Several people told me about this treasury-sized (10 1/2 x 14 1/4") collected edition of Harold Hedd comics by Rand Holmes, but I had never been able to find a copy for myself.

When I had found it on eBay, it was going for astronomical prices, and to make things even more confusing, there are several later editions of the book that look exactly the same except they are not treasury-sized.

Thankfully, generous Treasury Friend Alan Hutchinson had a copy and offered to scan for me both covers so I could finally include it here on the site. Thanks Alan!

32 pages, black and white.

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This is a very spiffy, treasury-sized (10 x 14 1/2") hardcover edition of stories drawn by that master of detail, Geoff Darrow.

This edition is entirely in French, so I have no idea what's going on here, but of course Darrow's work is beautiful to look at, and at this size you can see every little line and piece of detail Darrow crams into every panel.

On top of that, there's even a four-page, poster-sized fold-out in the middle of the book. They spared no expense with this, that's for sure.

As you can see on the back cover, there are several other editions of Darrow's work. This is the first one I've ever come across, so I don't know if these are treasury-sized, as well...but I aim to find out!

80 color pages.

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This was another one of those very ambitious projects, that were started with all good intentions, that never ended up going anywhere.

This is, as the cover suggests, a collection of classic comic strips from the 1930s--The Nut Bros., Smokey Stover, Salesman Sam, Mike and Ike, plus random strips from people like Milt Gross and Dr. Seuss.

In the opening page editoral by Rick Marschall, he indicates that Fantagraphics hopes this will be the first of many, annually-released editions of these strips, in this giant, tabloid size. Of course, this was the only issue ever released in this format.

56 black and white pages.

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Now this is cool!

Untamed Love is a 9.5 x 12.5" black and white collection of romance stories drawn by the legendary Frank Frazetta.

Published by Russ Cochran, the four stories are reprinted from Personal Love (published by Eastern Color), which ran from 1950-1955.

Of course, all the art is exquisite--I can only imagine what it must have been like to be a kid, opening a 10 cent copy of Personal Love, and reading stories drawn this brilliantly. Seeing them this size--and in crisp black and white--is a wonder to behold.

There's also a two-page "preview" of another Frazetta collection published by Cochran, Thun'da, King of the Congo. I have no idea whether this is also in the treasury-size, but I'm determined to find out!

36 black and white pages.

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Ok, right above this entry, I wrote: "There's also a two-page "preview" of another Frazetta collection published by Cochran, Thun'da, King of the Congo. I have no idea whether this is also in the treasury-size, but I'm determined to find out!"

That didn't take much effort--in fact, there was a copy of this beauty on sale on eBay, and after some last-minute frantic bidding it was mine!

Like Untamed Love, Thun'da is a 9.5 x 12.5" black and white collection of romance stories drawn by the legendary Frank Frazetta.

Published by Russ Cochran, the four stories are reprinted from Thun'da (published by Magazine Enterprises), from 1952-1953. The stories are "King of the Lost Islands", "The Monster From The Mists", "When The Earth Shook", and "Gods of the Jungle."

Again, like with Untamed Love, all the art is exquisite--Frazetta was adept at drawing just about anything, whether it be jungle adventures or icky romance comics.

This book has a one-page"preview" of Untamed Love. I assuming for now these two books were the only releases Cochran did (neither are listed on the GCD)...but of course I hope they're not!

36 black and white pages.

Rollover to see an inside page from this book!

I like to think, with all my comics-blogging efforts, that I stay up-to-date with what's going on in the world of comics.

But somehow, this unusually-formatted series published by Image Comics in 2003 completely passed me by. It wasn't until someone made a reference to it on the What's New page that I looked The Clock Maker up to see what it was.

Written by Jim Krueger, drawn by Zach Howard and Michael Halbleib, with color by Brett Weldele, this was planned as a 12-issue mini-series in the true "tabloid" format--each issue is folded over, and you have to open it like a newspaper to read the other 14, 10x13" pages! Definitely unusual, but of course that's what this site is all about.

The story concerns a set of giant clockworks hidden within a hollow mountain in Switzerland. Hundreds of men that never age maintain the old behemoth's operation. The clock is the cause and sustainer of the Earth's revolutions. And more, it is the gateway to Heaven itself.

The clockwork designs were by Guy Davis, and accompanying this issue's story are several pages of Davis' designs.

16 color pages.

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This issue includes a pin-up by Carlos D'Anda and Bill Sienkiewicz.

16 color pages.

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This issue includes a pin-up by Phil Hester.

16 color pages.

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This issue includes the text of the T.S. Eliot poem, "The Hollow Men."

This issue is the end of "Act One". "Act Two" was supposed to be in The Clockmaker #s 5-8, but those issues were never released. They were later published as a trade collection in the standard format.

Apparently comics fans, obsessed with keeping everything they own in minty fresh condition (as if 99% of the comics published today will ever be worth anything more than the cover price, even 10, 20 years from now), didn't take too well to this unorthodox format, so the series was essentially scrapped after this fourth issue.

That's a damn shame, because The Clockmaker is an interesting story, with solid artwork that holds up well at this size, and there are moments when artists Howard and Halblieb really take advantage of the bigger space. It would've been great to see it reach its conclusion in the format it was intended for.

16 color pages.

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Masterpiece Comics is a giant-size (just a hair over 9x12") hardcover collection of strips mashing up characters and stories from literature with characters and stories from comics. Reprinted from issues of Raw, Snake Eyes, Drawn & Quarterly, and others, they're all written and drawn by R. Sikoryak.

Inside are "Blond Eve", "Inferno Joe", "Mephistofield", "Mac Worth", "Candiggy", "The Crypt of Bronte", "Little Pearl", "Dostoyevksy Comics", "Little Dori in Pictureland", "Good Ol' Gregor Brown", and "Action Camu", featuring absolutely spot-on parodies of decades worth of comic book styles, from the crude drawings of Bazooka Joe cartoon to a Bob Kane/Sheldon Moldoff issue of Detective Comics.

It also features some ads, and even some letters pages!

72 color pages.

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