Go Yoe!

As far as I'm concerned, Craig Yoe is one of the heroes of the comics industry. With his Yoe Books imprint he's made long-forgotten, out of print American comics accessible again through his range of books. Rare comics that were burnt on bonfires in the notorious anti-comics campaigns of the 1950s live again in relatively affordable collections to be seen by those of us who weren't around then. History, even pop culture history, is too important to be cast aside.

I was therefore dismayed this week to find that Yoe Books had been savagely criticised as "a disservice to comics history" in an article by a representative of a rival publisher, based mainly on the books not looking as slick as the way they would have presented them. It read like sour grapes. (Yoe Books present the old comics as they were printed - off-register imperfections and all, - which in my view is far better, and more faithful,  than any slick restoration or garish recolouring.)

Admittedly the rival publisher (Fantagraphics) has produced many great books on old comics too, but there was no need to publicly slag off a competitor. It came across as very unprofessional. The comics industry doesn't need such spite and negativity. 

Thankfully, the article brought out people who expressed their support of Craig's work, and I'm one of them, which is why I'm posting this link to his site to help promote his books. If you're interested in comics history, go Yoe! 
http://yoebooks.com

U.S. Spotlight: HORROR BY HECK

I've always liked the work of Don Heck and thought the dismissal of his style by some people overlooked the talents he had. After all, this was a guy who was one of the main artists at the dawn of The Marvel Age of Comics in the 1960's. He was the co-creator of Iron Man and had a memorable stint on The Avengers amongst other comics. Before that he illustrated many short stories for non-superhero genres. Now Craig Yoe and his Yoe Books team have compiled a hardback selection of Don Heck's great 1950s horror comics stories in the latest volume of The Chilling Archives of Horror Comics. 

Horror By Heck is a faithful reproduction of those forgotten strips and proves what a great artist Don Heck was. The choice of cover image was obvious, - it had to be the notorious bullet wound cover from Horrific No.3 (Jan 1953) but Yoe Books take it a stage further and it's an actual die cut hole in the cover! Ban this filth! No, sorry, BUY this filth!

Hardback, 160 pages. $24.99

ISBN: 978-1-63140-463-4