While "researching" a recent Nexus Graphica, I had reason to look through my collection of Comics Of Unusual Size. This set of the big and small and odd of comicdom offers many gems. Deciding that I really should share some of these largely forgotten and sometime rare pieces, I’m taking you through a tour of the more interesting selections.

Click on images for full sized versions.

Art by John Lucas

With a style best described as the bastard offspring of Jack Kirby and Alex Toth, prolific artist John Lucas emerged from the wilds of the vibrant nineties Waco, TX indie comics scene.

Promotion for a Violet Crown Radio Players adaptation
of a Robert E. Howard Sailor Steve Costigan tale.
Art by John Lucas.

Also in the nineties, Lucas’ quirky work appeared in Mojo Press and Caliber publications.

Cover to Negative Burn #47 (Caliber)
Art by John Lucas

After moving to New York City in 2002, he quickly became a regular contributor for many Marvel and DC titles including Detective Comics, Superman: Man of Steel, Civil War: Front Line, Starman, Generation M, The Exterminators, and X-Men Unlimited.

From 9-11: September 11, 2001
(The World’s Finest Comic Book Writers &
Artists Tell Stories to Remember) (DC)
Art by John Lucas

Sometime in the 2000s, Lucas published Cow! The sketchbook compilation offered a wide selection of his work. All the art in this C.O.U.S. entry come from the 32 page, 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" collection.

Cover to Cow!

Check out more Lucas here.

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

Wolverine 1: Prodigal Son by Antony Johnston (story) and Wilson Tortosa (art)

Promo copy:

The gripping, all-new adventure of the x-men’s greatest icon, completely reimagined in the Manga style

This is not the Wolverine you know.

Logan is a teenage rebel with a real good reason for having a real bad attitude. Ever since being left in a nearby forest–with no memory of who he was or how he got there–Logan (or Wolverine, as his classmates sometimes call him) has been stuck in a martial arts school in the icy wilds of Canada. No wonder he’s bored, restless, yearning. There’s a whole world out there, and Logan can almost taste it. But he’s chained to a past he can’t remember and can’t escape. Now it just may destroy his future.

Omen (Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi, Book 2) by Christie Golden

The Betrayal by Pati Nagle

Promo copy:

The noble and magical aelven were riven by war when a rogue clan embraced a forbidden source of magic: the drinking of blood. In the bitter fighting that ensued, the vampiric Clan Darkshore were cast out of the aelven and driven across the Ebon Mountains. Stripped of their various clan colors, they were thenceforth known only as “alben,” hated and shunned. An uneasy peace now holds over the land, but it is whispered that Shalár, the beautiful and bloodthirsty queen of the alben, is readying a surprise attack to win back all that was lost–and none can say where or when she will strike.

The fate of the clans will depend on two young aelven lovers, Eliani and Turisan, who are blessed with a legendary gift: the fabled power of mindspeech. But this ability comes with great risks. Time is running out as the alben mount their attack–and their ultimate betrayal.

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

Sanctified and Chicken-Fried: The Portable Lansdale by Joe R. Lansdale

Promo copy:

Master of mojo storytelling, spinner of over-the-top yarns of horror, suspense, humor, mystery, science fiction, and even the Old West, Joe R. Lansdale has attracted a wide and enthusiastic following. His genre-defying work has brought him numerous awards, including the Grand Master of Horror from the World Horror Convention, the Edgar Award, the American Horror Award, seven Bram Stoker awards, the British Fantasy Award, Italy’s Grinzane Prize for Literature, as well as Notable Book of the Year recognition twice from the New York Times.

Sanctified and Chicken-Fried is the first "true best of Lansdale" anthology. It brings together a unique mix of well-known short stories and excerpts from his acclaimed novels, along with new and previously unpublished material. In this collection of gothic tales that explore the dark and sometimes darkly humorous side of life and death, you’ll meet traveling preachers with sinister agendas, towns lost to time, teenagers out for a good time who get more than they bargain for, and gangsters and strange goings-on at the end of the world. Out of the blender of Lansdale’s imagination spew tall tales about men and mules, hogs and races, that are, in his words, "the equivalent of Aesop meets Flannery O’Connor on a date with William Faulkner, the events recorded by James M. Cain."

Whether you’re a long-time fan of Joe R. Lansdale or just discovering his work, this anthology brings you the best of a writer whom the New York Times Book Review has praised for having "a folklorist’s eye for telling detail and a front-porch raconteur’s sense of pace."

My feelings toward Joe’s works are well chronicle. Simply put, this book is REQUIRED reading!

The Losers by Jack Kirby

Promo copy:

For the first time, Jack Kirby’s tales of World War II are collected! In 1974, while Jack Kirby was hard at work on such mind-bending epics as MISTER MIRACLE and KAMANDI, he also created a series of stories that drew on his own experiences in World War II. Starring DC war heroes Johnny Cloud, Captain Storm, Gunner and Sarge, this volume features stories in which The Losers stop a German attack using a tactic found in a comic book, German and American athletes who faced each other at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin meet again on the field of combat, and much more! Don’t miss this amazing collection of tales from OUR FIGHTING FORCES #151-162, and featuring a foreword by best-selling author Neil Gaiman (THE SANDMAN).

There is no such thing as too much Kirby!

Fragment by Warren Fahy

Promo copy:

In this powerhouse of suspense—as brilliantly imagined as Jurassic Park and The Ruins—scientists have made a startling discovery: a fragment of a lost continent, an island with an ecosystem unlike any they’ve seen before . . . an ecosystem that could topple ours like a house of cards.

The time is now. The place is the Trident, a long-range research vessel hired by the reality TV show Sealife. Aboard is a cast of ambitious young scientists. With a director dying for drama, tiny Henders Island might be just what the show needs. Until the first scientist sets foot on Henders—and the ultimate test of survival begins . . .

For when they reach the island’s shores, scientists are utterly unprepared for what they find—creatures unlike any ever recorded in natural history. This is not a lost world frozen in time, an island of mutants, or a lab where science has gone mad: this is the Earth as it might have looked after evolving on a separate path for half a billion years.

Soon the scientists will stumble on something more shocking than anything humanity has ever encountered: because among the terrors of Henders Island, one life form defies any scientific theory—and must be saved at any cost.

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes ORIGINAL, UNCUT VERSION

From the FantasticFest blog:

Nowhere was this more apparent than in J. Lee Thompson’s CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, the toughest, most violent and political of the entire series and one of the best science fiction films of its time. Test audiences in 1972 were shocked by the film’s violence and call for revolution, so much so that the film was cut by over 9 minutes for fears of earning an R rating from the MPAA.

Fox issued the uncut edition as part of the Blu-ray Planet of the Apes 40th Anniversary Collection. I have the standard DVD version of the uncut Conquest.

My latest Nexus Graphic column over at SF Site centers on my visit to the 5th STAPLE! con.

I then go on to talk about several of the people I met. This issue’s reviews all tie in with STAPLE! including coverage on Alan J. Porter‘s James Bond: The History of the Illustrated 007 and the anticipated The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Century: 1910.

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

The Beats: A Graphic History by Harvey Pekar, et al (writer) and Ed Piskor, et al (artist)

Promo copy:

In The Beats: A Graphic History, those who were mad to live have come back to life through artwork as vibrant as the Beat movement itself. Told by the comic legend Harvey Pekar, his frequent artistic collaborator Ed Piskor, and a range of artists and writers, including the feminist comic creator Trina Robbins and the Mad magazine artist Peter Kuper, The Beats takes us on a wild tour of a generation that, in the face of mainstream American conformity and conservatism, became known for its determined uprootedness, aggressive addictions, and startling creativity and experimentation. What began among a small circle of friends in New York and San Francisco during the late 1940s and early 1950s laid the groundwork for a literary explosion, and this striking anthology captures the storied era in all its incarnations—from the Benzedrine-fueled antics of Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs to the painting sessions of Jay DeFeo’s disheveled studio, from the jazz hipsters to the beatnik chicks, from Chicago’s College of Complexes to San Francisco’s famed City Lights bookstore. Snapshots of lesser-known poets and writers sit alongside frank and compelling looks at the Beats’ most recognizable faces. What emerges is a brilliant collage of—and tribute to—a generation, in a form and style that is as original as its subject.

The Good Humor Man by Andrew Fox

Promo copy:

A witty tribute to Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, this surreal, futuristic narrative explores the highly topical relationships between obesity, government health care, pop culture, and body image. In a world where chocolate is worth more than cocaine on the black market, government-sanctioned vigilantes known as Good Humor Men patrol the streets, seeking to immolate all fattening food products as illegal contraband and summarily cancel the health insurance of any offenders. An evil nutraceutical company controls the food market with products engineered to keep the population painfully thin, while a mysterious wasting plague threatens to starve humanity. An ex-plastic surgeon whose father performed a secret liposuction surgery on Elvis Presley may hold the key to humanity’s future. Incorporating a colorful cast of characters—a civil servant with questionable motives, an acquisitive assassin, a power-mad preacher evangelizing anorexia, a beautiful young woman addicted to liposuction, and a homicidal clone from an experiment gone terribly awry—this satirical romp asks the question Can Elvis save the world 64 years after his death?

Blazing Combat by Archie Goodwin & various artists

Promo copy:

Written by Archie Goodwin and drawn by such luminaries as Frank Frazetta, Wally Wood, John Severin, Alex Toth, Al Williamson, Russ Heath, Reed Crandall, and Gene Colan, Blazing Combat was originally published by independent comics publisher James Warren in 1965 and ’66. Following in the tradition of Harvey Kurtzman’s Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat, Goodwin’s stories reflected the human realities and personal costs of war rather than exploiting the clichés of the traditional men’s adventure genre. They were among the best comics stories about war ever published.

Blazing Combat ended after its fourth issue when military post exchanges refused to sell the title due to their perception that it was an anti-war comic. Their hostility was fueled by the depiction of the then-current Vietnam War, especially a story entitled “Landscape,” which follows the thoughts of a simple Vietnamese peasant rice-farmer who pays the ultimate price simply for living where he does — and which was considered anti-war agitprop by the more hawkish members of the business community.

Writer Archie Goodwin and the original publisher James Warren discuss the death of Blazing Combat and market censorship as well as the creative gestation of the series in exclusive interviews.

I’ve got several impending deadlines so I’ll be laying low this week. Y’all behave yourselves and have a good time.

Sadly not terribly prolific, illustrator Kenneth Huey produced two outstanding comic book stories for me while I was at Mojo Press ("Inside/Out" in Creature Features and "Till The Cows Come Home" with Mark Evans in Weird Business) He also painted the beautifully disgusting back cover for Creature Features.

Prior to his work for me, Huey’s strange illustrated stories appeared in the bizarre anthology Commie From Mars.

He famously created the cover for the legendary Book of the SubGenius.

Luckily for us, Huey decided to make his sequential work available for everyone to enjoy.

I’m one of the special guests for the Alan Moore episode of the geek podcast The League of Extremely Ordinary Gentlemen.

It began with a discussion about Watchmen and devolved into many other subjects. Lots of comics, movies, Alan Moore, and other geek shit within. You can hear me diss the movie, Lord of the Rings, and Neil Gaiman.

I’m now putting a moratorium on my discussions about Watchmen for the foreseeable future. After three articles and countless talks about it, I’m so tired of the subject. Time to devote my energies on other far more interesting things.

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.

The Burning Skies by David J. Williams

Promo copy:

In his electrifying debut The Mirrored Heavens, David J. Williams created a dark futuristic world grounded in the military rivalries, terror tactics, and political wrangling of our own time and reinvented military science fiction as we knew it. Now he takes his acclaimed blend of military SF, espionage thriller, and dystopian cyberpunk one step further….

The world Claire Haskell knew is in tatters–her lover dead, her mission betrayed, her past a lie…. All that lies before her is a future built on memories that may not even be real. And the terrorist group Autumn Rain is hot on her tail.

The Rain was not destroyed, only wounded….and it’s quickly becoming clear that their ultimate goal is not simply to destroy the tenuous global alliances of the twenty-second century–but to rule all of humanity. And they’re starting with the assassination of the US president and violently takeover of the complex American computer networks known as the zone. Now it’s up to Claire to hack the networks of the enemy, outwit their attacks, and win this impossible war.

Battling ferociously across the Earth-Moon system and navigating a complex world filled with both steadfast loyalists and ruthless traitors, Claire fights to defend the president, the zone, and herself. But the true enemy may already be one step ahead of her.

World’s End (Age of Misrule Book 1) by Mark Chadbourn

Promo copy:

When Jack Churchill and Ruth Gallagher encounter a terrifying, misshapen giant beneath a London bridge they are plunged into a mystery which portends the end of the world as we know it. All over the country, the ancient gods of Celtic myth are returning to the land from which they were banished millennia ago. Following in their footsteps are creatures of folklore: fabulous bests, wonders and dark terrors As technology starts to fail, Jack and Ruth are forced to embark on a desperate quest for four magical items – the last chance for humanity in the face of powers barely comprehended.

Darkest Hour (Age of Misrule Book 2) by Mark Chadbourn

Promo copy:

The eternal conflict between the Light and Dark once again blackens the skies and blights the land. On one side stand the Tuatha de Danaan, golden-skinned and beautiful, filled with all the might of angels. On the other are the Fomorii, monstrous devils hell-bent on destroying all human existence. And in the middle are the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons, determined to use the strange power that binds them to the land in a last, desperate attempt to save the human race. Church, Ruth, Ryan, Laura and Shavi have joined forces with Tom, a hero from the mists of time, to wage a guerrilla war against the iron rule of the gods. But they didn’t count on things going from bad to worse …this is the stunning continuation of a powerful fantasy saga by one of Britain’s most acclaimed young writers.

Congratulation to Pyr editor and longtime RevSF booster Lou Anders on his third consecutive Hugo Award nomination.

Last night my neighborhood was in lockdown as the Austin SWAT confronted a "man [who] refused to surrender" after a "wellfare call." The whole thing ended after a five hour standoff with no one being hurt and the man brought into custody. Since it was in my ‘hood, I recorded my experiences via Twitter.

Bold are from the later news reports or commentary from me. Times are approximations since Twitter doesn’t record the exact time of a post. I share my tweets with Facebook but there is sometimes a lag.

9:41 PM trying to figure out why the cops are diverting traffic from Burnet down 47th (past my house). Access to Rosedale cut off at 47th also.

Austin Police Lt. Ockltree tells KEYE TV a check wellfare call came in shortly before 7:30p.m. Police aren’t releasing any other details but tell us the man inside refused to surrender.

10:04 PM SWAT standoff like one block from my house! http://tinyurl.com/cjnjhx Streets blocked off and everything.

10:07 PM More on SWAT standoff http://tinyurl.com/dn48bv

10:24 PM Cops are keeping everyone off the streets. It’s very quiet out there… hopefully, not too quiet.

Sgt. Mason with APD says, "That’s why were here, that’s basically why we shut down Burnet Road. To make sure that everyone is safe and if the person has weaponery and we don’t know at this point, but if there is some kind of danger. That’s why we shut down Burnet Road and the neighborhood is in lockdown."

10:30 PM Hope this resolves before bed. Not exactly easy to sleep with police lights flickering throughout the house.

I live on 47th between Burnet and Rosedale. Standoff on 46th between Burnet and Rosedale. I could see the flashing lights from both Burnet and Rosedale as cops blocked off the streets.

11:30 PM aluikart @rickklaw @iemilie @terrymtz @ctreada SWAT team has closed rosedale between 45th and 47th. almost wasn’t allowed back to my house.

Neighbor aluikart who is on Rosedale reached out to several of us via Twitter. I’ve included some of his tweets for a more complete picture.

11:30 PM aluikart good thing sarah was home – my license doesn’t have my rosedale address so i couldn’t prove i lived here. 46th is crazy dark right now.

11:35 PM Still no news and no movement. Just flashing lights.

11:40 PM aluikart this is no "omg plane just landed in hudson", but probably the most exciting few twitters i’ve ever twittered. UPDATE: no gun battles.

12:00 AM aluikart "YOU NEED TO COME OUT. WE CAN’T LEAVE UNTIL WE KNOW YOU’RE SAFE"

I assume this is SWAT talking to the man barricaded in the house.

12:25 AM aluikart okay, no more fucking around. those were gunshots.

12:25 AM Gunshots fired!

We both heard the shots. This very vague bit comes from the news report. "At one point while police were talking to a woman in the front yard, neighbors say they heard two gunshots."

12:28 AM A few moments of lots of cars moving on 47th then nothing but quiet after the shots.

12:32 AM some of the news trucks parked at Phoenicia [Bakery at 47th & Burnet[ have driven away. Burnet and Rosedale still closed.

12:35 AM aluikart lots of banging noises right now. not like the gunshots earlier. maybe they’re breaking the door down?

12:36 AM banging noises are from the garbage truck at Phoenicia. Watching out my window.

12:40 AM Garbage truck gone now. Any new clanking is from something else.

12:41 AM Another gunshot! Shotgun this time?

12:43 AM And now a cop car went zooming by on 47th toward Burnet!

12:45 AM According to @aluikart who is closer to the scene, it was an explosion

12:46 AM aluikart that rattled windows here. not that i’ve ever heard a shotgun before.

Police finally used [tear] gas on the man, and were able to get him out of the house without incident around 12:30 a.m. Thursday.

12:47 AM aluikart well, i didn’t see anything. i’m going to stop posting because i can’t see anything and don’t want to spread misinformation.

1:00 AM Ambulance passed my house on 47th and turned left on Ramses! No lights but heading toward scene.

1:22 AM Hearing what may very well be several gunshots

Have no idea what the noises were and probably never will.

1:26 AM Wish they’d end this standoff. I’d really like to go to bed now.

Course it was over but had no way of knowing.

1:40 AM Been very quiet for abt 15 minutes. No noise. No cop movements. Just some barking from the dogs in the neighborhood. They’re agitated.

1:54 AM Streets still blocked but been quiet for nearly 1/2 hour. Wonder if they forgot to tell the grunts blocking the streets?

1:58 AM Police van is gone from Burnet but street is still closed. As is Rosedale.

2:15 AM Guess it is over. Rosedale is open though Burnet is still closed. Figure out in morn. Off to bed.

So there you have it. A lil bit of excitement in my life as experienced via Twitter.