The DC Heroes & Villains Collection Extension Issues 101 to 110

I've blogged about the 20-volume extension to the DC Heroes & Villains Collection a couple of times now, and posted repeatedly in the DC Heroes & Villains Collection Facebook group, but those posts have been somewhat piecemeal in nature, and not everyone has the time, patience or, frankly, interest in putting the various pieces together. So I thought a straightforward rundown of the first ten releases in the extension might be of more use, along with a little additional background.

First out of the blocks, and already in some readers' clammy hands, are issues 101 and 102, namely Batman: Universe and Justice League vs. Suicide Squad, both of which I wrote about in this post, along with issues 103 and 104:

The Joker: The Series and Batman: Ten Nights of the Beast, which will be published later this month and early in the new year. Having already blogged about all four of the initial volumes in the extension, I shan't dwell on them here... except to say that as magnificent as Batman: Universe and Justice League vs. Suicide Squad are – and as huge a book as the latter of those two is, at nearly 300 pages – The Joker: The Series and Batman: Ten Nights of the Beast are even more special because they're unique to the DC Heroes & Villains Collection: bespoke volumes collecting, respectively, all of the mid-1970s The Joker series – including the 'lost' 10th issue – plus two key Denny O'Neil, Neal Adams and Irv Novick issues of Batman, and the first half of Jim Starlin's late-1980s Batman run, including the classic Ten Nights of the Beast. On top of which, both books are chock-full of bonus features.

Speaking of the Joker and bespoke volumes – and indeed big extents – later in January there's issue 106, The Joker: Vengeance. Collecting all 21 chapters of the lead storyline from James Tynion IV, Guillem March and co.'s 2021–2022 15-issue The Joker series – for my money one of the best extended comics storylines of the last five years – it's one long twisty-turny suspense thriller in one unique 328-page graphic novel. Just ahead of that book there's issue 105, the visually spectacular The Man of Steel, featuring showstopping art by, among others, Jim Lee, Jason Fabok, Steve Rude, Ryan Sook, Kevin Maguire and Adam Hughes, and then in February we have releases 107 and 108:

Batman: The Cult and Justice Society Returns! I vividly recall reading both of these on original publication, in 1988 and 1999 respectively, which is true of a good many of the comics in the DC Heroes & Villains Collection, and an indication of how personal the collection is to me (although personal preference obviously wasn't the only criteria for the selection of the stories). Published a couple of years after Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Jim Starlin and Bernie Wrightson's The Cult was only the second Batman miniseries to be published in the then-relatively new upmarket Prestige Format, and thus felt like a very different kind of Batman comic when I picked it up off the shelves of Forbidden Planet on Denmark Street: one seemingly set in current continuity, but bearing the influence of the dystopian Dark Knight Returns, as Starlin readily admitted. 

The Cult was a high-profile project for DC at the time, whereas the Justice Society Returns! event flew very much under the radar in 1999, yet was a revelation for me: a terrific introduction to the Justice Society of America (with whom I was only passingly familiar at the time) ahead of the JSA series which launched in its wake, by the architects of that series, James Robinson and David S. Goyer, plus the likes of Mark Waid, Geoff Johns, Ron Marz, Chuck Dixon, Michael Lark, Eduardo Barreto, Peter Snejbjerg, Stephen Sadowski, Chris Weston and Russ Heath. Moreover, the format of the event – two issues of a revived All Star Comics bookending seven resurrected Golden Age titles, with the story reflecting the way JSA stories of the past saw the team splitting up into smaller units – was a really nice idea.

With both Batman: The Cult and Batman: Ten Nights of the Beast in the extension, it's only fitting that the remainder of Jim Starlin's stint as Batman writer be included too, which it will be in March, in the shape of issue 109, Batman: A Death in the Family. Collecting not just that notorious storyline but the issues either side of it, it's another bespoke volume and boasts some terrific bonus content, including Jim Aparo's original art pages for the alternate outcome of Batman #428 alongside their coloured and lettered counterparts, which were only belatedly published this year. A 400-page follow-up volume, Batman: Under the Red Hood, will be published later next year – I'll blog about that book nearer the time – but before then, and rounding out the initial ten releases in the extension, we have issue 110, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. Originally published from 2021–2022 as an eight-issue miniseries, Tom King and Bilquis Evely's celebrated sci-fi fable is a story that I suspect a lot of people will be interested in reading, due to the Craig Gillespie/Milly Alcock movie currently in pre-production.

The 2017 Big Long List of the Books, Graphic Novels and Comics I Read This Year

Below is a list of the books, graphic novels and comics I read over the course of 2017, in pretty much the order in which I read them – aside from the periodical comics, which I read monthly, or bimonthly, or on whichever bizarre schedule their respective publishers and creators chose to issue them.

In years past I've assembled top tens or even twenties of the best books/graphic novels/comics I read over the preceding twelve months, but I didn't do that last year and I shan't be doing it this year either. Instead, I'll simply note in passing that out of everything I read in 2017, probably the best things were Paul Auster's The Music of Chance, Joe Haldeman's The Forever War (the book which this year reignited my fervour for SF), John Varley's The Ophiuchi Hotline, Alastair Reynolds' Diamond Dogs, Revelation Space and Redemption Ark, M. John Harrison's Light, and Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds' The Medusa Chronicles. Four of those I wrote about in 2017 (follow their relevant links in the list); the other two, Light and The Medusa Chronicles, both extraordinary books in their own ways, I might get round to writing about at some point. Happy New Year!

Novels, Graphic Novels, Comics
A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene (Heinemann, 1936/1960)
War of Kings Omnibus by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Paul Pelletier et al (Marvel, 2016)
King-Cat Comix #76 by John Porcelain (King-Cat, 2016)
The Music of Chance by Paul Auster (Faber, 1991)
Paul Auster's City of Glass by Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli (Avon, 1994) (reread)

Libby's Dad by Eleanor Davis (Retrofit, 2016)
Elseworld's Finest: Supergirl & Batgirl by Barbara Kesel and Matt Haley (DC, 1998) (reread)
Justice Vols 1–3 by Jim Krueger, Doug Braithwaite and Alex Ross (DC, 2006) (reread)
"Churchill's Men", "St. Ethelberga and the Angel of Death" and "The Terrorists" by Michael Gilbert
Various David Mazzucchelli short stories in various anthologies
Ghoulash by Sam Hiti (LaLuz, 2006)
Ghoulash 2 by Sam Hiti (LaLuz, 2009)
Thanos: The Infinity Revelation by Jim Starlin (Marvel, 2014)
Thanos Vs. Hulk by Jim Starlin (Marvel, 2014)
The Mother's Mouth by Dash Shaw (Alternative, 2006) (reread... I think)
Batman: Year One Deluxe Edition by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli (DC, 2005) (reread)
The Infinity Entity by Jim Starlin and Alan Davis (Marvel, 2016)
Thanos: The Infinity Finale by Jim Starlin and Ron Lim (Marvel, 2016)
Our Mother by Luke Howard (Retrofit, 2016)
The Thanos Quest by Jim Starlin and Ron Lim (Marvel, 1990) (reread)
Diary Comics by Dustin Harbin (Koyama, 2015)
Melody by Sylvie Rancourt (Drawn & Quarterly, 2015)
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1975)
Kramers Ergot 9 by various (Fantagraphics, 2016)
JLA: Rock of Ages by Grant Morrison and Howard Porter (DC, 1998) (reread)
The Belfry by Gabriel Hardman (Image, 2017)
Light by M. John Harrison (Gollancz, 2002)
Slow Bullets by Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz, 2017)
The Voyeurs by Gabrielle Bell (Uncivilized, 2012)
(Most of) Galactic North by Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz, 2006)
The Medusa Chronicles by Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz, 2016)
Revenger by Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz, 2016)
The Centauri Device (novella) by M. John Harrison (F&SF, January 1974)
Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days by Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz, 2003)
Mindbridge by Joe Haldeman (Futura/Orbit, 1977)
Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz, 2000)
The Ophiuchi Hotline by John Varley (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1978)
Vague Tales by Eric Haven (Fantagraphics, 2017)
Nova by Samuel R. Delany (Sphere, 1971)
In the Ocean of the Night by Gregory Benford (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1978)
The Kurdles by Robert Goodin (Fantagraphics, 2015)
400 Billion Stars by Paul J. McAuley (Gollancz, 1988)
The Infinity Gauntlet by Jim Starlin, George Perez and Ron Lim (Marvel, 1991) (reread)
The Night of the Trolls, in Bolo by Keith Laumer (Millington, 1977)
3001: The Final Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke (Voyager, 1997) (possibly a reread; I can't actually recall if I've read it before)
Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz, 2001)
Night Passage by Alastair Reynolds, plus other stories in Infinite Stars (Titan, 2017)
Crickets #6 by Sammy Harkham (Fantagraphics, 2017)
Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz, 2002)
Various P. M. Hubbard short stories (F&SF, 1953–1969)
The Gritterman by Orlando Weeks (Particular, 2017)
Tarantula by Alexis Ziritt and Fabian Rangel Jr. (AdHouse, 2017)
In the Hall of the Martian Kings by John Varley (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1978)
The World of Ptavvs by Larry Niven (Orbit, 1978)

Started but Nowhere Near Finished
A Legacy of Spies by John le Carre (Viking, 2017)

Started in 2016 but Still Nowhere Near Bloody Finished
Found in the Street by Patricia Highsmith (Heinemann, 1986)

Periodical Comics
East of West by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Dragotta (Image)
The Black Monday Murders by Jonathan Hickman and Tomm Coker (Image)
The Dying and the Dead by Jonathan Hickman and Ryan Bodenheim (Image)
Kill or Be Killed by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (Image)
Secret Empire by Nick Spencer and various (Marvel)
All New Guardians of the Galaxy by Gerry Duggan and Aaron Kuder (Marvel)
Lazarus/Lazarus X+66 by Greg Rucka, Michael Lark and various (Image)
The Old Guard by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernandez (Image)
The Visitor: How and Why He Stayed by Mike Mignola and Paul Grist (Dark Horse)
The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard (Image)
Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang (Image)
Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples (Image)
Stray Bullets by David Lapham (Image)
Injection by Warren Ellis and Declan Shalvey (Image)
The Wild Storm by Warren Ellis and Jon Davis-Hunt (DC)
Curse Words by Charles Soule and Ryan Browne (Image)
Mage: The Hero Denied by Matt Wagner (Image)
Maestros by Steve Skroce (Image)
Aliens: Dead Orbit by James Stokoe (Dark Horse)
Punisher: The Platoon by Garth Ennis and Goran Parlov (Marvel)
Dark Nights: Metal by Scott Snyder and various (DC)

Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy: The Ultimate Guide to the Cosmic Outlaws and Ultimate Sticker Collection by... Me!

Well, me and a bunch of editors and designers and picture researchers at DK and Amazing15, not to mention the writers, artists and editors at Marvel – among them Arnold Drake, Gene Colan, Jim Starlin, Bill Mantlo, Steve Englehart, Keith Giffen, Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Paul Pelletier, Andy Schmidt, Bill Rosemann and Brian Michael Bendis – who had a hand in creating and expanding upon the Guardians of the Galaxy in comics. But anyway; Guardians of the Galaxy: The Ultimate Guide to the Cosmic Outlaws and Guardians of the Galaxy: Ultimate Sticker Collection have now been published by DK in the UK and US, and since I wrote both of them, and copies turned up in the post yesterday, I figured they deserved a blog post.

Of the two, I guess I'm proudest of The Ultimate Guide, if only because I put so much into it – a period of five or six months over summer of last year establishing the structure and running order, doing the research (which essentially entailed reading or in some cases rereading a bunch of old comics), selecting images (which again essentially entailed reading or in some cases rereading a bunch of old comics) and writing. (My abiding memory of this period is of pacing round the garden trying to get my brain cells sparking in between feverish bouts at the keyboard.) But it's also the thing of having written a book – not cowritten, as in The Mysterious World of Doctor Strange, or written a bit of, as in my essays in the first volume of Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future and last year's Murder in the Closet or an entry or two in The DC Comics Encyclopaedia, or edited, as in the countless books and graphic novels I've, well, edited; but written. Actually written.

Obviously it's not a peerless work of literary genius or owt, but it's a pretty good read, I think, with hopefully a compelling structure which I strived to make not only chronological – as is traditional in these DK comics guides – but narrative as well, tracing the wider Marvel cosmic events that brought the disparate Guardians of the Galaxy together (about a quarter of the book concentrates on matters to do with Annihilation and Annihilation: Conquest, which took place before Star-Lord, Rocket, Gamora, Groot and Drax were even a team), buffeted them and then blew them apart, and taking care on each character spread to only detail those events that had happened to that character up to the point they entered the wider narrative (if that makes sense). Whether anyone will notice or even care about my efforts to make the book something you can satisfyingly read front to back almost as a story as well as dip in and out of – especially the kids the book is aimed at – is open to debate, but I'm pleased my structure made it through the process intact.

As for the Ultimate Sticker Collection, that for me was an exercise in brevity (not something that comes naturally to me, as anyone who's read Existential Ennui can attest), as I tried to squeeze info about the Guardians and their allies, enemies and worlds into 25-word captions in an entertaining fashion. I didn't get as involved in choosing images as I did on The Ultimate Guide – not least because The Ultimate Guide was taking up so much of my time (I was writing both books concurrently) – but I gave what directions I was able to, and the end result is a lot of fun (my three-year-old daughter can't wait to get sticking).

So there you have it. The books exist. You can buy them right now (for instance here and here). And if you're unfamiliar with the Guardians of the comics – not just the Star-Lord-led team but the original 31st-century Vance Astro-led team too – and fancy finding out about them ahead of the second Guardians of the Galaxy movie (which opens in a few weeks), perhaps you'll consider doing just that.

David Mazzucchelli Comics: Short Stories in Various Anthologies, 1991–2013

At the apex of his relatively brief career in superhero comics – he drew his first comic for Marvel, Master of Kung Fu #121, in 1983 and had all but left the genre by 1987 – David Mazzucchelli helped redefine and reshape superhero storytelling with two acknowledged classics, both in collaboration with Frank Miller: Daredevil: Born Again (originally serialized in 1986 in Daredevil #227–233) and Batman: Year One (originally serialized in 1987 in Batman #404–407). (I read both on original publication and still consider the latter in particular among the best comics I've ever read.) When Mazzucchelli spoke to The Comics Journal in 1997 he told interviewer Christopher Brayshaw that he left superhero comics for three reasons: that he was not a violent person, and so had no connection to the fisticuffs aspect of superhero comics (quite a big component of the genre); that the schedule of doing a monthly comic "was starting to drive me nuts"; and that the kind of work he liked in other media – film, literature, the performing arts – was very different to the kind of work he himself was doing, in terms of "Subject matter, approach, attitude, everything."

His final work for Marvel (officially; in 1992 he inked a single page of Evan Dorkin's Bill & Ted's Excellent Comic Book, uncredited) appeared in issue #40 of the anthology Marvel Fanfare (October 1988), a story written by Ann Nocenti titled "Chiaroscuro". In many ways it pointed the way forward for the cartoonist, displaying a looser, more expressionistic line and featuring almost no superheroics (there's a four-panel silhouetted fight sequence on the first page, and the X-Man Angel is the ostensible lead, but otherwise the story is grounded in a suburban milieu).

Mazzucchelli worked from a plot rather than a full script, but he wanted to go further – to write as well as draw his own stories. Set free from the confines of the superhero genre he embarked on a succession of formally challenging, exciting, intriguing, sometimes moving, sometimes perplexing art-comix projects. He's since understandably become best known for the more substantial of these – his three-issue anthology Rubber Blanket; his and Paul Karasik's 1994 graphic novel adaptation of Paul Auster's City of Glass; his 2009 masterwork Asterios Polyp. But in amongst those longer projects he contributed numerous shorter pieces to various anthologies. Characterized by a restless inventiveness, some of these stories are possessed of an extraordinary depth and sophistication; others are more fun and light-hearted; but all are considered, thoughtful, and well worth seeking out.

I already had in my comics collection a good number of the anthologies in which Mazzucchelli's work appears, and I recently got hold of a few more; and having just written a profile of Mazzucchelli for the Marvel Fact Files – concentrating naturally on his superhero work – I figured I might write a blog post on some of those smaller and in some cases lesser known works. This blog post, in fact.

One of Mazzucchelli's earliest post-superhero pieces can be found in the third issue of Nicholas Blechman's anthology Nozone, published in 1991 (the same year as the first issue of Rubber Blanket). The theme of the issue – Nozone has a different one each issue – is "Destruction", which in Mazzucchelli's hands becomes "Cold Truth", a wordless two-page story about the tension between the pleasures of making and, well, unmaking.

Mazzucchelli contributed to Nozone twice more, in issues #5 and 6. Copies of Nozone are quite hard to come by, especially in the UK, but as well as finding #3 on eBay I was fortunate enough to come across a copy of #6, the "Crime" issue (1995), in one of my local comic shops, Dave's Books in Brighton. There's no Mazzucchelli short story inside Nozone #6; instead the cartoonist contributes the terrific front and back covers, which tell their own fleeting tale of crime and punishment.

A little easier to get hold of than Nozone are the two issues of Drawn and Quarterly Mazzucchelli contributed to. In Vol. 1 #9 (July 1992) he drew two very short stories: a meditative one-pager on the inside front cover, "Hear the Atoms Splitting", and a jarringly sardonic, aptly angular two-pager, "A Brief History of Civilisation".

Two years later, he contributed the much longer, much-admired "Rates of Exchange" to Vol. 2 #2. Done after he finished City of Glass, Mazzucchelli said of the story (in the aforementioned Comics Journal interview), "I think it's one of my best stories. I think the writing in particular, and by writing I mean the narration and the dialogue and the structuring of it as a story visually is... it was definitely a step for me."

In 1993 Mazzucchelli contributed a story to the third issue of Fantagraphics anthology Snake Eyes (another recent eBay acquisition of mine; I believe he also contributed to the first issue, but I haven't got hold of a copy of that yet; perhaps if – when – I do I'll update this post). In some ways "Phobia" can be considered a precursor to City of Glass; Mazzucchelli told Christopher Brayshaw that he showed the story to Art Spiegelman at the same Angouleme convention where Spiegelman later asked if Mazzucchelli would like to be involved with the City of Glass project (of which Spiegelman was one of the instigators), and it has similar noir trappings, although in the case of "Phobia", these are put to the purpose of satirising the luridly violent stories Mazzucchelli was seeing at the time in mainstream comics. Handily, The whole of "Phobia" can be read on Brian Michael Bendis' tumblr.

Mazzucchelli contributed to another Fantagraphics anthology, Zero Zero, three times during its 27-issue run. The first time was in the second issue, dated May/June 1995, with "Stop the Hair Nude", an uncomfortable and clammy but stylistically virtuoso story about a Japanese censor's obsession with female pubic hair. (A year later he contributed another Japanese-themed story, "Midori", to the first issue of Kodansha anthology Manga Surprise!, but I haven't seen hide nor hair of that – so to speak.) His next contribution, "Stubs" in #11 (August 1996), is in a much lighter vein, although even here there is depth in Mazzucchelli's examination of the folly of youth personified in a pencil. But Mazzucchelli's best Zero Zero story is the final one he contributed, to the anthology's final issue (Summer 2000): the quiet, reflective, drifting, abstract "Still Life" (another Japan-influenced tale which I understand originally appeared in Manga Surprise! #2).

Speaking of Fantagraphics publications, there's a lovely two-page Mazzucchelli comic in The Comics Journal Special Edition Volume One (Winter 2002) – "The Boy Who Loved Comics". Making the most of the oversized 12" square format, with deft lifework and bold use of CMYK colour, stylistically it has a fair bit in common with the later Asterios Polyp, as this blog post by Chris McCarthy points out.

Mazzucchelli contributed to two fairy tale-themed anthologies published over a decade apart. In 2000 his bittersweet take on the Japanese legend "The Fisherman and the Sea Princess" appeared in Little Lit: Folklore & Fairy Tale Funnies (RAW Junior/HarperCollins), while in 2013 the more comedic "Give Me the Shudders", based on a Brothers Grimm story, appeared in Fairy Tale Comics (First Second). At ten pages, "Give Me the Shudders" is one of the longer Mazzucchelli anthology short stories I've come across (beaten only by "Rates of Exchange"), and is also, I believe, his most recent work.

A few other short Mazzucchelli pieces I have in my collection are, I think, worthy of note in this context. Negative Burn #17 (Vol. 1, 1994 – again another recent eBay acquisition) reproduces pages from Mazzucchelli's sketchbook – not a must-have, by any means, but still, I'd say, of interest to the Mazzucchelli enthusiast (speaking as one myself). His contribution to Evan Dorkin's Superman and Batman: World's Funnest (DC, 2000), on the other hand, is well worth a look – a four page homage to Jack Kirby's Fourth World which Mazzucchelli spent months perfecting. Lastly, the 2005 edition of Batman: Year One boasts not only copious extras – samples, roughs, marked-up script pages, even Mazzucchelli's first comic page, drawn at age six – but an afterword(s) taking the form of four one-page comics about the artist's personal history with, and feelings about, Batman and superheroes.

Paul Auster, David Mazzucchelli, The Music of Chance, City of Glass

I've been thinking about Paul Auster and David Mazzucchelli quite a bit lately. I bought this the other week in Lewes's Bow Windows Bookshop.

A 1991 Faber first edition of The Music of Chance, signed by Auster on the title page.

Years ago I saw (on the telly, and then again on a video I taped off the telly) and loved Philip Haas's 1993 film adaptation of the novel, starring Mandy Patinkin and James Spader, and with a new novel from Auster due in a matter of days (4321, a breeze block of a book which seemingly explores similar territory to Kate Atkinson's Life After Life), I figured now was as good a time as any to read the source text. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot of what I loved about the film – its theme of fate versus free will, of how life can seem both dizzyingly random and crushingly predetermined – is present in the novel, although I don't recall there being much of Jim Nashe's aimless road trip in the film – where I think he picks up hitchhiking gambler Jack Pozzi pretty early on – whereas in the book the opening 20 pages are given over to Nashe's zigzag across America, a segment I found exhilarating in its freedom and irresponsibility, and even more so when weighed against the oppressive, increasingly nightmarish situation – building a pointless wall at the behest of a pair of vindictive, manipulative millionaires – Nashe and Pozzi wind up in.

Thinking about Auster got me thinking about David Mazzucchelli, and led me to suggest to the Marvel Fact Files (who I write a fair bit for) that I do a profile on the cartoonist. I've only read one other Paul Auster novel – 1992's Leviathan – but I have read Mazzucchelli and Paul Karasik's graphic novel adaptation of City of Glass, Auster's debut novel (under his own name; he published a crime novel, Squeeze Play, as Paul Benjamin in 1982).

I read it in 2004, when it was reissued by Picador, having been unable to lay my hands at the time on its 1994 Avon original edition – this being before the internet became a thing on which you could buy pretty much anything. Whereas nowadays a copy of that Avon edition, which was published as part of the Neon Lit: Noir Illustrated series spearheaded by the late Bob Callahan (who provides a thoughtful introduction to the Avon edition) and the not late Art Spiegelman (who provides an illuminating introduction to the Picador edition), can be had online for as little as a penny (plus postage).

The other day I reread City of Glass – in its Avon edition, which I bought online for as little as a penny (plus postage) – and it remains a remarkable, formally inventive piece of comics, part PI mystery, part rumination on chance and circumstance and destiny. Mazzucchelli described it (to Indy Magazine's Bill Kartalopoulos) as not so much an adaptation as a translation from one language to another, further noting in a Comics Journal interview that there was nothing visual about the original novel. As a result, in sections the naturalistic style Mazzucchelli adheres to for much of the narrative veers off into symbolism and iconography, notably during the sequences dealing with the character Peter Stillman's damaged mind.

For background to the Marvel Fact Files piece I dug out my collection of Mazzucchelli comics: Daredevil #226–233 (Mazzucchelli and Frank Miller's brilliant, revolutionary Born Again storyline); Batman #404–407 (the same pairing's even more brilliant, even more revolutionary Year One story); issues #1 and 3 of Mazzucchelli's Rubber Blanket anthology (I don't own the elusive #2, and nor do many other people); various issues of Drawn & Quarterly and Zero Zero containing Mazzucchelli strips; Superman and Batman: World's Funnest, which features a four-page sequence where Mazzucchelli channels Jack Kirby; Asterios Polyp, Mazzucchelli's 2009 graphic novel; even the second issue of Bill & Ted's Excellent Comic Book, one page of which was apparently inked, uncredited, by Mazzucchelli (although I've no idea which one). I think I have Marvel Fanfare #40 as well, which contains a Mazzucchelli-drawn story featuring the X-Men's Angel, but if I do have it it's somewhere in the loft in one of two dozen comic boxes. And there are other Mazzucchelli short stories in various anthologies that I don't own; perhaps if I get my hands on some of them, and track down that Marvel Fanfare, I'll do a post on Mazzucchelli's short stories.

The 2016 Big Long List of the Books and Graphic Novels and Comics I Read This Year

Here, for the sake of posterity, as if anyone's remotely interested, is pretty much everything I read in 2016, in roughly the order in which I read it. Not many novels... lots of comics and graphic novels... lots of Guardians of the Galaxy and Marvel space opera (see here for why)... lots of Hickman: this was my 2016 (in reading, anyway). Happy New Year.

Novels, Graphic Novels, Comics
The Ultimates by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch (Marvel, 2005) (reread)

The '44 Vintage by Anthony Price (Gollancz, 1978)

The Private Eye by Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin (Image, 2015)

Pilgrim on the Island by Desmond Cory (Frederick Muller, 1959)

Mills by Manning O'Brine (Herbert Jenkins, 1969)

The Little Prince by Joann Sfar (Walker, 2010)

Crambo by Manning O'Brine (Michael Joseph, 1970)

Copra Round Three by Michel Fiffe (Bergen Street, 2015)

Secret Warriors vols 1–6 by Jonathan Hickman, Stefano Caselli et al (Marvel, 2009–11)
S.H.I.E.L.D.: Architects of Forever by Jonathan Hickman and Dustin Weaver (Marvel, 2011)

The 6 ​Voyages of Lone Sloane by Phillippe Druillet (Titan, 2015)

​Secret Avengers: Run the Mission, Don't Get Seen, Save the World by Warren Ellis et al (Marvel, 2012)

No Earth for Foxes by Manning O'Brine (Barrie & Jenkins, 1974)

Astonishing X-Men: Ghost Box by Warren Ellis and Simone Bianchi (Marvel, 2009) (reread)

Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis by Warren Ellis and Kaare Andrews (Marvel, 2011)

​Fantastic Four: Dark Reign by Jonathan Hickman and Sean Chen (Marvel, 2009)

Avengers by Jonathan Hickman vols 1–3 (Marvel, 2015–16) (reread)
New Avengers by Jonathan Hickman vols 1–2 (Marvel, 2015–16) (reread)
Infinity by Jonathan Hickman, Jim Cheung and Jerome Opena (Marvel, 2014) (reread)
Ultimate Comics: The Ultimates by Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribic (Marvel, 2011–12) (reread)
Avengers: Time Runs Out by Jonathan Hickman et al (Marvel, 2016) (reread)
Secret Wars by Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribic (Marvel, 2016) (reread)

​Revenger: Children of the Damned by Charles Forsman (Bergen Street, 2016)

Ultimate Comics Thor by Jonathan Hickman and Carlos Pacheco (Marvel, 2011)

Ultimate Comics Hawkeye by Jonathan Hickman and Rafa Sandoval (Marvel, 2012)

Ultimate Spider-Man: Death of Spider-Man Fallout by Brian Michael Bendis, Jonathan Hickman et al (Marvel, 2011)

Patience by Daniel Clowes (Jonathan Cape, 2016)

Annihilation Conquest Omnibus by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning et al (Marvel, 2015)

Guardians of the Galaxy by Abnett and Lanning Omnibus (Marvel, 2016)

Black Dog: The Dreams of Paul Nash by Dave McKean (Artist's Edition, 2016)

Megg and Mogg in Amsterdam by Simon Hanselmann (Fantagraphics, 2016)

The City of Mirrors by Justin Cronin (Orion, 2016)

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man vol 1 by Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli (Marvel, 2012)

Fantastic Four Omnibus vol 1 by Jonathan Hickman, Steve Epting et al (Marvel, 2013)
Fantastic Four Omnibus vol 2 by Jonathan Hickman, Steve Epting et al (Marvel, 2014) (reread)

​The Mighty Thor vol 1 by Matt Fraction and Olivier Coipel (Marvel, 2011)

Mister Wonderful by Daniel Clowes (Jonathan Cape, 2011)

Nicolas by Pascal Girard (Drawn & Quarterly, 2016)

​"Cash on Delivery"/"Soft Drink"/"Bed and Breakfast": three short stories by P. M. Hubbard (Argosy, 1969–70)

Mooncop by Tom Gauld (Drawn & Quarterly, 2016)

​Astonishing X-Men: Exogenetic by Warren Ellis and Phil Jiminez (Marvel, 2010)

Billy Hazlenuts and the Crazy Bird by Tony Millionaire (Fantagraphics, 2010)

Absolute Kingdom Come by Mark Waid and Alex Ross (DC, 2006) (reread)

Amazing Fantastic Incredible by Stan Lee, Peter David and Colleen Doran (Simon & Schuster, 2015)
The Demon by Matt Wagner (DC, 1987)
"Give Till It Hurts: A Christmas Story" by Donald E. Westlake (Mysterious Bookshop, 1993)
Various Guardians of the Galaxy and Marvel cosmic comics​, including: Marvel Presents #3–12 by Steve Gerber and Al Milgrom (Marvel, 1975–77) (part reread); Guardians of the Galaxy by Jim Valentino (Marvel, 1990); Annihilation by Keith Giffen et al (Marvel, 2006) (part reread)
Various Marvel comics – research for Marvel Fact Files articles, including: Spider-Verse: Warzones! by Mike Costa and Andre Araujo (Marvel, 2015); Secret Wars 2099 by Peter David and Will Sliney (Marvel, 2015); Civil War: Warzones! by Charles Soule and Leinil Yu (Marvel, 2015), The Ultimates: Omniversal by Al Ewing and Kenneth Rocafort (Marvel, 2016); Moon Knight: Dead will Rise by Brian Wood and Greg Smallwood (Marvel, 2015)

Ongoing Periodical Comics
Kill or Be Killed by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (Image)
Velvet by Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting (Image)
Criminal 10th Anniversary Special by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (Image)
The Black Monday Murders by Jonathan Hickman and Tomm Coker (Image)
East of West by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Dragotta (Image)
Sex by Joe Casey and Piotr Kowalski (Image)
Hellboy in Hell by Mike Mignola (Dark Horse)
Captain America: Steve Rogers by Nick Spencer and Jesus Diaz (Marvel)
Captain America: Sam Wilson by Nick Spencer and Daniel Acuna (Marvel)
Guardians of the Galaxy by Brian Michael Bendis and Valerio Schiti (Marvel)
Civil War II by Brian Michael Bendis and David Marquez (Marvel)
DC Universe: Rebirth by Geoff Johns et al (DC)
Wonder Woman by Greg Rucka and Liam Sharp (DC)
Lazarus by Greg Rucka and Michael Lark (Image)
Jupiter's Legacy by Mark Millar and Frank Quitely (Image)
The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard)
Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang (Image)
Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples (Image)
Stray Bullets by David Lapham (Image)
James Bond by Warren Ellis and Jason Masters (Dynamite)
Injection by Warren Ellis and Declan Shalvey (Image)
Vile by Tyler Landry (Study Group)

Started but Nowhere Near Finished
Found in the Street by Patricia Highsmith (Heinemann, 1986)
A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene (Heinemann, 1936)
War of Kings Omnibus by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning et al (Marvel, 2016)

Linked in this Friday's Forgotten Books round-up.