapmund on inks.

This storyline ended with the Thing being *temporarily* killed. The FF soon after went to Heaven to bring him back (for real), so he's okay now.

This page was a good deal because, well, the Fantastic Four are nowhere to be found. They're in dire financial straits and they're in the process of shutting down the world-famous Baxter Building. This page is actually the final page of the issue and it has some tv-turning-off drama going for it. It's still a cool page even without the characters making an appearance. And the words "Baxter Building" do appear here, so I'm happy with it.

The last page I got is another "redraw" page, this one from Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four #7.

In this book, the Fantastic Four visit/fight Namor in his underwater domain.

The FF are seen here in one of Sue's force bubbles. It's pencilled by Manuel Garcia and inked by Scott Kolbish - I believe that the original line art that is on this page is by Kolbish...the signature at the bottom looks like his, anyway.

The page was originally supposed to be sold as part of a set with the complementary artwork, but I guess these got separated somehow. This means that I was able to pick up this partial page for only five bucks! That works for me.

The total amount I paid for these pages probably could have bought me one decent, complete page. That's probably what I'd do most days, but this time around I'm happy to add these snippets to my collection. I think they're pretty neat.

Pictures from the 2015 Comic-Con International, part 4: Friday (Rick and Morty, Rotten Tomatoes, Seth Meyers and more!)

I just got back from the New York Comic Con, so...I guess it's time to share pictures...from a different Comic-Con! Why not. Here's Friday at Comic-Con in lovely San Diego!

This banner always seems to tucked away. Unless you enter from one side, you won't see it. But here it is.

It's always fun to make new friends at the show.

This picture doesn't really do the thing justice. It's the Devastator combiner from the Transformers line.

This was a pretty popular display for obvious reasons. LEGO always seems to show up big for these events. I wonder if these get pulled apart after conventions are end, or if they're stored whole in a big LEGO warehouse.

While walking the floor, I ran into and probably embarrassed comic creators Mark Waid and Christy Blanch!

I'm not much of a panel goer at these shows, with a few exceptions, but I did take in a few.

This one was particularly interesting because a guy with stuffed dogs strapped to him came up and asked a question. I saw him a few other times over the weekend, and each time he had more dogs on him, including one time where the dogs surrounded his head. It was interesting.

It's the obligatory "going down the escalator at Comic-Con" shot! Yeah!!

I had took a few minutes on Friday afternoon to pick up my pre-orders from Mattel. I'm always a little stunned at the volume that big companies sell at this show. This is just one room full of items that were also on sale elsewhere at the show. There's even plastic wrap covering the floors to protect the carpet. Here's to consumerism, I guess!

While walking back to the convention, though the hotel, I found this gentleman with the Super Mario Bros. backdrop. This is the voice actor who plays Mario in the video games. Yes, he was doing the voice for those who dropped by, too.

Back to the convention hall - what a great Hawkgirl!

Here's Thanos and Loki.

I tried to make it to a Rick and Morty panel, but apparently I didn't get there in time. I was no where near making it in. It's a shame, but I got lucky later in the evening and it made up for this disappointment. On the way over, though, I saw some good costumes, including this one of two-ton 21!

X-23 and Wolverine.

Adult Swim had a big presence at the show, as in years past. This time they were set up behind the convention hall.

Rick and Morty seemed to be the biggest focus of all the [AS] displays and events. It's my favorite new show on the network (is Adult Swim a network?), so it was nice to see that other people apparently enjoy it as well.

There are always impressive costumes at this show, but this one might have been my favorite because of how dang accurate it was and how much this lady looked the part. I half expected to see her start stretching. Fantastic job.

CHECK OUT THIS AMALGAM COSTUME! That's the Storm/Wonder Woman hybrid from DC and Marvel's joint venture in the '90s. The Storm costume is really impressive as well, but I can't get over the great mashup.

Entertainment Earth had a number of celebrity signings at their booth over the weekend, and they were surprisingly easy to get into. I won the opportunity to meet late night host and SNL alumni Seth Meyers, who, by the way, is a big fan of Pittsburgh sports. We talked about the Pirates and Steelers briefly, and I got a few signed items from him. It was an incredibly smooth process, so hats off to Entertainment Earth for setting this up.

It's weird to say that I met Jamie Hyneman from "Mythbusters" in the bathroom at Comic-Con, but that's what happened. He was washing his hands and I didn't know how to approach him. The correct answer was to wait until we were both out of the bathroom, so I'm glad that I remembered some common human etiquette before getting this picture.

Matthew and John Yuan played on season four of Arrested Development. I saw them walking around in 2013 but managed to get a picture this year in which we semi-recreate one of my favorite scenes from the show. Both of the guys were very friendly and let me ask them the questions that they probably always get.

I was excited to once again make it to the Rotten Tomatoes "Your Opinion Sucks!" panel in the evening. This is one of the only panels that I feel I have to make it to every year, and it did not disappoint once again. It's lively and fun and everyone should try to see one at some point. This one was pretty crowded, so I guess people are getting the memo.

Emcee Grae Drake was in a Muppet costume.

And I got a picture with Rotten Tomatoes EIC Matt Atchity after the panel as well.

The show closed for the night after the panel, at which time I rushed out of the building in an attempt to make it to the Rick and Morty screening that was happening immediately after. We barely made it in, but it was a successful attempt.

There was a Star Wars event happening nearby...and soon after we sat down, fireworks started to go off. This drowned out everything else that was happening nearby, so we all just sat and watched the fireworks for ten minutes or so.

The screening consisted of Rick and Morty creators Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland acting out a scenario while animators drew the character. It quickly devolved into madness. Seth Green was in the audience, and he was invited up to perform as well. Most if not all had a few drinks beforehand, so it went how you might expect.

At the end of the night, we all got to see an early screening of a season two episode! This ended up being the second episode from the new season.

As we were leaving, I got to see my good Comic-Con friend, Russian Guyovich! There was apparently a Venture Bros. screening the night before, and an upcoming episode of that show was played for the unsuspecting audience. I guess I'll have to catch that when the new season (finally, mercifully) starts next year.

Two more days to go! We'll get there. And then maybe some NYCC pictures, too.