My top five classic comics recommendations of 2018

Without a doubt, this has been a great year for fans of classic British comics. Not only have Rebellion published a dozen or so books reprinting strips from bygone years but other publishers jumped in too with impressive collections! It hasn't been easy whittling it down to five, but here are my personal choices from the past 12 months or so, in reverse order, of the best that I think deserve a place on your bookshelf...

In 5th place...

BLACK MAX. This fantastic horror/war story first appeared in Thunder (and later Lion and Thunder) in 1970. Story by Frank Pepper. Art by Eric Bradbury (on episode 1) and Alfonso Font, who also provided a new cover!
https://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2018/09/preview-black-max-volume-1.html

In 4th place...

KEN REID'S CREEPY CREATIONS. A marvellous hardback collection of Ken Reid's full page monsters that appeared in Shiver and Shake in 1973/74. Reproduced in glorious full colour.
https://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2018/10/ken-reids-creepy-creations-ready-to-pre.html

In 3rd place...

BEANO: 80 Years of Fun. Not a book as such, but a boxed set of comic facsimiles and goodies. Marvellous reprints of key issues of The Beano from the past 80 years. 
https://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2018/07/beano-80-years-of-fun-box-set.html

In 2nd place...

MARNEY THE FOX. The exciting and emotional saga of Marney the orphaned fox cub, fighting for survival in the British countryside. Wonderful artwork by John Stokes (who provided a new cover) and top class scripts by Scott Goodall
https://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2017/11/review-marney-fox.html

...and the winner in 1st place is...

THE POWER PACK OF KEN REID. Actually a two-book set, although each one can be bought separately. Everyone had given up hope of ever seeing these strips reprinted, but thanks to the hard work and dedication of independent publisher Irmantas Povilaika, all of Ken Reid's amazing 1960s work for Odhams was collected into these incredible books. Superb reproduction throughout, and thankfully the poor colour printing that some pages suffered from back then have been reproduced in crisp greyscale. My favourite books of the year!
https://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2018/07/review-ken-reid-his-complete-wham-smash.html

Next on this blog, the last post of 2018 and a classic New Year comic from the year.... wait and see!