Tom of Finland: The Comic Collection (Boxed Set) (Set v) [Box set] [Hardcover]

Durk Dehner (Compiler), Dian Hanson (Editor), Touko 'Tom' Laaksonen (Illustrator)

Book Description

Series: Boxed Set | Publication Date: June 1, 2005

The Comic Collection is the only compilation of Tom of Finland's popular panel stories. Each of five 192-page volumes features eight or more complete stories, including all twenty-seven episodes of Kake, Tom's infamous ultimate leatherman. The stories are arranged chronologically in books sized to fit perfectly in one hand, with the whole set appropriately housed in a black ?leather? display box. For boys who like boys who like art, this attractive package is not to be missed.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 960 pages
• Publisher: Taschen; 5-Volume edition (June 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3822838497
• ISBN-13: 978-3822838495
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 4.2 x 2.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,329,487 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dian Hanson was born in Seattle, Washington, November 2, 1951. A hippie and high school drop out, she moved east at age 20, first to Oxford, Mississippi, then Allentown, Pennsylvania, finally settling in New York City in 1976 to work on the sex magazine Puritan. Over the next 25 years she edited magazines including Partner, Oui, Adult Cinema Review, Harvey, Hooker, Juggs and Leg Show. She founded the magazines Outlaw Biker, Hawgs, Big Butt, Bust Out and Tight. In 1993 Hanson became friends with Benedikt Taschen, and in 2001 she finally agreed to leave sex magazines and take over the Sexy Book division of TASCHEN Publishing. She currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband, the novelist Geoff Nicholson.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars What's next...Tom POSTAGE STAMPS!, August 4, 2005

By 

Wayne Randall Morrison "BOOTPUNK" (Pittsburgh, PENNSYLVANIA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Tom of Finland: The Comic Collection (Boxed Set) (Set v) (Hardcover)

What the heck is wrong with the people at TASCHEN and the Tom of Finland Foundation anyway!?!? It's praiseworthy indeed to perserve and protect erotic artwork, but why allow it to be REDUCED to the size of a postage stamp?

The coolest feature about the ART OF PLEASURE (the ORIGINAL ONE, that is) was the fact that FINALLY someone had published a book of Tom's illustrations that reproduced them LARGE enough to appreciate the DETAIL and thus the GENIUS of this man's art. So, last year they shrink down the size of the re-released ART OF PLEASURE, and THIS YEAR they publish this ridiculously TINY comic(al) collection!

This is a crying SHAME! ALL these cool illustrations, many not seen in 20-30 years, have been reduced to POSTCARD PROPORTIONS...what a sad insult this is to the memory of the greatest erotic artist of all time!

Recently, some of this artwork became available in single volumes, in the traditional 8.5 x 11 magazine format...so why in the heck did anyone feel the need to collect and then SHRINK Tom of Finland's wonderful artwork down to this limp little compilation?

This is the 21st Century - there is NO LONGER any need to make these books so TINY that they can be easily hidden in the corner of someone's CLOSET!

If you can't do it right, STOP DOING IT!!

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars GORGEOUS REPRODUCTIONS--BUT THEY'RE CROPPED!, February 21, 2006

By 

John J. Schauer (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tom of Finland: The Comic Collection (Boxed Set) (Set v) (Hardcover)

I can't agree with most of the niggling in other reviews about this set. The images are beautifully reproduced in crystalline detail, many of them in rich duo-tones, and the binding is a beautiful black leatherette with rich-looking gold-foil lettering and line images. The small size is no drawback, either-it gives a jewel-like aura to the whole set, and while some previous collections (such as one I first purchased in the 1980s) used an 8-1/2 by 11 format, they also reproduced four panels to a page, so that the actual pictures were no larger (and considerably less well reproduced).

HOWEVER, in comparing this set with previous ones, I noticed that where the original drawings had no distinct boundaries, the pages here are circumscribed by a hairline box, which results in the images being "cropped"-that is, a small amount of the drawing on each side is cut off. In most cases the overall effect is not too damaging, but there are images of group scenes in which what had been full figures are reduced to merely a hand or a nose. Considering that this is presumably meant to be a "definitive" publication of all of Tom's cartoons, I'm amazed that the Tom of Finland Foundation would permit this sort of trimming.

That being said, I must add that overall I think they did a beautiful job, and the price is very modest for a collection of this quality.

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars right on!, August 31, 2005

By 

Grumpy Reader "greader" (Spain) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tom of Finland: The Comic Collection (Boxed Set) (Set v) (Hardcover)

The other review says it all. Just want to add that I notice Amazon doesn't bother to put the books' dimensions into the Product Details. Hmmmm, I wonder why . . .