You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation ! (I SHALL DESTROY ALL THE CIVILIZED PLANETS SC) - Softcover

Hanks, Fletcher

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1606991604 ISBN 13: 9781606991602

Publisher: Fantagraphics Books, 2009

Synopsis

The first volume of Fletcher Hanks stories, I Shall Destroy All CivilizedPlanets! (now in its fourth printing) was an Eisner Award-winning smash hit and a staple on “Best of the Year” lists. Edited by cartoonist Paul Karasik, this second volume, You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation, collects all of the rest of Hanks comic book work. The thirty-one tales in this book, when combined with the first volume, will comprise The Complete Fletcher Hanks! Fletcher Hanks was the first great comic book auteur: that is, he wrote, penciled, inked and lettered all of his own stories, many of which feature the cold space wizard superhero Stardust or the jungle protectress Fantomah. Today's mature readers - both comics fans and non-comics fans who learned about the book from magazines such as The Believer and other journals - are stunned by these comics' pop surrealism and outright violent mayhem.

About this title

About the Author:

Fletcher Hanks (1889–1976) is an artist who, under various pseudonyms, wrote, drew, penciled, and inked his entire body of comics work from 1939–1941. Some consider his Fantomah character to be the first female superhero. He was an abusive alcoholic who was found frozen to death on a park bench.

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:

“A vessel of combined artistry and wrath, whose published legacy is as nightmarish as it is brilliant. The art reproductions capture vividly both Hanks’ aggressive drawing style and the garish colors of the original Depression-into-wartime publications.”
- Michael H. Price, Fort Worth Business Press

“Gathers all the remaining material that the alcoholic, abusive [Fletcher] Hanks did during his brief tenure as a comic book creator in the late 1930s and early 40s... [T]here’s still plenty of weird and wonderful tales to delight and disturb... [and] there are panels here that are rather stunning in their ability to create tension and drama... The work remains strange, powerful, funny, terrifying and yes, at times beautiful.”
- Chris Mautner, Robot 6

“Crude but powerful drawings; an eye-shattering color palette; helter-skelter plotting, often with anticlimactic, fall-off-the-cliff endings...terror and glee at the misery of humanity, salted with some token of morality. Yes, that’s the Fletcher Hanks formula for a unique, unforgettable, Golden Age comics masterpiece.”
- Paul Di Filippo, Sci-fi Wire

“Hanks’ hyperactive, colorful, robust, and crazy disproportionate art is perfectly matched to his over-the-top storytelling...Hanks left behind a body of work that’s compelling to read simply because it’s so lunatic and inadvertently hilarious. There are few artists, from the Golden Age to today, that so deftly blended goofy dialogue with terrifying violence and surreal situations; for better or worse, Hanks was a real original.”
- The Onion A.V. Club

“As much as I’ve been looking forward to the second collection, I honestly thought there was no way it could be as crazy, awesome, or crazy-awesome as the first one. I was wrong.”
- Chris Sims, The-ISB.com

“Once you see one of Super Wizard Stardust’s grotesquely ironic punishments or blonde bombshell Fantomah’s inexplicable transformations to skull-headed jungle avenger, it’s impossible to look away. Fantagraphics and Editor Paul Karasik take a return trip inside Hanks’ demented psyche, collecting the entire remaining chunk of the uniquely unsettling work from this do-it-all Golden Age cartoonist of singular, warped vision.”
- Wizard

“[T]hese extraordinary visions from a different, four-colour era are as bold and striking as they are violent and strange.... Classic comics from a different age.”
- Grovel

“I mean, holy. Effing. S---... Was Hanks insane or otherwise mentally handicapped? Dunno, but as editor Paul Karasik points out in his meaty introduction, this was a man mean enough to kick his 4-year-old son down a flight of stairs... You’ll love how much you hate [these works]; you’ll hate how much you love them.”
- Rod Lott, Bookgasm

“One of the greatest comic book talents you’ve never heard of.... If you want to understand the essence of comic books in their purest form then pick up You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation! and learn.”
- Iann Robinson, Crave Online

“Back in the Golden Age of comics there were few comic auteurs but Fletcher Hanks was one of the few. ... The stories are weird and grim. The art is unprofessional and beautiful.”
- Nick Gazin, Vice

About this edition

• Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1606991604
• ISBN 13: 9781606991602
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224
• Editor: Karasik Paul