ajc.com 2008 Holiday Guide

Feeling troubled because you've got no idea what to get that comics connoisseur or nostalgia nut on your gift list?

Let the AJC's comics reviewers come to the rescue with a few suggestions:

Dean Young & Melena Ryzik (ENLARGE)

'Blondie' The Bumstead Family History

(ENLARGE)

The Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy Dailies & Sundays, 1933-1935, Volume Two.

Pantheon Books (ENLARGE)

'The Complete Persepolis' by Marjane Satrapi.

HarperCollins Publishers (ENLARGE)

'Howtoons' The Possibilities are Endless. Saul Griffith, PhD, Nick Dragotta, Joost Bonsen.

HOLIDAY GUIDE How not to be the jerk of the party  Northside's top stories in 2007  New Year's resolutions shrinking  A how-to for the perfect thank-you

Artist Maira Kalman's chromatic paintings and photos in The Principles of Uncertainty(Penguin Press, $29.95) won't make many readers think of comics, but they meet at least one definition: sequential pictures as narrative. She uses them in a down-to-earth journal-style meditation on death, life and meaning that includes a devilishly clever depiction of philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein's radiator.

"Retired" comics genius Alan Moore shows how his interests in magic (not prestidigitation) and in story exist along the same continuum with his third adventure involving the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. As Mina Harker and Allan Quatermain struggle to keep the Black Dossier (America's Best Comics, $29.99; violence, nudity) of the title away from spies "Jimmy" Bond and Emma (pre-)Peel, Moore's allusive espionage epic becomes a stunning testament to the transfigurative power of fantasy.

Oblong and spiral-bound, The Marvel Vault (Running Press, $49.95) includes a minimalist, mostly visual history of the company that gave us Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four. The comics art it reproduces is diverse and handsome (especially the Black Knight stuff), and also noteworthy are facsimiles of such promo materials as Marvel Value Stamps and a Merry Marvel Marching Society fan club kit.

The Complete Persepolis (Pantheon, $24.95; violence, harsh language) gathers both parts of Marjane Satrapi's auto-biographicomic under one cover. Her simply illustrated, movingly written account of the Iran-Iraq War and its consequences for her family looks better than ever in this new edition, which arrives just ahead of an animated film adaptation.

Need a stocking stuffer for the adult Dungeons and Dragons fan in your life? Try Alex Robinson's wry yet ultra-violent Lower Regions (Top Shelf, $6.95; violence, nudity), which details an underground quest by a battle-ax-wielding shero.

The comics stories in Howtoons (Collins, $15.99) instruct kids in various projects, including ice cream cookery, counting in binary and construction of such amusements as a PVC marshmallow shooter and duct tape "armor." The book also offers tips on the use, care and organizing of tools.

Two shorter tales open James Sturm's America: God, Gold and Golems (Drawn & Quarterly, $24.95), but what makes the book indispensable is its revival of Sturm's out-of-print instant classic "The Golem's Mighty Swing." That story, about a fictitious 1920s minor league baseball team whose gimmick is dressing one of its players like the monster-hero from Jewish folklore, brings to sepia-toned life an obscure American past.

Although suggested for three to six players, teenage to adult, three test players agreed The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Game (All Things Equal, $24.99; [Supply the favorite cartoon text and win!]) would work best for four or more lightly inebriated, full-grown smart alecks who don't know one another very well. In other words, a good icebreaker for your Mensa buddies.

With its supremely elegant, silver-embossed black cloth cover, The Kat Who Walked in Beauty (Fantagraphics, $29.95) is a contender for most gorgeous book of 2007. Its contents, mainly cartoon maestro George Herriman's wide-format "Krazy Kat" comic strips from 1920, make its beauty far more than skin deep.

For the manga reader, and parents of same, there's probably no better choice than Manga: The Complete Guide by Jason Thompson (Del Rey Books, $19.95).

This exhaustive guide provides mini-reviews of nearly every manga ever translated to English, article-length descriptions of the various genres of manga (including the racy ones) and lots of cultural notes in the introduction and afterword. The reviews are sharp (if occasionally off the mark ... when panning some of my favorites, anyway), not even sparing its publisher's weaker product. The non-review content is even better, working as an overview and history of an entire medium. This book is a superb primer for manga in general.

Marvel Comics' wall-crawling webslinger gets the superstar treatment in Spider-Man, the Icon, by Steve Saffel (Titan Books, $49.95; all ages). This lavish, full-color, 300-page-plus tome gives all the scoop on Spidey and tosses in a foreword by creator Stan Lee as well. But don't worry about reading — you'll be too busy looking at all the pictures of Peter Parker and his alter ego from comics, magazine covers, movies, action figures, bubble bath bottles, Happy Meals, bar stools, Macy's parade balloons — you get the idea.

Once nearly forgotten, newspaper comics — particularly the story strips — are being collected into archive format and discovered by the public. There's no strip more worthy than the one that made Milton Caniff famous. Terry and the Pirates: 1934-1936 (IDW Publishing, $49.95. Teens and older; stereotypical ethnic depictions) is all you could want in a comics collection: authoritative introduction with photos, Sunday strips in color and crisp, clear reproduction on the dailies. Best of all, you get to sail away into adventure on the South China Sea with Terry and his pal, adventurer Pat Ryan, the Chinese cook Connie, and such supporting characters as the treacherous Dragon Lady. And yes, at least in this first volume, there are pirates! Even in his debut, Caniff shows remarkable skill at illustration and storytelling, and you can almost see them improve day by day.

For more about Caniff and his other creation, see "Meanwhile ... A Biography of Milton Caniff, Creator of Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon" by comics historian R.C. Harvey (Fantagraphics, $34.95).

And then there's the classic cop of the comics. The Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy (IDW Publishing, $29.99; teens and older, violence) has two volumes so far, with the third due soon. Volume 1 (1931-1933) and 2 (1933-1935) each have introductory material but the meat is the sharply reproduced strips. The Sunday comics are in black and white, but that's the only flaw — if it is one — in this package. Start with Volume 1 if you want Tracy's origin; wait for Volume 3 if you want to sample Tracy approaching his prime. You also might look for Chester Gould: A Daughter's Biography of the Creator of Dick Tracy by Jean Gould O'Connell (McFarland & Co. $45).

Another comic that deserves the archive treatment — but doesn't get it here — is Blondie. Blondie: The Bumstead Family History by Dean Young and Melena Ryzik (Thomas Nelson, $29.99; all ages) resembles your family photo album as assembled by your censorious great-aunt: All the family secrets have been covered up or left out. What remains in this book is a pleasant if somewhat innocuous assortment of Blondie strips from the last couple of decades, plus a carefully chosen handful from their marriage in 1933. You'd never know, for example, that Dagwood never used to be seen without his pipe. The book does look at the decision a few years back to turn Blondie into a working mom, and it reprints all the strips from the 75th anniversary celebration in 2005 (including the ones by other cartoonists). If you love the Blondie strip and don't care about its history, you'll probably enjoy this book.

Batman debuted in comic books in 1939 and by 1943 he had his own newspaper comic strip. It only lasted a few years but that's not for lack of quality; the strips were produced and drawn by the same teams working on the comic books. Batman and Robin vanquish crooks of all kinds in Batman Sunday Classics 1943-1946 (Sterling Publishing Co., $14.95) and Batman, the Dailies 1943-1946 (Sterling Publishing Co., $20; all ages).

For very serious aficionados of comic strip history, there's The Early Years of Mutt & Jeff: 1909-1913, Jeffrey Lindenblatt, editor (NBM Publishing, $24.95; all ages). Cartoonist Bud Fisher began a comic starring A. Mutt on the sports page of a San Francisco newspaper in 1907. Eventually the tall Mutt paired up with the short guy Jeff and the two became a sort of comics vaudeville act — and nationwide hit. Now you can find out why ... if you're interested.

Finally, a gift that will please any comics reader on your list: Hogan's Alley. This "magazine of the cartoon arts" is produced in Atlanta by editor Tom Heintjes, but draws stories and expertise from around the world of cartooning. The content is always eclectic and varied reading; the current issue's topics include Brewster Rockit, comics in the Christian Science Monitor, Little Lulu, Disney's never-made "Gremlins" cartoon, how smoking is depicted in the comics, the Total TeleVision cartoon studio that created Underdog, photos of how several artists hold their pencils, and much more. Publication is irregular but worth waiting for. Issue 15, now on newsstands, is $6.95. Or subscribe, four issues for $22.95, at www.hoganmag.com.