Kamandi Challenge

[Katatonia]

At first, I was hesitant upon reading this. As a fan, I love Kamandi almost entirely. Anthropomorphic characters are like my favorite things in comics. Nothing gets better than those. But Kamandi had a special place, it was like the character was a wise-ass who had one-liners and it was meant to be funny. In Jack Kirby's run, I remember reading that and laughing out loud cause it's just great stuff. Now, with the Kamandi Challenge, I feel as if they took everything he did that was great and made it a hell of a lot better in this time. Normally, I hate when writer/art teams change. But the writers who did this story actually made it flow seamlessly into the next issue. They really put a lot of love and care into it.

It was surprising of how good this really was. And how magnificent it played out. Plus, it was nice to see Kevin Eastman make his DC debut with one of those issues. Though, I love his art, that was neat to see it in monotone instead of full color. On a side note, I'm still pissed the Ninja Turtles don't have their trademark stub-tails in newer issues. But what can you do? However, I hope since they did the Kamandi Challenge, they do a New Gods Challenge or something else like that with characters from the Kirby World. Maybe the Demon, but Demon's newer series just concluded. They should continue the tradition with these type of books, since they started them. That would be super neat. All and all, I would say this series and how it was put together from start to finish was a masterpiece. And I would highly recommend anyone to pick this up and read it.

[RamblingMan]

Looking forward to reading this and will pick it up soon. I'm finishing up the last of the Kamandi Omnibus at the moment which I found fantastic having never read any of it before. Late 60s to mid 70s Kirby was firing on all cylinders.

[Katatonia]

Yeah, firing on all cylinders is right. The original series was fantastic. The Kamandi Challenge is just great stuff and super memorable. All the people who were involved should be proud that they were apart of that project. I thoroughly enjoyed that a lot. Just as much as I loved the original series. Which makes me wonder if DC will reprint another Omnibus collecting the remaining issues from it. Kirby did the first 40 issues. But the series was about 65 issues if I'm not mistaken, done by other people. Although, those are also good. I'm unsure if DC will either make a deluxe book collecting them, or if they'll do another Omnibus with all of them inside. We'll have to wait and see what develops in the coming months. But I'm all for it.

[RamblingMan]

I would buy a deluxe/mini omnibus to finish the series so I hope they do finish it off. Even a thick chunky trade to have it in print beside Kirbys run would be ok.
Looking forward to Kamandi challenge. Will probably order that next along with a few other things.

[Katatonia]

I'm pretty sure they will, since the demand for it is pretty high. They said they might also reprint all of the other Kirby stuff on a single Omnibus, like OMAC, Challengers, and so fourth. So, maybe the Demon might get a new book as well, that would be pretty nice, since the old Omnibus had newspaper instead of real actual high-quality paper. I own all 6 of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing HC's and it sickens me that they used newspaper instead of high-quality paper. Yeah, I get they wanted it to have that old feel. But the pages are so flimsy and so thin, it's like you can see the next page over. With Kirby's old Omnibus line, the paper was godawful. Still to this day, it blows my mind DC would pull a move like that. Especially when those books themselves are so pricey.

Stepping away from Kamandi for a bit. As far as an Absolute or Omnibus collecting Moore's Swamp Thing run goes, honestly, I don't think it'll ever happen. And if it does, that would be shocking. But then again, DC's been getting better with binding and with graphic art on the actual books. So hopefully, they'll make amends and do something right for Alan Moore's run. Though, I already own the 6 HC's, and there's absolutely no bonus content at all on any of the books. Just a few covers from random volumes. Being how those were "Deluxe" books, which is a joke, because the 100 Bullets HC collection I got is bigger, better paper, and more Deluxe than those. They're the size of an Omnibus.

But really, what are they going to include as extras? Think about that, are they going to add all of the covers from the trades, I highly doubt they have any scripts, or any sketches, unless they're new. I know one thing, it's probably going to go the same way as the Masterworks line does with Silver Age books. The first 3 X-Men Masterworks became the first Omnibus. The next 3 became the second Omnibus with the same extras. So, with my mind in the right place, Preachers first 2 books became the first Absolute and so fourth. Yeah, Preacher had a lot of extras in the Absolutes, however, with Swamp Thing, there's nothing really extra within it. Just the immediate story.

Personally, as much as it does suck, and as much as fans want it. They should just get the trades of Moore's run. Or get the overly priced HC's. Because I'm sure the Absolute or even an Omnibus, will be a joke like the first Swamp Thing Omnibus was and have absolutely nothing extra. I'm grateful, trust me, but when you blow x-amount of dollars on a book that's that expensive. At least you should get your money's worth. When these Swamp Thing HC's came out, I was buying them, and it made me mad they didn't give anything extra within them. I legit felt super ripped off. And I still do. As far as Miracleman goes and all of the extra's that has, that was more extra's than an actual comic should've had. And honestly, almost all of it was entirely garbage and a waste of time. I would've settled for a deluxe or OHC of the series with every single issue/crossover and covers, like how they did the Power Rangers HC from Kyle Higgins, than to have what they gave us. That's another instance where I also felt ripped off entirely.

[RamblingMan]

Personally, I want an omnibus with coloring done right. The only extras I care about in anything are original sketches and maybe interviews. Something like scrips, I don't see the point but I know some people want them. I mainly want a good quality board (not matte black for Moores Swamp Thing) like the recent Kirby Omnibus. A really well done oversize of it doesnt seem like its going to happen anytime soon.
For Kirby, I did pick up the recent trades for the Demon and Challengers. Would love any of these is an oversized format as well.

[Katatonia]

I agree with the recent Kirby Omnibus, and hopefully Swamp Thing gets a graphical update on the actual book, instead of bleeding matte boards. I do, however, own the Original Omnibuses from Kirby. Sadly I don't own those recent trades. I only mostly collect HC's. And I'll probably wait until an updated Omnibus or HC set comes around. But, I did check them out at my friends comic shop. And they did look spectacular. So, with any luck, DC will reprint Swamp Thing with better paper. See Kamandi, it was on newspaper originally on those older Omnibuses from 10 years ago. Now, Kamandi is on high-quality thick paper. And it feels almost entirely remastered. Which is great. If they can give Swamp Thing that treatment from Alan Moore's run, then by all means they're worth every penny. And I agree 100% with original sketches and interviews, that would be neat to see what Moore said at the time, as well as see some unseen artwork.