Here's a quick rave/recommendation for a book I had a little something to do with. Today, I received my advance copy of The Best of Simon and Kirby, a forthcoming hardcover sampler of the work of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Joe and Jack did some of the greatest comics ever done and the hardest part of assembling this collection was figuring out which masterpieces to include. (But don't worry: This is the first of a series…)
It's 240 pages in full color — stories from Captain America, Blue Bolt, Sandman, The Fly, Black Magic, etc…one of each from the major Simon-Kirby works. Some of this material has been reprinted before but usually not with great reproduction. For this book, for the first time, the publisher had access to Joe Simon's personal archives of original artwork and first-generation photostats. (On my trip to New York last year, I got to rummage through Joe's files. He saved an awful lot of stuff and it's all wonderful.)
Joe wrote a great foreword to the book and I wrote little essays leading into each chapter. But the reason you want to get this is because it's Simon and Kirby, the guys who made everything exciting, at their best. Which is all the reason you need.
Click here to place an advance order. They say it won't be released 'til May 12 and while I can't promise anything, I'll guess that since I have my copy, it won't take that long. Even if it does, this one's worth waiting for.