Thursday, February 26, 2015

2015 Reading Challenge Book 041 America's Best Comics trade paperback

TITLE-Alan Moore's America's Best Comics
AUTHOR-Various writers plots assists by Alan Moore
FORMAT-Trade Paperback
FIRST TIME READING-No
COST-$3.33

Besides a Promethea cover collection,which I got cause it was extremely cheap and got me to the free shipping limit on the site,this is the only other things I have read from  the DC's ABC comic line.I was at my regular con. And a dealer had a spinner rack packed with overstock trades. They were $5 a piece or 3 for 10.I dropped around 90 bucks and he ended up letting me get 30 trades instead of 27.
The trade is a sampler of the America's Best Comics line.Reprinted is the ABC 64-Page Giant,The Many Worlds of Tesla Strong and the ABC Sketchbook.

The 64-page giant reminds me of the last year or so of DC's Adventure Comics. When it became a digest that was stuffed with reprints of a strange bag of heroes. I am assuming this comic was meant to be a jumping on point for new readers. The Promethea 30's style comic strip has nice artwork and is fairly well written.The handful of Jack B Quick one pagers is a nice homage to Golden age comics. With a very Tom Swiftian boy genius.The Top Ten story was decent,but I was expecting a lot more. I guess it was cause I had heard so much praise for Top 10.I am a huge Sergio Aragonnes fan and of course enjoyed his First American story.The best for art and story from this issue is the Splash Brannigan story written by Alan Moore. With Kylie Baker artwork.

The Tesla Strong story has so many artist working on it. With each of them doing a few pages. After having so many 4 or so page stories getting a nice long story was a refreshing change. All of the art is well done. The Peter Hogan and Alan Moore story is so good that I added every appearance of Tesla Strong to my want list.

The sketchbook has some interesting art. But it just made me want to read more stories with Splash Brannigan and/or The Greyshirt. The Greyshirt is a very Shadow like vigilante. And Splash has the powers of Spiderman's foe Hydroman,and the personality of the Golden Age Plastic Man.

To me the 64-page giant is worth the $3.33 I paid for this issue. Then you got the really really really good Tesla Strong story.And almost added bonus of a decent sketchbook.I need to find more comics from the defunct line soon.


Alan Moore's America's Best Comics Trade Paperback gets a 4.45 outta 5.