Customer Reviews

The Near Complete Essential Hembeck Archives Omnibus

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Dave Sim was the first to collect massive amounts of his comics (Cerebus) into modestly produced black & white newsprint paperbacks. Those were affectionately called "phonebooks." In the last ten years or so, Marvel copied that design for its Essentials series, and more recently DC has followed suit with its Showcase volumes. This Hembeck collection, though, is the first one that most closely resembles a phonebook, in both dimensions and number of pages.

If you don't know what you're getting, the main event here is that Fred Hembeck draws himself as comics character interviewing other comics characters. Sort of like Larry King. His encyclopedic knowlegdge of characters, creators, even specific issues informs every page, every gag, but he never comes across as pedantic or condescending. Before the "Official Handbooks" and "Who's Who's" from Marvel and DC, Hembeck was and still is the best guide to comics history for readers of a certain era. It's all done with love and affection for the medium and for the superhero genre, with a sensibility that never puts you down for once having had love and affection for the superhero genre. I also love the way he writes his characters as aware of themselves as comics creations but also alive in their own universes. Aware of the ridiculousness of their adventures, but still accepting them as experiences. It's a light-heartedness that genre comics these days is sorely missing.

Like a phonebook, this one has several distinct sections.

1. A brief section of comparatively recent auto-biographical pages telling the "origin" of Fred Hembeck, comics reader.

2. A complete reprinting, covers and all, of the early 80's "Hembeck" books published by Fantaco and Eclipse, which themselves largely reprinted his weekly one-page strips for The Comics Buyers Guide.

3. A complete collection of those 70's-80's era weekly strips that didn't make it in the original collections.

4. Obscure and little-seen fanzine work and illustrations

5. More obscure and little-seen actual stories, some previously published, some not.

6. His modern Dateline strips.

7. Some more recent work.

And in one of the sections, I forget which, there are some great superhero swimsuit gags!

The phonebook-like nature is both good and bad. At $25 minus the usual Amazon discount for 900 pages, there's no arguing about the reading value for your dollar. On the other hand, as others have noted, the print quality leaves something to be desired. The newsprint is barely thick enough to prevent the heavy black ink from bleeding through one side of the page to obscure what you're reading on the other. What's more, many of these pages are text-laden in Hembeck's hand-lettered style, but were originally printed at larger size. Here, far too many of those pages suffer from just enough dimension compression that the text is pretty small, and the denser text portions are difficult to read. Add to that some problems with ink bleeding or smearing, and some pages may be all but unreadable. What is "too many" of these pages will vary by reader; a quick skim of this whole book suggests probably a few dozen that will frustrate me.

A further difficulty is that, at 900 pages, many of them dealing with a different subject on each page, this book virtually requires an index. Instead, it doesn't even have page numbers. At the very least, a Table of Contents would help to identify the 7 different sections and multiple subsections. This is a book that invites casual reference over linear reading, except that these omissions render casual reference all but impossible. One might consider using small Post-its to flag favorite pages, but these might rip the newsprint. If a second edition is produced that includes either an index or a TOC (and page numbers of course) and no other improvement, I'd probably buy that upgrade and recycle this one.

Overall, this Omnibus is a great collection of nearly all things Hembeck. Hopefully its appearance will encourage Marvel and DC to rerelease in some form the work he did for those companies. In the meantime, this one ought to keep you busy enough.

One thing I have to say first...Hembeck Rules

NOW There are only two problems I have with this 900 page volume of strip reprints. Problem one is this book does not include such books like Fred Hembeck Destroys the Marvel Universe #1 July 1989, Fred Hembeck Sells the Marvel Universe #1 October 1990, The Spiderman book Fred did for Marvel and DC books as well. Problem two is the book is the size of the Manhattan phone book, so it is hard to carry around on long travel trip and takes up too much shelve space! ..OTHERWISE, I would not change a thing

This collection is a love song to comics and animation. This overstuffed volume reprints the seven books Hembeck did for Fantaco, The Dateline stuff from the Comic Buyers Guide and assorted other ideas and stories he has done over the years. His knowledge of Comic and media is an amazing feat. He acts like a comic pro in a fan's body. His encloypedic memory of comics long gone by as well as modern comics is a tresure why he has had a career for over 30 Years. And his Hembeck show should be revised and put in comics today for every comic fans to enjoy. I would think he would have much to poke fun at (the Fantastic Four Movie, Captain America's death, The anime style of Archies and even The Dark Knight)

He peppers his comic and media knowledge with a satire slap and a wicked wit unseen in a medium which needs a good poking every once and a while. He is the comic;s toastmaster general in my humble opinion. His love of comics, the artists and their work is one of those special gifts he shares with every comic he talks about or industry person poke or kids with. You cant hate his wit, just makes you want to get the books he pokes fun at.

With a short Intro by Stan "The Man" Lee (I say the greatest comic writer in the business), he makes the reader have another Merry Marvel Marching Society drive with his Stan's Soapbox. Stan himself did a FRED HEMBECK a year or so ago when he appears with a few of his own characters Stan Lee Meets the Marvel Universe, The Afterward by editor Al Gordon is a tribute to Hembeck appeal to a mass audience

Those fans of the DC Showcase books, the comic mini series Fanboy, or Marvel Essential volumes should be truly at home with this black and white strip reprint collection. Fred, I have a few Comic Buyer Guide strips pages of your work framed on my wall... nothing is changed. It is like a TIME WARP...So Lets do the Time Warp again!

For those on My space, look up Mr Hembeck and tell his you read my review! I will tell him myself one day, I hope it will make him smile

Many older comic book fans (Hell I am almost 50) will love being younger fanboys again when reading these Hembeck's strips. So Fred, PLEASE tell Marvel and DC to cough up the old books you did with them and get Image publishing to help you get another volume out!

With a pardon to Stan, EXCELSIOR FRED!

Bennet Pomerantz Audioworld

(Note you can view me on MY SPACE too)

If you're a Hembeck fan, you already know what he does, and you'll want this.

If you've never read him, he's the spiritual granddaddy of every snarky, funny comics blog on the web. But he snarks with love, celebrating the classic (Steve Englehart's Batman), the not so classic (Batman and Superman team up to humiliate Lois Lane at the altar), the nutso (pretty much any Jimmy Olsen strip), the obscure (Black Orchid before Neil Gaiman revived her), and the frankly insane (the super-hero version of Dracula, and no, I'm not making that up).

You may be a bit lost if you're unfamiliar with pre-Crisis DC Comics. On the other hand, if you're a fan of current DC, it'll explain more than a few obscurities, including the company's bewildering gorilla fixation.

Two caveats: First, as noted in the other reviews, this is missing Fred's Marvel and DC work -- the latter omission being a bit weird, since it's published by DC's Image imprint. Second, the smallest lettering is, as reproduced in this format, pretty much unreadable, and that's a danged shame. Not to mention physically painful. It's what stops me giving the book five stars.

I really do love Hembeck's stuff. He's a true fan and his work is fun to read, but that's just the problem with this collection. At times, it's almost impossible to read due to blurry text and bad printing. I understand corners had to be cut to be able to produce a volume this large at a reasonable price, but combine Hembeck's tendency for cramped text with cheap printing, and you get entire sections of the book that are just unreadable. I've even thought of buying a magnifying glass to be able to deciper some of the text.

Other than that, the material I can read, and there's a lot of it, is wonderful. The book reprints all of Fred' Fantaco books, and it's great to see those again.

If they ever do a high quality reprint, I'll happily buy it again.

It took me twelve months but I finally made it through all 900 pages (is that all?) of THE NEARLY COMPLETE ESSENTIAL HEMBECK ARCHIVES OMNIBUS! This is one of the most amazing collections of comics I have ever had the privilege of reading! Not only is this a (nearly) comprehensive collection of Hembeck's work as a cartoonist it is an uncanny insight into his personal life, his creative influences and the history of the comic book industry itself! Hembeck covers topics ranging from the origin of his own interest in comics as a youth, his favorite actors, movies and TV shows, musicians he admires, athletes and anecdotes from his career in comics...truly amazing! This is not just a collection of cartoons with knee squiggles! Highly recommended!

Comics have received much more critical attention in the past few decades with worthy works like, MAUS, WATCHMEN, and AMERICAN SPLENDOR all being critically admired. But where's the love for the comics like Superboy, Herbie, and Jimmy Olsen? You'll find that love and gentle critiques hilariously presented here by Fred Hembeck, one of comic's true originals.

Using his cartoon alter-ego, Hembeck has presented his love and knowledge of comics in a variety of different formats and outlets collected here in this massive book. Starting off with his autobiographical "Little Freddie" cartoons this book puts together most of Hembeck's work. The best section in my opinion is the collecting of his entire Dateline@!!?# books in one convenient package. These strips were Hembeck at his most focused and his art was detailed and expressive. But basically it was an exceptionally funny and affectionate portrait of the comics of the 50's and sixties. Obscure characters like "Iron Jaw" could be found alongside Superman (who had been transformed into a shark by Hembeck's "Grey" kryptonite-Starting to see how surreal this is?) and it all ties together. OK I'm gushing here, but if you love comics and you haven't picked this up you are cheating yourself out of a lot of laughs and some real insight.

So why not give it 5 stars? Well there is a problem. I guess the decision was made to get everything here at an affordable price, so quality was sacrificed. Printed on paper slightly better than your average phone book, there are sections that are illegible particularly in the latter sections of the book where the type becomes very compressed. Also Fred's classic destruction of the Marvel Universe was not available and the loss is felt. I love to revisit Hembeck's work and I just don't think this will hold up. But, that being said, I am very glad it became available and I have enjoyed looking back at comics with Fred Hembeck as my guide as much as I enjoyed reading these books in my youth. Thanks, Fred!

WHAT A BOOK!! This massive tome is a Fred Hembeck fan's (And there are many of us from the looks of it)dream! It took me years to track down all the Hembeck magazines that came out in the late 1970's and early 1980's, but now I have them all in this fantastic volume with TONS of extras! Much like Keith Giffen's AMBUSH BUG, either you "get" Fred or you don't. To me he is one of the funniest and most insightful cartoonists working today. His free conscience rants and knowledge of comic book history are a wonder to behold! I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes "funny" in their funny books!

Herein lies the greatest reason to disappear into the bathroom for hours at a time.

Be sure you have good lighting as the lettering is tiny and, as stated elsewhere, the printing not so good. Nonetheless, it takes one back to the smeary-inked world of comic books on newsprint, purchased from a spinner rack, as endlessly memorialized by the always amusing Fred Hembeck. He's like everyone's pal with a good collection and bottomless knowledge. Bravo!

If the name Fred Hembeck means anything to you, then you were probably reading comics in the `70s and `80s, when his signature depictions of nearly every hero and villain were everywhere, from mainstream books to fanzines. THE NEAR COMPLETE ESSENTIAL HEMBECK ARCHIVES OMNIBUS (what a title!) is a truly colossal and truly affordable collection of his works, including his complete Fantaco books, random strips, commissions, and personal pieces. As you no doubt can tell from the other reviews, none of his paid work for major publishers is collected here, meaning no material from The Fantastic Four Roast, Fred Hembeck Destroys the Marvel Universe, Marvel Age, or others. But don't fret - there's still enough material for 900 pages, and you will still see just about any character you can think of, whether they be mainstream, independents, extremely obscure Silver-Agers, or even Herbie Popnecker! While Hembeck may be more famous for his humorous pieces, the strips collected here often dip into very educational commentaries on 50 years of comic history, told through his eyes. The man loves comics, and it shows.

It's important to note that while the original collections were oversized, this book is in a more manageable 8 x 10" format, which leads to the text being much smaller than what your eyes may find comfortable. Some pages are packed full of very small text that doesn't read well, so I had to take a break here and there to let my vision readjust (he even recommends this in the introduction). There were a few pages that were very difficult to read (even approaching illegibility), so some sharpening of the resolution could have worked wonders, but when you're working in this format and type of paper, I guess it's unavoidable. Still, this is an excellent value for a collection of this magnitude, and it will leave you with a better understanding of comics.

Thanks Image for doing such a lousy print job on what should be a 5 star book. By trying to copy Marvel's Essential line Image has once again proven they have no new ideas, only cheap ways to copy others, with a bit of flash. Big smears of ink from the top to the bottom of far too many pages. Ink printed on so heavy as to obscure the dialogue, looks like one big mess. Pages that have heavy black areas on them bleed through to the other side, ruining that page too. I know some are going to say, oh he just got a bad copy. Been buying books for a long time. You can tell the difference between a goofed up print run and a overall shoddy job. If you're going to honor the man with a book this massive, do him justice by picking the right way to print the work so it can be appreciated. Not just the cheap way. Mr. Hembeck is a genius and please do not in anyway take my negative review against him or his work. As I said in my title, he deserves better than this, and so do his fans.