THE UNBOXING - JANUARY 2019

We'll kick things off this month with the Christmas Unboxing -- a few gifts from my family on December 25th. First and foremost among these is STAR WARS ART: RALPH McQUARRIE, a massive two-volume slipcased set collecting all the artwork McQuarrie did as a concept artist on the original STAR WARS movies. I'm positively in love with these books, and I may have to do a post about them at some point, if I ever get around to it.

Also, from my wife, we have Fantagraphics' CARL BARKS DISNEY LIBRARY: THE LOST PEG LEG MINE and CARL BARKS DISNEY LIBRARY: THE BLACK PEARLS OF TABU YAMA. I think I mentioned last year that my wife has been giving me these books every year for Christmas for a few years now (Fantagraphics releases two volumes per year). I believe there are only around ten books left before the full series is collected, but I could be mistaken. In any case, I read Barks' stories through Gladstone Comics when I was in elementary school, but I've never touched them since. Still, somehow they're indelibly burned into my brain to the point that every time I get a new volume, memories rush back as if I just read them yesterday.

I also made a number of digital purchases through Comixology via their year-end sales. From Dark Horse, several books which are no longer available to buy, since the company has now lost its license to Marvel: THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN vols. 1 - 9 (the series ran much longer, but I believe this is the full Roy Thomas run, which is all I really wanted), and CONAN: THE DAUGHTERS OF MIDORA AND OTHER STORIES.

From DC, I grabbed WONDER WOMAN/CONAN and BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS vol. 2. From Fantagraphics, I picked up THE CARL BARKS LIBRARY: THE BLACK PEARLS OF TABU YAMA (yes, I'm double-dipping on these. I like having "digital copies" of a lot of my books) and THE DON ROSA LIBRARY: THE THREE CABALLEROS (I want to own Barks in physical format, but I'm okay going digital-only for Rosa).

And from Marvel, I got THOR BY WALTER SIMONSON vol. 3 and vol. 4, TOMB OF DRACULA: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION vol. 2, X-MEN CLASSIC: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION vol. 1, X-MEN: GRAND DESIGN vol. 2, and X-MEN: THE MAGNETO WAR.

And that about covers my merry holiday haul. We'll check in next month for more of the same!

THE UNBOXING - OCTOBER 2018

I'm quite pleased with this month's sole physical book. It's something I passed on when it was first released years ago, and I've kicked myself a bit ever since. But Marvel has gone back to press just in time for Halloween, and I now own the TOMB OF DRACULA OMNIBUS vol. 1. Presumably the remaining two books in this series will return to print soon as well, and this time around I intend to pick them all up!

Meanwhile, the Digital Unboxing returns this month for a certain Amazon princess we've been looking at a lot recently. Thanks to a couple of recent Amazon/Comixology sales, I now own WONDER WOMAN BY GEORGE PEREZ vol. 3 and WONDER WOMAN BY JOHN BYRNE vol. 2 in digital format.

Also new to the digital collection via a recent Comixology coupon are some adventures of a character I'd never heard of, but who sounded pretty cool when I read about her. Thus modern-retro pulp heroine Athena Voltaire has arrived, in the ATHENA VOLTAIRE COMPENDIUM vol. 1, ATHENA VOLTAIRE AND THE SORCERER POPE, and ATHENA VOLTAIRE AND THE VOLCANO GODDESS. It looks like there might be some additional material starring this character out there, but I don't think it's available digitally. However I'm not sure how the COMPENDIUM volume relates to previously released stories, so I might be wrong. Unfortunately, best as I can tell, it's hard to find a definitive listing of all Athena's stories and how they've been reprinted. Still, if nothing else, this looks to be the majority of her adventures.

Last year we had no Unboxings in August, September, October, or November! This year we've had one every month to date, and I already know there'll be one next month, too. If we manage one in December as well, this will mark the first year since 2014 that I've done an Unboxing twelve times. Part of this is, of course, due to the fact that I've added "Digital Unboxings" and "Junior Unboxings" to the proceedings, because I'm still not getting as many physical volumes as I used to -- but regardless of the reason why, filling in every month for 2018 is (hopefully) going to be a nice feeling!