7 Days of Stack Week – Part 11: In Tom’s Place the Books Stack You!

It's that time of year again. In what's become an annual tradition here at iFanboy we have our version of Shark Week on Discovery. It's STACK WEEK! 



What exactly is STACK WEEK?  It is identifying that lurking sense of dread in your own home. You have invited a sinister element into your home and it isn't leaving anytime soon. Books…made of pictures.

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I wish my books were in a stack. They would be in one place and I would know what they are up to. I have a accumulated a few books in my time and they have grown tired of laying in the bedroom waiting to be finished. I have a tendency to be reading a bunch of books at the same time so while I don't have a huge backlog, they hang around for awhile. They have taken the persona of house guests who have become slightly too comfortable in my home. Stacks are for strangers, friends spread out. 

Showcase Presents Aquaman Vols 1 -3

These are for the podcast. In paging through these beauties I am stunned by the artwork in these Aquaman stories. Ramona Fradon and Nick Cardy are amazing artists and seeing the work in black and white only emphasizes their skill. It seems silly but being able to give an octopus emotions through art is a rare skill.  The books got tired of waiting for me to finish them so they started their own audio adventures podcast. It is called Page Turners Incorporated. It is an erotic thriller series dealing with the sexy adventures of Abigail Stocking, literary agent and former model.

Tor: A Prehistoric Odyssey

I am sucker for Joe Kubert art. He is a superb storyteller whose style is unmistakable. Joe Kubert drawing dinosaurs and four armed giants is always going to work for me. This nice hardcover ran out of the house last week. I left the door open to air out the place after a weekend of leather tanning when it jumped out the door. I left birdseed out and I see it pop up on the porch every couple days or so, but it ain't an inside book anymore.

Legion of Super-Heroes: The Great Darkness Saga – Deluxe Edition

I had the original issues but I gave them to Chris Neseman and they are probably on his stack. A slow simmering epic of a story that is now available in a beautiful hardcover edition. Levitz was and is the master of weaving a ton of B plots into a much larger A plot that you don't see coming right away. I could sit and stare at the Giffen cover for hours alone. My copy fell ill during the winter. It has been taking all of its correspondence in the guest room and survives on broth and bread. It insists that its humors are off. 

 

Showcase presents Bat Lash

The idiosyncratic western character has a mini showcase with yet more amazing Nick Cardy art. Impressively contemporary for its age, it combines traditional western action with a non traditional western hero. Aragones' plots still carry great humor while allowing the artists to draw knock out action scenes. If you love Jonah Hex you need to give this a shot.   I am saving this one for my next mult- hour air plane flight. It is on the move quite a bit, but it is never far from our knives. Sorry, ITs knives.

 

Showcase Presents Adam Strange, World's Finest, Wonder Woman, and Batman

I have a Showcase problem…in that I don't have ENOUGH of them. Actually most of these were gifts. I will get in the mood for a certain type of story and snag one of these to read. I can go months without looking through them and then suddenly get an urge for a Kanigher Wonder Woman story. These have taken residence in the guest bathroom and spend their days muttering vague threats.

Essential Tales of the Zombie

This was total impulse buy. I really loved the Essential Frankenstein's Monster, so I wanted to try out other Marvel Horror books. I have always heard good things about it so I snagged a copy at a local store. It now lives in my dryer. Any attempt to use the dryer means a zombie groan and the angry fluttering of pages. It is easier to just hang my clothes out to dry.

 

 

The Dylan Dog Case Files, Batman R.I.P., Essential Marvel Horror

The Essential Horror book is the only one I haven't read. The other two in the picture are the ones it was able to convince to help it recreate the 1992 baseball season through strat-o-matic. While I dig it's taste in retro gaming,  I actually regret buying it a bit. I have flipped through it a couple times and haven't seen anything that grabs me. It has an affection for the 1992 Milwaukee Brewers so we fight over that deck of cards quite often. Batman R.I.P. insists on being the ump for the game, which doesn't make sense but it keeps the book busy.

 

Eerie Vol 1

Another purchase based just on the art. I have heard the stories are great but the purchase was made based a quick flip through an open copy. I have developed a taste for horror in the last few years. I love the one and done format and the art tends to be of the highest caliber.  It is a TV hog and won't let me watch anything but Pawn Stars and American Pickers, even if it is an episode it has already seen. It even hacked my Netflix account to up my account to 3 disks at a time, which is crazy.

 

B.P.R.D : Plague of Frogs Vol 1

One of my favorite series featuring one of my favorite characters. Abe Sapien is endlessly fascinating and has surpassed, for me, Hellboy as the main draw of the Mignola universe. It is into making ceramic statues. It signed up for a class at the local community center and has somehow been getting over there by itself. All it makes are frogs. Frog dishes. Frog ash trays. Big Frogs. Little Frogs. This is its frog period.

 

75 Years of DC Comics

This giant book is the biggest trouble maker. I have to schedule time to sit with it. I just get lost in it when I start flipping through it. I took its dust jacket off and now it has gone crazy. It walks around the house in  a seersucker coat sipping mixed drinks. I tried to tell it that it shouldn't be wearing that outfit until Memorial Day. It barks back that this is Earth-Scotch and that it is ALWAYS cocktail hour. I caught it watching me sleep this past weekend.

 

The lesson learned? These books are only going to stay in their stacks for so long. Once they get the wanderlust you are in trouble. They wear your jackets. They steal your knives. They make passes at your wife. Finish now or regret it later. 
 

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Tom Katers has seen how his wife acts around his copy of Absolute All Star Superman.