At Wonder Book and Video December 2025

Traveling to my hometown for the Christmas holiday, I passed through Frederick, and decided to stop in at Wonder Book and Video. The last time I'd been there was something like 4 or 5 years ago.

They had a sizeable shelf of new vintage paperbacks, but these were priced at $10 to $15 each, a little too high for my budget, so I refrained.

Their section for comics and graphic novels remains impressive, but the same phenomenon: higher prices than I remember, also was operating for this media. Although I must point out that they had a large selection of bandes dessinees for about $4 each:

I wound up paying $10 for a Very Good copy of a Charles Beaumont sci-fi anthology, along with getting some $5 vintage paperbacks, and a hardcover John Christopher novel.

Wonder Book and Video remains a destination for Paperback Fanatics but this must be tempered with an awareness that prices have jumped quite a bit......

Empire by Delany and Chaykin

'Empire' by Samuel R. Delany and Howard Chaykin

Berkley Windhover, 1978

 

'Empire' (112 pp.) was published by Berkley Windhover under the Byron Preiss Visual Publications imprint. This was one of the more high-profile entries in the Preiss catalog, designed to take advantage of the burst of popularity in sci-fi following the release of Star Wars in May 1977.

 

I first learned of this new 'visual novel' when 'Empire' was excerpted in the December, 1978 issue of Heavy Metal magazine. But I didn't pick up a copy of 'Empire' until some twenty years ago. 

 

One thing that immediately is apparent is that illustrator Howard Chaykin did a tremendous amount of work for this graphic novel, at a time when digital artwork and desktop publishing and drawing tablets still were some 15 years (or more) in the future. The pencils and coloring all had to be done by hand, on paper.

It's also apparent that the printing technology of the late 1970s was not up to the task when it came to the process color separations in 'Empire.'  Even when making allowances for the fact that the book is nearly 50 years old, the printing is disappointingly murky and underexposed. In too many panels, the text barely is legible......

Contrasting the graphic novel image obtained by my scanner (top) with that appearing in the excerpt in the November Heavy Metal, printed using spot color on 'slick' paper (bottom), clearly we see that the magazine treatment best represents the artwork.

 

 

As for Delany's writing, well, as a New Wave author heavily invested in figurative narratives and prose, perhaps he was not the ideal choice to pen a space opera aimed at the readership of Star Wars. But he does seem to understand that he is writing for the space opera audience.

 

Delany incorporates motifs from that film, such as the 'brash young man' counterpart for Luke Skywalker: in this case, archeology student 'Wryn.' Serving as a combination of Princess Leia and Obi-Wan Kenobi is the alluring and mysterious Qrelon. The role of Darth Vader is taken by a blonde-haired man named Loiptix. In place of the Millenium Falcon, we get Qrelon's versatile ship Proteus. And standing in for the Empire are the malevolent Kunduke.

 

The plot involves efforts to overthrow the tyranny of the Kunduke by Qrelon and her rebel alliance. A key to this mission is finding a set of six crystal fragments of rare design that, when assembled, form a sculpture with the potential to disrupt the AI that enables the Kunduke to control their far-flung empire.

I won't disclose any spoilers, save to say that Wryn finds himself accompanying a driven Qrelon in her travels throughout the galaxy, searching for the crystal fragments and hoping to acquire them before the pursuing Kunduke catch up. There is plenty of action and the storyline climaxes in a suitably apocalyptic confrontation between the forces of freedom, and those of tyranny.

Should you get a copy of 'Empire' ? Well, with copies in 'good' condition starting at $34 at amazon, and one speculator asking for $646 (!!), this is no small purchase. Unless you're  a hardcore Delany fan, I would counsel waiting to see if at some point in the future arrangements are made to reissue this graphic novel in an 'enhanced' version, one that benefits from modern techniques for improving the coloration and resolution of the artwork. Hopefully this overview will guide you in your decision-making.

Book Review: The Rats

Book Review: 'The Rats' by James Herbert

 5 / 5 Stars

 

‘The Rats’ first was published by New English Library in 1974. This 27th printing was issued in 1990 by the New English Library / Hodder and Stoughton.

‘The Rats’ was the first novel by UK writer James Herbert (1943 – 2013) and a foundational novel in the genre that gradually would come to be known as splatterpunk. Herbert would in turn produce two sequels to ‘The Rats’: ‘Lair’ (1979) and ‘Domain’ (1984). A graphic novel, ‘The City,’ released in 1993, is based on the rats franchise but is sub-par.

Herbert, in a 2012 interview with the UK paper The Telegraph, stated that the inspiration for ‘The Rats’ was the segment in Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula,’ in which Renfield, the insane asylum patient, claims to have seen a small army of red-eyed rats confronting him.

At 189 pages of larger-font type, ‘The Rats’ has a simple plot; in the mid-70s a strange new breed of rat starts issuing from the darker, and danker, places in London’s East End. While rats normally are afraid of humans, these rats are quite vicious, and see humans as prey. Initially confined to the East End, as the plot progresses the rats expand their depredations to the city at large. The burgeoning rat plague is enabled by clumsiness on the part of the authorities, and the threat to the city only grows with the passage of time.

The protagonist of the novel is a school teacher named Harris; having grown up in the East End, his familiarity with the neighborhood proves valuable in efforts to control the rats.

There are several things that ‘The Rats’ does which make it stand out from the horror fiction of the early 70s, and those early days of the 'Paperbacks from Hell.'

First, unlike the majority of horror novels of the time, ‘Rats’ doesn’t use a meandering, prolonged buildup of suspense and anticipation before unveiling its horror content. In the very first pages of ‘Rats,’ the creatures are introduced, and bloodily so. The reader has the menace presented to them right from the get-go. There are no feints, no red herrings, no ambiguous visions, possible spectral phenomena, or Spooky Foreshadowings. Just clawing and scrabbling and biting vermin !

Second, the gore and sex in ‘Rats’ are more explicit and transgressional than in most other horror novels (with perhaps, the exception of ‘The Exorcist’) of the early 70s. In Herbert’s approach, there is no camera fade-out or dolly-back from the attacks of the rats; there instead are detailed descriptions of the mayhem visited upon hapless victims (which include an infant !).

Third, the narrative avoids doling out comfort or optimism. There are would-be heroes, but their efforts are fumbling, hesitant, and never a guarantee of success. What may be victories, may in fact be defeats. This existential, almost nihilistic quality to ‘Rats’ echoes that of the 1968 film Night of the Living Dead, and is foundational to splatterpunk; things will get much, much worse if ever they get better !

I agree with the review of ‘The Rats’ posted to the Too Much Horror Fiction blog: this novel introduces “…a new graphic sensibility in horror fiction.” A copy of this novel belongs on every horror fan’s bookshelf.

Books from Bud Plant

Bud Plant has announced that after 55 years in the comic book and graphic art business, at age 73, he is retiring next year.

 

In the 1970s, Plant played a major role as both wholesaler and retailer in the advent of the direct market (DM), which in turn revolutionized comic book retailing. I remember seeing his catalogs in the 1980s and 1990s, and finding them filled with stuff that was otherwise unavailable back in the era before online ordering. Nowadays his catalogs continue to have items that are of interest to fans of comics and graphic art.

 

Earlier this summer I ordered some items from the Plant catalog:

 

The lead item is a tome by 'Caza,' the pseudonym of Philippe Cazaumayou: 'Arkadi and the Lost Titan.' Published this spring by Humanoids, this is an English-language version of the graphic novel Le Monde d'Arkadi, published in 2024. 

 

The 'Arkadi' comics first were released as nine bande dessinees (Franco-Belgian comics) from 1989 to 2008 by Delcourt. 'Arkadi and the Lost Titan' compiles English-language translations of the nine comics into a very nice hardbound edition.

If you are a fan of comics and graphic art then stopping by the Bud Plant website is recommended, as some items are only going to be available for a limited time, depending on how readily the Plant enterprise is acquired.

Philippe Druillet graphic novel lineup

Philippe Druillet graphic novel lineup

Titan Comics, 2015 - 2023

As of 2023 there are nine volumes in this series (the volumes missing in my collection, above, are 'Lone Sloane: Chaos, Vol. 1,' and 'Lone Sloane: Babel').

 

These all are classics of 70s and 80s sci-fi graphic art, with a decidedly 'French' sensibility. You can find each volume selling brand-new for about $20 - $35 each. They are well worth getting at that price, because with the passage of time these things see their asking prices start to rise. More information is available at the Titan Comics website.

The Merchants of Venus graphic novel

The Merchants of Venus

by Frederik Pohl

DC Comics Science Fiction Graphic Novel No. 4 

January, 1986

 

'The Merchants of Venus' was issued in 1986 as one of the entries in DC Comics' 'Science Fiction Graphic Novel' catalog. The writers are Victoria Petersen and Neal McPheeters, with art by McPheeters.

 

'Merchants' first was published as a novelette in August, 1972 in Worlds of If. 

 

 

Protagonist Audee Walthers lives on, or rather, in Venus, in the Spindle, an immense underground cavern excavated by the since-vanished race of aliens known as the Heechee. Walthers makes a modest living by transporting tourists around Venus in his aircar. 

 

There's not much to see on the surface of Venus, but Walthers specializes in bringing his clients to see the engineering works left by the Heechee, including the underground tunnels where, sometimes, scavengers have come across valuable and precious artifacts.

Needing money, and lots of it, Walthers is intrigued when a wealthy Terran couple, Boyce Cochenour, and his stunning mistress Dorotha Keefer, arrive at the Spindle looking for adventure and excitement. Walthers convinces them that he can take them to places on-planet where there might yet be undiscovered Heechee warrens, and in those warrens, treasure.

Stuffing Walthers' aircar with gear and provisions, the trio set off. For Cochenour and Keefer, Venus turns out to be quite dangerous and unpleasant, but the lure of wealth overrides their concerns. For his part, Walther has his own - rather selfish - motives for wanting to find a cache of Heechee technology.

As the plot progresses it turns out Walthers isn't the only one with secrets and ulterior motives. Can he and his charges put aside their tensions long enough to find that one site where some digging might yield an undiscovered Heechee stash ?

I admit I had low expectations when I picked up 'Merchants,' mainly because I find Pohl to be an underwhelming author, and the bright, primary color scheme of the book gave it a cartoony aspect. But it turns out that 'Merchants' has a decent, very readable hard-sf story, one where you're kept guessing until the very last page.

 

Summing up, you don't have to be a Pohl fan to appreciate this book. With copies going for $10 for a Very Good grading, I was fortunate to pick this up for $5. If you can find it for a reasonable price, you may want to get one yourself............

Havok and Wolverine: Meltdown

Havok and Wolverine: Meltdown

Marvel Comics, 1989

'Havok and Wolverine' was a four-issue miniseries issued by Marvel, under its Epic Comics imprint, from March to October, 1989.

 

The series was written by the husband-and-wife team of Walter and Louise Simonson, and illustrated by Jon J. Muth, with assistance from Ken Williams. Bill Oakley provided lettering.

 

The series opens with a confusing prologue, involving something to do with the Chernobyl nuclear power plant meltdown in April, 1986. The action then transitions to Mexico, where our X-Men Havok and Wolverine are enjoying some cervezas and sunshine.

 

 

That is, until a bar-room brawl ensues and out heroes have to deal out some pain to some disrespectful Mexicans.......

 

Barely have they gotten out of trouble when our heroes are accosted by Russian agents, who knock out both men and kidnap Havok. Wolverine sets out to find where his friend has gone.

 

At this point, the storyline becomes a prolonged chase sequence, as a brainwashed Havok is duped into following the guidance of a hot chick named Scarlett, who promises to take him to Europe, there to find Wolverine.

It turns out that the kidnapping has been engineered by some malevolent Russians, who want to get their hands on Havok for nefarious purposes. Scarlett is in fact their agent, code-name 'Quark.' Somehow Wolverine dies one or two more times before the three of them - Scarlett, Havok, and Wolverine - meet up in India, at the site of a disastrous reactor accident. I won't disclose any spoilers, but the X-Men have their work cut out for them.

'Havok and Wolverine: Meltdown' is a mediocre comic. It is very much a late Eighties production, when Marvel's Epic line was intended to give comic book creators 'artistic freedom' to do the kind of stories they wanted to do. But the Simonsons badly overwrite this series, shoveling in too many story beats, and leaving the reader to negotiate all sorts of abrupt, contrived transitions in plot and setting.

The artwork by Jon J. Muth may have been very 'artistic,' but it's so murky and abstract that I found myself scrutinizing too many panels trying to figure out what, exactly, was being rendered. For example, this panel below apparently shows Wolverine piloting a helicopter........

 

As for the eponymous villain, he is designed to look like 'Punch' from the venerable Punch and Judy puppet franchise (?!). Why Marvel editor Archie Goodwin signed off on this is puzzling, because its frivolous nature undermines the book's gravitas (whatever gravitas it was trying to achieve).

When all is said and done, 'Havok and Wolverine: Meltdown' is a misfire, from the age of comics when editors gave writers full leeway to release all sorts of material even if that material was underwhelming. 

 

As related by Marvel historian Sean Howe, in fact it was Louise Simonson who was among the first writers to be deposed from their position of primacy at Marvel. Early in 1991, editor Bob Harras resolved a growing conflict between Simonson and emerging superstar artist Rob Liefeld, over who was to be the creative lead on the series 'New Mutants,' in favor of Liefeld (Leifeld had grown tired of subordinating his artwork to accommodate Simonson's inane story lines and text-heavy compositions). With Liefeld in charge, 'New Mutants' was relaunched as 'X Force,' and quickly became one of Marvel's best-selling comics.

Only diehard X-Men fanboys are going to find 'Havok and Wolverine: Meltdown' to be rewarding. This is particularly true of the graphic novel compilation of the series, titled 'Wolverine: Meltdown,' released in 2003. Copies of this trade paperback are selling for $30 on up (one vendor wants $94 for a 'New' graded copy !) at amazon, so hopefully this overview lets you know what you're getting.............

Heavy Metal May 1979

Heavy Metal

May, 1979

 

May, 1979, and atop the Billboard Hot 200 chart for albums sits the Doobie Brothers with Minute by Minute. Fast rising, and soon to take over the top slot, is Supertramp's Breakfast in America. Also in the top five is Spirits Having Flown by the Bee Gees; little did anyone know that it would be the last time a Bee Gees LP ever would top the charts.........

I have gone to Gordon's Cigar Store with my hard-earned cash and picked up the May issue of Heavy Metal magazine. This is a good issue. The front cover, 'The Wizard of Anharitte,' is by UK artist Peter Jones, and the back cover, a glowing fantasy by Clyde Caldwell, titled 'Centaur's Idol.'

 

Lots of quirky material inside, material best taken in with the accompaniment of herbal substances.

While Moebius continues to contribute 'Airtight Garage,' frustratingly, Sean Kelly and Julie Simmons insist on parceling it out in very brief (i.e., two- and three-page) installments. 

Also presented in an installment is part 4 of the novel 'Starcrown,' by John Pocsik. While it got a nice treatment from artists like Gil Kane, 'Starcrown' never advanced beyond a limited serialization in Heavy Metal.

 

Perhaps the major feature in this May issue is the first installment of a serialization of the opening chapter (i.e., 16 pages) of the graphic novel accompanying the upcoming film Alien. The graphic novel, by Walt Simonson, was the first such publication ever to appear on the New York Times bestseller list for paperbacks.

Also noteworthy were some original pieces, such as 'Night Angel,' by Paul Abrams, the continuation of the 'New Tales of the Arabian Nights,' by Richard Corben, and a retro-style adventure, starring a comely female: '8 Bells; Amora,' by Grey Morrow. All good stuff !

 

 

 

The late Al Sarrantonio contributes 'Roger in the Womb,' a three-page story about a most unusual fetus. It's humorous, but also with a rather offbeat, disconcerting note at the ending. 

One of the more interesting pieces in this May issue is a black-and-white comic by Ben Katchor, titled 'A Proposed Architect.' Katchor, who would go on to produce comics and graphic novels featuring a Jewish urbanite named Julius Knipl, focuses on cityscapes and their buildings. In 'Architect,' there are no tits and no ass (rather unusual for Heavy Metal). Still, it succeeds as a memorable excursion into the surreal.