Christmas gifts for pop culture fans: Books and comics collections

Here's part one of our annual gift guide -- DVDs and music tomorrow. This list may help if you're looking to find last-minute presents for pop culture-loving friends and family, or in developing your own wish list.

Books

Whether it's to dive into an read or "coffee table book" to leaf through while sipping eggnog, there are always a lot of great pop culture books released each year. Here are some recent ones:

 
Life by Keith Richards


Bond Cars and Vehicles


Walt Disney Animation Studios The Archive Series: Design


The Art of Hammer: The Official Poster Collection From the Archive of Hammer Films

 
Mad Men: The Illustrated World


Let's Bring Back: An Encyclopedia of Forgotten-Yet-Delightful, Chic, Useful, Curious, and Otherwise Commendable Things from Times Gone By


Forry: The Life of Forrest J Ackerman


Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History


Frank: The Voice


All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono 


Bob Dylan In America


Starting Over: The Making of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Double Fantasy

 
Whiter Shades of Pale: The Stuff White People Like, Coast to Coast, from Seattle's Sweaters to Maine's Microbrews


Comics collections

This is truly a golden era of comic book reprints. It seems like nearly any comic book series or comic strip you can think of is now available in collected form, whether it's in a spendy hardcover or relatively inexpensive paperback.

Here are some recent releases that would be great gifts to comics lovers:



Adventures of Superboy


Jerry Robinson: Ambassador of Comics


Xenozoic  by Mark Schulz


Fire and Water: Bill Everett, The Sub-Mariner, and the Birth of Marvel Comics


MAD's Greatest Artists: Sergio Aragones: Five Decades of His Finest Works

 
Art of Jim Starlin


Four Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s


DC Comics Year by Year: A Visual Chronicle


75 Years Of DC Comics: The Art Of Modern Mythmaking 


Shazam!: The Golden Age of the World's Mightiest Mortal


Superman vs. Muhammad Ali Deluxe


Absolute All Star Superman


Little Lulu's Pal Tubby Volume 1: The Castaway and Other Stories


Flash Gordon Comic Book Archives Volume 1


Thun'da, King of the Congo Archive  by Frank Frazetta


Archie: Pureheart the Powerful Volume 1 


Golden Collection of Krazy Kool Klassic Kids' Komics


DC Greatest Imaginary Stories Vol. 2: Batman & Robin 


Wednesday Comics


Atomic Knights 


Giant Size Little Lulu Volume 1


Nancy: Volume One (John Stanley Library)


The Boy Commandos by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby Vol. 1


The Simon and Kirby Superheroes


The Creeper by Steve Ditko


Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Boxset


Legion of Super-heroes: The Great Darkness Saga (Deluxe Edition)


Archie Firsts
 



Shazam!: The Golden Age of the World's Mightiest Mortal

Also see:

DC Showcase Presents

DC Archives

Marvel Omnibus

Marvel Essentials

EC Comics Archives

Dark Horse Comics Archives

Dark Horse Comics Omnibus books

Remember

Hard to believe it's been 30 years since we lost John Lennon.

Deal alert: Complete Arrested Development on DVD $27.99

Today on Amazon. One of the funniest TV series ever.

New comics Dec. 8, 2010: Discounted collections

Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery Archives Volume 4

Flash Gordon Comic Book Archives Volume 2


Little Lulu's Pal Tubby Volume 2: The Runaway Statue and Other Stories


Mighty Samson Archives Volume 2


Batman Chronicles Vol. 10


Superman/Batman: Big Noise 


Doctor Who Classics Volume 6


Thor: The Mighty Avenger, Vol. 1: The God Who Fell to Earth


Captain America: No Escape

Captain America: America First

DC Omnibus series collects Teen Titans, Kirby and Ditko

DC Comics is getting in the big, hardcover omnibus game. Like Marvel's omnibus, these huge books collect big chunks of various comics series or, in the case of the Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby books, a creator's work.

I haven't been able to determine what will be included in the Kirby and Ditko collections, although we can see from the cover of the Ditko book, that it will likely include his 70s work on Shade, the Changing Man. I imagine the Kirby book will collect comics he did apart from those DC has already recently reprinted (The New Gods and his Golden Age work on Boy Commandos, etc.) The cover features Green Arrow, so the book will likely include Kirby's 1950s work on that character.

The Kirby omnibus has a July release date on Amazon, while the Ditko collection is listed as an August release.

The Teen Titans book will collect the first 16 issues of the Marv Wolfman and George Perez series of the early 1980s, clocking in at 464 pages. It also has an August release date on Amazon.

I'm afraid I'll be putting all three on my to-buy list!At least Amazon provides a good discount.

Fantagraphics to collect Crockett Johnson's Barnaby comic strip

This is great news. I loved Crockett Johnson's "Harold and the Purple Crayon" and its sequels as a kid and my own children loved it as well. While, I never had a chance to read "Barnaby," I'm a fan of Johnson's gentle whimsical humor and his lovely, simple art style.

Fantagraphics wishes to make public that it’s reached an agreement to publish a major, all-but-complete collection of Crockett Johnson’s Barnaby. One of the best comic strips of the 20th Century and one of the most beloved older strips for a generation of devoted adult comics fans, Barnaby had become in the last decade and a half the great unsigned strip collection.

Trio of books focuses on comcis great Alex Toth

This sounds good to me:

The Library of American Comics and IDW will release Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth, the first volume in a planned three-volume opus on the life and work of Alex Toth, next year. The three volumes will cover Toth’s groundbreaking and influential career in comics and animation in the depth and detail that it deserves.

Written by Dean Mullaney and Bruce Canwell, this definitive biography is being created with the full cooperation of Toth’s children and complete access to the family archives. Mullaney and Canwell have conducted dozens of interviews with Toth’s peers, friends, and family members. In addition, Toth’s fans and friends have loaned original artwork reproduced in the series.

"Genius Isolated" will cover Toth’s life and work through the early 1960s, a period that includes his early comics work and his move into animated cartoons. It will include a previously unknown, unfinished and unpublished penciled story from the early 1950s. A special section will collect, for the first time, the Jon Fury pages that Toth produced while in the army. It will feature an introduction by Mark Chiarello.

"Genius, Illustrated," the second volume, will cover Toth’s development into one of the leading character designers in TV animation, as well as his renewed career in comics with Warren, DC, and his creator-owned properties of the 70s and beyond, along with an examination of his final years.

"Genius, Animated," the third volume, will be an art book with hundreds of Toth’s model sheets and storyboards for shows such as Space Ghost and Dino Boy, Jonny Quest, Space Angel, Super Friends, The Fantastic Four, Hot Wheels, Thundarr, and Shazzan, as well as many full-color presentation pieces for selling new series to the networks.

A slipcase for the full set will be available with the third book.

Old time radio, with pictures!

Classic TV Showbiz takes a detour into the pre-television days when radio was king. Unfortunately, there's no identifying on the folks depicted in these behind-the-scenes pics, but they're fun to see nevertheless.

Trailer: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Here's a trailer for the BBC's adaptation of the Douglas Adams' character: