The Compleat Cannon [Paperback]

Wallace Wood (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2001

The Compleat Cannon reprints the entirety of cartoonist Wally Wood's classic sex and violence strip from the 1960s. Super-spy John Cannon is the American's answer to James Bond, fighting the Cold War with a license to kill.

Wally Wood is of course the legendary cartoonist known for his contributions to the original Mad magazine. Always regarded as one of comics' great craftsmen, Cannon is simply one of the most beautiful strips ever produced. Featuring outrageous parodies of pop culture icons of the time, the Cold War, and the secret agent genre, Cannon is Wood at his most gregarious and incisive, working on one of the few projects in his career where he had no editorial constraints.

Like Fantagraphics' The Compleat Sally Forth, also by Wood, this oversized collection includes a section of never-before-seen Cannon ephemera in the form of sketches, notes and annotated information about the strip.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Fantagraphics Books; annotated edition edition (May 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560974257
• ISBN-13: 978-1560974253
• Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 10.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,318,246 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun, trashy and politically incorrect masterpiece, September 2, 2003

By 

TheIntruder - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Compleat Cannon (Paperback)

I have mixed feeings about this. I don't want to like it, but I do! Canon doesn't appeal to your intellectual side and doesn't pretend to. Women are shown in the nude for no aparent good reason, the politics makes no sense and, as the introduction states, Peter Canon as a character never develops much throughout the strip. It also ends rather abruptly as if someone pulled the plug on it and Wood was forced to bring it to a close prematurely. There are many sub-plots which are left dangling.
Basically Canon is a James Bond-type character, only much less glamerous and more mentally screwed up. He gets involved in fighting the communists from China and Russia and in fictional Middle East politics. Anyone who knows anything about history can tell you that the politics is basically bull, but you just have to go along with it. Its a plot driven rather than a character driven story and Wood does surprise with some very unexpected plot twists. The book is about 130 pages long but you'll probably find its best taken in small doses of around 15 pages.
No complaints on the art front. If you like old school comic art, this is for you. He draws amazing scenes, usually in small panels, and gets in a lot of detail.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great fun, April 17, 2008

By 

wiredweird "wiredweird" (Earth, or somewhere nearby) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Compleat Cannon (Paperback)

Wally wood was an outstanding comic artist, possibly one who never received due praise during his life. Well, here's a chance to catch up.

This wonderful comic arose at the confluence of several forces. One was the "Comics Code," basically an industry self-censoring organization that arose after a series of bizarre 1950s excesses by the comic publishers as well as those convinced that comics were the devil's own. This "compromise" left the whip firmly in Mrs. Grundy's hand. A second force drove fictional spies to the forefront of entertainment culture: James Bond, The Man from U.N.C.L.E, Mission Impossible, and numerous others, all spawned by the Cold War that seemed never to end. America provided the third force, its armed forces in Vietnam - sort of like a jungle full of frat boys, but without the civilizing influences.

Wood dove headlong into that maelstrom, or male-storm, if you prefer. His artistic reservoirs filled to overflowing with racy imagery and episodes, but were dammed by the Comics Code. Somehow, he found an un-Coded outlet in a newsrag that the Army published for the boys (back then, they were pretty much all boys) in uniform. For the big boys in uniform - big boys who liked big girls. Wood's numerous female leads shared three common features: a massive bust (that's two) and an aversion to clothing. Uber-macho John Cannon strode into that scene like a stallion among mares in heat, but even this relatively liberal outlet stopped short of showing exactly how hot. This was paid for by taxpayers, after all.

If you don't mind some bulbous idealization of womanly figures, this provides a great mix of improbable adventure, strong artwork, unclad (but figleafed) babes, and minimal attention span.

-- wiredweird