I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets! - Softcover

Fletcher Hanks

4.04

1,035 ratings by Goodreads

9781560978398: I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets!

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1560978392 ISBN 13: 9781560978398

Publisher: Fantagraphics, 2007

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Welcome to the bizarre world of Fletcher Hanks, the mysterious cartoonist who created a hailstorm of tales of brutal retribution from 1939-1941...and then mysteriously vanished. His obscure and hard to find stories are finally collected here.

Welcome to the bizarre world of Fletcher Hanks, Super Wizard of the Inkwell. Fletcher Hanks worked for only a few years in the earliest days of the comic book industry (1939-1941). Because he worked in a gutter medium for second-rate publishers on third-rate characters, his work has been largely forgotten. But among aficionados he is legendary. At the time, comic books were in their infancy. The rules governing their form and content had not been established. In this Anything Goes era, Hanks' work stands out for its thrilling experimentation. At once both crude and visionary, cold and hot as hell, Hanks' work is hard to pigeon hole. One thing is for certain: the stuff is bent. Hanks drew in a variety of genres depicting science-fiction saviors, white women of the jungle, and he-man loggers. Whether he signed these various stories "Henry Fletcher" or "Hank Christy" or "Barclay Flagg" there is no mistaking the unique outsider style of Fletcher Hanks.

Cartoonist Paul Karasik (co-adapter of Paul Auster's City of Glass, and co-author of The Ride Together: A Memoir of Autism in the Family) has spent years tracking down these obscure and hard to find stories buried in the back of long-forgotten comic book titles. Karasik has also uncovered a dark secret: why Hanks disappeared from the comics scene. This book collects 15 of his best stories in one volume followed by an afterword which solves the mystery of "Whatever Happened to Fletcher Hanks," the mysterious cartoonist who created a hailstorm of tales of brutal retribution...and then mysteriously vanished.

2008 Eisner Award WINNER: Best Archival Collection/Project ― Comic Books
2008 Eisner Award Nominee: Best Short Story, "Whatever Happened to Fletcher Hanks?" by Paul Karasik Full-color comics throughout

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About the Author:

Paul Karasik is the co-author (along with David Mazzucchelli) of the perennial graphic novel classic City of Glass, adapted from Paul Auster’s novel. He lives in Martha’s Vineyard.

Review:

“Awkward, weird and just a monkey ball of visual fun.”
- Chris Reilly, Bookslut

“These are comic books in their unfiltered, prewar form, a superheroic fever dream, the sort of deliciously salacious stores that made Mom chuck all the comics out.”
- Aaron Ragan-Fore, Eugene Weekly

“A perfect example of publishers saving comics from obscurity...great stories, incredibly trite but lively with a passionate definition of right and wrong, which gives them an infectious dynamism and excitement.”
- Christian Zabriskie, Graphic Novel Reporter

“An unrecognized genius of the form...one of comics’ ultimate outside artists...unquestionably distinctive.”
- Brian Heater, New York Press

“"These stories of weird justice were illustrated in a style of studied primitivism that seems to mix Basil Wolverton with Grandma Moses. And while the best way to discover Hanks is the way I did―in Golden Age comic reprints, sticking out like a weird sore thumb in between the adventures of tough-guy lugs like Shark Brodie and Hooks Devlin―the concentrated dosage in this collection is still a fascinating picture of a truly one-of-a-kind artist whose view of existence as a perpetual penal sentence was evidently borne out by his miserable life and bleak death... while Hanks may not have been an exemplary human being, he was driven by a force of imagination that few of his era could match.”
- Rack Raids

“Hanks may have been the most bat-shit insane cartoonist to ever wield a pen...almost every panel here feels as if it has been rescued from a majestic nightmare.”
- Douglas Wolk, Salon

“Bold and eccentric, truly the work of a visionary.”
- Joshua Glen, The Boston Globe

“Beautiful and thrilling and terrifying.”
- Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter

“The grotesque physiognomies of Hanks’s criminal masterminds and the overamped colors are as trippy as anything that appeared in ‘70s underground comics.”
- R. C. Baker, The Village Voice

“I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets is probably the archival project of the year, in that (a) these comics were not readily available in any format other than their original printings, and (b) this is an essential book for any comics library.”
- Dick Hyacinth

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