Description

The first book in Fantagraphics' new Atlas Artist Edition series collects the best work of Marvel's top artist of the 1950s in a lush, lavish, full-color, oversize collector's volume, scanned directly from the original printings and meticulously restored and presented in a wealth of detail never seen before. Joe Maneely was known for his draftsmanship, his versatility, and his speed. He could draw horror, science fiction, war, crime, Madstyle humor, Westerns, and funny animals with equal dexterity. His tactile, chiaroscuro graphic approach to storytelling has made him a legend among the comics cognoscenti, but because he never drew superheroes and his life ended tragically at age 32, he has never been given the attention his short but incandescent career deserves. Until now. As Geoffrey C. Ward wrote in American Heritage, "Maneely's knowledge of 19th century artifacts was encyclopedic, his rumpled, unshaven cowboys all wore the right hats, swung the right lariats, sat in the right saddles, fired the right model Colts - with every screwhead and trigger guard and notched handle precisely rendered." And that's only his Westerns. That tightly focused attention to detail pervades his work in every genre. The Atlas Artist Edition Vol. 1: Joe Maneely, presents a cornucopia of Maneely's work for Marvel (then called Atlas) including Westerns (Kid Colt, Black Rider, Ringo Kid, Wyatt Earp, Two-Gun Kid), pre-Code horror ("Haunted!", "The Raving Maniac", and the classic "Your Name Is Frankenstein"), space opera (Speed Carter), war (Combat Kelly), Mad-style parodies from the pages of Crazy and Riot, cold-war intrigue and paranoia (Yellow Claw), and Maneely's pride and joy - his Arthurian champion, The Black Knight. Series editor Dr. Michael J. Vassallo provides expert contextual and historical commentary in a special essay for this volume. Dr. Michael J. Vassallo is the pre-eminent expert on the Timely/Atlas period of Marvel's history. He co-wrote The Secret History of Marvel Comics (Fantagraphics Books, 2013) and edited Atlas at War (2020) and Timely Confidential: When the Golden Age of Comic Books Was Young (2017). He has written extensively for the Marvel Masterworks series and maintains his own Timely/Atlas Comics blog. He lives in New York.