Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This time it really is the best., 27 Aug 2008
I've reviewed the other 'Mammoth Book of Best (fill in the blank) Comics' and had varying degrees of reservations about them all, usually to do with the word 'Best' in title, and that usually because the selections weren't genuinely inclusive, often, I surmise, because the compiler couldn't afford the reprint rights. I should also acknowledge that no two people would ever compile exactly the same Best list anyway.
This collection, however, combines breadth, depth and quality. The omissions of DC and Marvel stories isn't important this time because they weren't as important in this genre (except latterly for some Vertigo titles). A simple list of the contributors alone should have anyone with the slightest interest reaching for the add to basket button. Take a look at this-
An opening elegy for the gangster by Alan Moore; a short by Kirby & Simon, Jack 'Plastic Man' Cole including one image that freaked out Frederick Wertham; a surreal piece by modernist Charles Burns; a short sharp and sexy Spirit story (a mandatory inclusion); a 70-page complete daily strip written by Dashiel Hammett prior to leaving for the lucre of Hollywood and illustrated by then-newcomer Alex Raymond; legend Alex Toth; a 50page story featuring a 9-month pregnant private eye Ms Tree by Collins & Beatty; a Kane story by the talented and British writer/artist Paul Grist; Mickey Spillane writing Mike Hammer for a Sunday strip; and much much more.
The time span ranges from the 30's to the 90's, the contributors from America, Britain, and Europe.
Not all of it's perfect. Crime stories often look better in black and white so the removal of colour usually isn't a problem here. Usually. The two Bernie Krigstein stories look very thin compared to the other contributions. But that is the worst I can say and it's a minor quibble; Krigstein is historically important so I can understand why compiler Paul Gravett included him.
This is an excellent collection and certainly hands down the best of The Mammoth Book of the Best (fill in the blank) Comics.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb compilation, 24 Oct 2008
A great book that any comics fan would be happy to find in their Christmas stocking. Here are the full contents:
Old Gangsters Never Die by Alan Moore & Lloyd Thatcher (8 pgs)
Torpedo 1936: The Switch by Sanchez Abuli & Jordi Bernet (8 pgs)
The Money-Making Machine Swindlers by Joe Simon & Jack Kir by (14 pgs)
87th Precinct: Blind Mans Bluff by ? & Bernie Krigstein (32 pgs)
The Murderer of Hung by Dominique Grange & Jacques Tardi (8 pgs)
Murder, Morphine and Me! by Jack Cole (14 pgs)
El Borbah: Love in Vain by Charles Burnes (9 pgs)
The Spirit: The Portier Fortune by Will Eisner (7 pgs)
Secret Agent X-9 by Dashiell Hammett & Alex Raymond (80 pgs)
Commissario Spada:Strada by Gianluigi Gonano & Gianni De Luca (10 pgs)
Lily-White Joe by ? & Bernie Krigstein (8 pgs)
The Crushed Gardenia by ? & Alex Toth (8 pgs)
Ms Tree: Maternity Leave by Max Allan Collins & Terry Beatty (48 pgs)
Roy Carson and the Old Master by Colin McLoughlin & Denis McLoughlin (12 pgs)
Mary Spratchet by ? (9 pgs)
Alack Sinner: Talkin With Joe by Carlos Sampayo & Jose Munoz (27 pgs)
The Button by ? & Bill Everett (5 pgs)
Kane: Rat in the House by Paul Grist (32 pgs)
Who Dunnit? by ? & Fred Guardineer (6 pgs)
Mike Lancer and the Syndicate of Death by Mickey Spillane & Harry Sahle (6 pgs)
Mike Hammer: Dark City by Mickey Spillane & Ed Robbins (32 pgs)
The Court by Neil Gaiman & Warren Pleece (10 pgs)
The Sewer by Johnny Craig (8 pgs)
I Keep Coming Back by Alan Moore & Oscar Zarate (12 pgs)
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Not quite from hell, 7 Sep 2009
Paul Gravett has done a reasonable job of pulling together some of the iconic examples of crime comics in the history of the medium. I have to say, as a novice to this kind of specialised genre, much of it seems fairly crudely put together. All the examples are in black and white, and historically locked in the era of gangsters and molls. The artistic content veers between schematic and wonderfully detailed. As stories, however, they sometimes have a flavour of gritty decadence that tends towards the violent and are a long way from sensationalist trash.
The best of them have more to offer than what might be called `the blonde in a flimsy negligee school". In particular the Dashiell Hammett scripted Secret Agent X-9 drawn by Alex Raymond in 1934. This is classy stuff - a James Bond of it's time and full of charm, as is the British cartoonist Paul Grist's comic strips, in the style of the Hill Street Blues TV series. I also admired the Dominique Grange scripted The Murderer of Hung, drawn by Jacques Tardi and wonderfully evocative of both the horror of war-crime in Vietnam and the post-war bleakness of New York immigration.
A fascinating piece of comic history is provided by the strip which comes from the Crime Does Not Pay series which featured "Who Dunnit" comic strips with a crime in which all the actors have a motive and the reader has to follow the clues which lead them to correctly identify the murderer. The episode featured here concerns a French family in which there is plenty of jealousy and hatred and the reader's task is to determine who among four suspects murdered the wife and daughter of Monsieur Lavelin, a criminal lawyer. There is also a Mickey Spillane script, drawn by Ed Robbins and an Alan Moore scripted strip loosely based on his eviscerating graphic novel From Hell, which dissected the Victorian murders of Jack the Ripper. You will need a strong constitution for that one, but sadly the strip here only gives a hint of the power of From Hell.
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