Kamandi, The Last Boy On Earth Omnibus Vol. 2 Hardcover – December 18, 2012

First of all - buy this Kamandi Volume 2. It is sheer, abundant, undiluted Kirby 1970s joy of future-world, playful "Planet of the Apes" or "Island of Lost Souls"... every cover and page soars with Kamandi's (young Thor?) exuberance. I read these Kamandi comics in the 1970s and really hung on the pages! Reading 10 or more of these stories in a row is my idea of a bloody good afternoon. The paper is great; it is fine - post-newsprint, and faithfully keeps the colour and feel of the original comics. Thank goodness! The re-coloured botching of the luridly-digital swamps Barry Windsor-Smith's recent "Conan" archives, and Jim Steranko's work on Nick Fury was similarly awfully re-coloured, over-saturating the linework, and left the reader "colour drunk" - do NOT allow digital recolouring to repeat the heavy-handed Dark Horse "Conan" Chronicles airline-sickness-bag travesty, dear comic-book companies. Windsor-Smith's wonderful 24 issues of Conan were left sealed in a radiation-proof canister on my shelf forever; at least in these Dark Horse reprints. Just awful.However - I agree wholeheartedly, and reluctantly, with the reviewer who comments on the guttering problem that DC seemingly refuses to address, which is evident in this otherwise wondrous Kamandi Volume 2 (and Volume 1). A little wider page and more space left in the inner gutter is needed to show the whole page in most of their recent volumes. For the love-of-Kirby get yourself a new Printing and Binding company. This is dreadful, destructive, useless page-binding... and all involved on this book at DC must know it. You know it. You look at it when it's bound, and you know it. It's not a mystery. You just LOOK AT IT. Have a meeting at DC. Pass the Kamandi Volume 2 around. Fix it. Never, never, never do this again. Kamandi 2 is not ruined by this for me; but it needed more space on the inner gutter. That's a FACT, not a debate. An absolute, screaming, obvious FACT.DC's "Challengers of the Unknown" was TOTALLY ruined by this same tight inner gutter binding-problem obliterating words and panels. Shocking! To the extent I had to go back and purchase their two earlier volumes of "Challengers.." which don't have this binding and tight-inner-gutter PROBLEM. When is DC going to wake up and correct this??? What editor there does not identify that this is INCREDIBLY POOR???? The Jack Kirby Omnibus Vol 1 - Green Arrow - ALSO had HUGE binding tight-inner-gutter errors... P224 onwards. Have a bloody good look at it!!! Other readers MUST surely recognise this is shockingly inept? DC editors and publishers? Tell me I'm wrong, folks? I'll trust the court of the comic-book public on this one! A real PITY. A printing/binding embuggerance to an otherwise brilliant, tea-drinking wonderful Kirby 1970s Kamandi afternoon in the Wagga Wagga sun.A reviewer wrote accurately that: "It was a little heartbreaking to see a mistake in the binding that hides about a quarter inch of art in the inner margins, forcing you to either guess what some of the hidden words are or bench press the book open while you read it. A little wider page or smaller reproduction would have fixed this simple and needless error. Otherwise it's faithfully reproduced and a great trip back in time." This IS the case. Did not ruin Kamandi for me, but you do have to strongarm the book open flat due to the mean, pinched inner gutter not leaving enough room. Marvel does this much BETTER in its Marvel Masterworks volumes, I am afraid.

I bought these KAMANDI issues when they first came out, beginning with the first issue in 1972. In terms of the content included in this book (KAMANDI issues 21-40) I could not love the material more. And in terms of reproduction and coloring, it is very true to the original, and a pleasure to have in a single volume.But there are some flaws in its book design that I just don't understand. Issue 32 (as is plainly evident in the text on the reprinted cover) had a two-page global map of Kamandi's world (expanding on the one-page map of just the Western hemisphere that appeared in KAMANDI # 1). But for reasons that make absolutely no sense, the 2-page global map is not included in the this book. Further, there are 10 pages of the book (pages 74, 96, 118, 124, 162, 184, 206, 226, 308, and 404) where enlarged sections of that not-included global map are used as filler pages, almost none of which are map-section regions relevant to the stories these pages are placed with. It makes absolutely no sense!Also missing from the reprint of issue 32 (again promoted on the # 32 cover) is a behind-the-scenes 4-page text feature about artist Jack Kirby, incuding photos of Kirby, his home, and art from the KAMANDI series. It would have been nice to have these photos reprinted with better quality. No explanation why it was not included.One other thing that bothered me about this KAMANDI Omnibus Vol 2, is that the other Omnibus books (OMAC, THE LOSERS, and especially THE DEMON) all included previously unused pages, and uninked pencil versions of covers. This one does not. I would have settled for just not excluding the 2-page map and 4-page Kirby text feature. And DC, don't tell me there wasn't room. You hosed away 10 pages on pointless map blow-ups, the missing material was only 6 pages.I took my issue 32 original to a print shop, and made 2 color copies of the 2-page map, trimmed the edges, and spray-glued it neatly in the inside front and back covers of the book, as endpapers, to make my volume complete. It looks like it was published that way. I think the person who designed the book, and the editor who approved it, should be demoted or have external supervision on future projects for the pedestrian thoughtlessness they brought to this edition, so they don't similarly screw up future Omnibus editions.Another problem common to these non-archive DC hardcovers is that they are printed on paper that is inferior to what is in the nicer Archive editions.But the biggest problem with these DC omnibus books is that (OMAC, THE LOSERS, THE DEMON, etc.) the pages are about 1/8th of an inch from the binding for some reason. Especially on double-page splashes, you lose the comic-book feel reading the Omnibus hardcover version, because it is so tightly bound and close to the spine that you cannot see the whole effect of the two-page spread. I wish DC would leave the art page edges at least 1/4 inches from the spine, as it is in the KAMANDI ARCHIVES Vol 1 (reprinting issues 1-10) and Vol 2 (reprinting 11-20), so you can fully appreciate the art.I also frankly don't understand the decision to do these Omnibus versions of Kamandi and discontinue the Archive versions begun before them. I bought KAMANDI Archives vos 1 and 2 as they came out. Then they had a KAMANDI Omnibus vol 1 right after, reprinting both volumes I just purchased in a single volume! So I skipped Omnibus 1, since I already have them in book form.And I'm glad I did.If you love this series as much as I do, you can appreciate it more in the better printing and formatting of the Archives 1 and 2 of the first 20 issues. And then get the Omnibus Vol. 2 to have issues 21-40.

I strongly suspect that by the time Jack Kirby began work on Kamandi number 20 he was already disillusioned with his tenure at DC and the broken promises which littered his career. I say this on the basis that whilst Kamandi Volume 2 provides a veritable feast of Kirby's work and ideas it is certainly not his best stuff and he may have been saving new ideas for the next move. However, this volume does give fans of his work an opportunity to collect together the entire run of Kirby Kamandi comics and once again revel in the span of his imagination. It's clear that Kirby never had Stan Lee's prosaic style but the story-telling is fast-paced, understandable and often a jolly good jaunt through the after disaster world he portrays. Towards the end of his tenure on this book the art does become a little simpler (presumably he was simply completing his so-many pages-per-week contract) but that does not detract from its raw power or the composition of each page. Just don't expect the sort of detail which was provided in books like New Gods 6 or 7.That said, it is, once again, an enjoyable read and a nice piece for the Jack Kirby Collectors.

In my mind Kamandi is one of Jack Kirby's greatest creations, and this is an essential purchase for any Kirby fan.Reprinted here are issues 21-40 of the original Kamandi comic, from the 1970s.I like these omnibus editions from DC, they are printed on a similar type of paper to the original comics, not that horrible heavy gloss stuff, so you are seeing these the way they were intended to be seen.Also, to purchase the original comics would be more expensive. A bargain in every sense.

Love comic books? Then you've got to love the work of The King, Jack Kirby, there's more ideas, imagination, action and life in a Jack Kirby comic book than in any present day DC or Marvel series which in comparison are derivative, unoriginal, unimaginative, lifeless and boring.

One of the best and most creative series of Jack Kirby to DC. Great visual boldness and total creative freedom. Excellent editing and printing. Don't miss this gem of Comics.

j'ai recu l'article dans les délais et l'emballage était parfait.....j'ai cependant été très deçu de constater que la couverture du volume était endommagée.