Existential Ennui

Signed Copies of The DC Encyclopedia by Nick Jones (and a Trip Down Mixmag Memory Lane)

2026-03-12T05:00:00.006-04:00

Yesterday on my way up to the annual London Book Fair I popped into the Forbidden Planet megastore on Shaftesbury Avenue to sign copies of my new book The DC Encyclopedia (cowritten with Melanie Scott, Matt Manning, Dan Brooks and Scott Beatty, and coedited by Martin Eden, my old friend and former Titan colleague who I got to hang out with at the fair, along with another old mate, Forbidden Planet's Rob Pontefract). Here I am looking rather proud posing with the signed copies:

Unless there's been a sudden rush of sales overnight there should still be copies available in store, so if you fancy a signed one, you know where to go (and thank you to the lovely staff at Forbidden Planet for looking after me).

And if you're in that vicinity and happen to be passing Waterstones in Piccadilly, you may also find some books signed by me in that fine establishment, as on my way past I signed copies of The DC Encyclopedia, DC Cinematic Universe and Marvel Arms and Armour (and thanks to the Waterstones staff too):

One other thing: as usual on my way down the Hammersmith Road en route to Kensington Olympia, where the London Book Fair is held (until next year, when it'll be moving to the Excel centre), I glanced up wistfully at a nondescript corner building on the North End Road, just opposite Olympia. In fact this time I even took a picture:

It's an unremarkable building to most folk, but I still remember walking up its stairs over 30 years ago to the offices above what was back then a Chinese herbalist's and meeting Mixmag's editor and deputy editor, David Davies and the late, much-missed Dom Phillips, for the first time. I spent a few years thereafter in and out of that building writing for and editing various sections of Mixmag (before we all moved to Brook Mews North near Lancaster Gate) and can still vividly recall being hunched over an old floppy disk Mac, bashing away at the keyboard while music blared out of the windows and various degrees of chaos erupted all around me. There really should be a blue plaque on the place.

A History of Hot Toys, Part 5: Iron Man Mark III (2008–2015)

2026-01-16T06:30:00.008-05:00

After an interlude regarding my next book, The DC Encyclopedia New Edition (out March 2026), it's back to the idiosyncratic history of Hot Toys.

I mentioned in my last Hot Toys post how the Hong Kong company has a habit of revisiting and revamping action figures it's previously released. It's a practice that persists to this day, as advances in everything from base bodies (or bucks) to tailoring, sculpting and painting have seen Hot Toys perennially trying to improve upon older 1/6th-scale figures, or at least those deemed popular enough to warrant revisiting. A good example is the Batsuit worn by Christian Bale/Bruce Wayne/Batman in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012), which Hot Toys has revamped half a dozen times in 1/6 action figure form since releasing their first attempt, Movie Masterpiece Series MMS 71, in 2008. In 2010 there was a Deluxe Series version of the Dark Knight suit, DX 02; then in 2012 a Deluxe Series take on the Dark Knight Rises suit, DX 12; then in 2014 a slightly different version of DX 12 as part of three Movie Masterpiece Batman Armory sets, MMS 234, 235 and 236; then in 2022 the Deluxe Series Dark Knight Trilogy DX 19; then in 2024 a Batsuit as part of the Dark Knight Rises Armory, MMS 702; and most recently in 2025 as part of the Dark Knight Armory 2.0, MMS 750.

But this abundance of Bale Batmen, even if you include the four or so Hot Toys 1/6th versions of the Batman Begins Batsuit, is dwarfed by the cornucopia of Robert Downey Jr. Iron Men. The seemingly infinite iterations of the cinematic Tony Stark and his Iron Man armours have afforded Hot Toys the opportunity to return to the character again and again, starting with the movie that launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Released early in 2009, almost a year after director Jon Favreau's Downey Jr.-starring Iron Man had debuted in cinemas in April 2008, Movie Masterpiece Series MMS 75 Iron Man – Mark III was Hot Toys' first licensed Marvel 1/6th-scale action figure. Faithfully replicating the third iteration of the Iron Man suit constructed by Tony Stark in the film – following the jerry-rigged-in-an-Afghan-cave Mark I and the riveted chrome Mark II – Hot Toys' take on the Mark III was a remarkable figure for its time, as Jeff Parker and Michael Crawford's contemporaneous reviews on Crawford's Captain Toy site expressed in glowing terms. While the Tony Stark head sculpt that came with the figure wasn't on quite the same level as some of Hot Toys' other work around the same time, the engineering of the Iron Man armour, by Jason Woo, Gary Wong and Ray Ling, was revolutionary, striking a balance between appearance and articulation and boasting an array of openable flaps and light-up features.

Within weeks, the Mark III was followed by Hot Toys' take on the Mark II (MMS 78), featuring a helmeted Tony Stark head sculpt that for Michael Crawford was an improvement on the prior sculpt. Next came a 1/6th-scale take on the Mark I armour (MMS 80), with another helmeted head sculpt, before Hot Toys made the first of many returns to the Mark III armour with a gunmetal version (MMS 101) only available in limited quantities at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con, and in spring 2010, just ahead of the cinema debut of Iron Man 2, a battle-damaged version (MMS 110) boasting more vibrant colours in the paintwork. A mech-test Tony Stark (MMS 116) rounded off the Iron Man releases, but there was little respite, as by summer 2010 Hot Toys' Iron Man 2 figures had started shipping, this time encompassing not just multiple Iron Men but 1/6th-scale takes on Don Cheadle's War Machine (MMS 120), Mickey Rourke's Whiplash (MMS 121) and Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow (MMS 124).

2012's The Avengers brought with it a handful more Hot Toys Iron Men in amongst some revisits of earlier armours, but it was with 2013's Iron Man 3 – to my mind the best of the three Iron Man films, due in no small part to director and cowriter Shane Black – that the floodgates fully opened. The plot point of a traumatised, hyperactive Tony Stark having built dozens of Iron Man suits, up to and including the Mark 42 (my personal favourite), afforded Hot Toys the opportunity to release two dozen Iron Man 3 action figures over the next few years. Moreover, this deluge of Iron Men came accompanied by a couple of innovations. The first of these, the Power Pose Series, traded articulation for the ability to keep figures in action poses for extended periods, and petered out after half a dozen or so releases. The second innovation proved much more enduring, however: diecast metal.

I'll endeavour to return to the initial Hot Toys diecast action figures in a subsequent post – Iron Patriot, Iron Man Mark 42 and War Machine Mark II, plus some of the other non-diecast Iron Man 3 releases in my collection – but suffice to say here that the introduction of diecast parts into Hot Toys' figures not only revolutionised the way those figures were engineered, it opened the way to even more revisiting and revamping of older figures, starting with the seventh diecast release, MMS 256 D07 Iron Man – Mark III.

Arriving in summer 2015, Hot Toys' first diecast revamp of an older figure had a more vibrant paint job than the original Mark III release, better proportions, a terrific helmeted Toy Stark head sculpt, removable armour plates revealing underlying circuitry, and a midsection that could be replaced with a twisted one to recreate the Iron Man landing pose.

Best of all, it had heft, the diecast elements lending the figure a weight that previous plastic Iron Men had lacked. In turn this necessitated more durable packaging, a style of glossy outer sleeve and styrofoam inner tray that the Mark III shared in common with the diecast Iron Man 3 figures.

Henceforth, as Hot Toys' Iron Man offerings grew, more and more would feature diecast – not just the new armour iterations seen in 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron, 2016's Captain America: Civil War, 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming, 2018's Avengers: Infinity War and 2019's Avengers: Endgame, but revamped versions of the Mark I, Mark II and inevitably, again and again, the Mark III. To date, Hot Toys has released well over a dozen versions of the Mark III suit, and something in the region of 150 Iron Man-related action figures overall (out of around 400 Marvel figures in total), with no signs of stopping anytime soon.

Cover Reveal: The DC Encyclopedia New Edition, Coauthored by Nick Jones, Out Now!

2026-01-02T04:45:00.016-05:00

Interrupting my series of idiosyncratic posts on Hot Toys, I noticed over the festive period there was a cover up on Amazon (and other online retailers) for my next book, namely the latest edition of The DC Encyclopedia. This is the third edition of the book I've cowritten (following the 2016 All-New Edition and the 2021 New Edition), but this time I also acted as consultant, contributed some picture research and helped out on project management (mostly marshalling the other authors), so I'm (almost) literally all over this one. It's out in March, so I'll endeavour to post something nearer the time about my contributions and those of my excellent coauthors, editors and designers, but for now I thought showcasing Wonder Woman and Dark Crisis artist Daniel Sampere's splendid cover composition, arranged around the restored classic DC logo, would be a fine way to kick off 2026. Happy new year!

Update 6/3/26: Well The DC Encyclopedia is now out, and true to form I haven't found the time to do another post on it. So instead I thought I'd post Daniel Sampere's full wraparound cover plus a few interior pages. The Harley Quinn entry above is one that I wrote the update for, along with the entries for Aquaman (both Arthur Curry and Jackson Hyde), Flash (Wally West), Lobo, Arsenal, Raven and well over a hundred others, plus countless other entries where as consultant I was required to do some additional writing. Besides myself, the authors this time numbered Melanie Scott, Matthew Manning, Dan Brooks and Scott Beatty, while Martin Eden and Kate Lloyd handled the editing, and Amazing15 designed and oversaw the whole shebang.

I haven't seen a printed copy yet, but I'll be up in London later today, so hopefully I'll find some copies out in the wild, and may well update this post again then.

A History of Hot Toys, Part 4: The Dark Knight Batman Begins Original Costume (2008)

2025-12-19T14:48:00.008-05:00

In summer 2008, as The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan's sequel to 2005's Batman Begins, sent box office records toppling on its way to becoming the biggest film of the year, Hot Toys released the first of their licensed tie-in high-end 1/6th-scale action figures. For Batman Begins, Howard Chan's company, at that point still in the early stages of its Movie Masterpiece Series, had issued just one 1/6th-scale figure: MMS 13 Batman Begins – Batman, released in summer 2006, over a year after the movie's cinema debut. For The Dark Knight, the now firmly established and increasingly feted Hot Toys had over a dozen releases lined up, from figures based on Christian Bale/Bruce Wayne's new Batsuit and Heath Ledger's Joker to a 1/6th-scale Batmobile/Tumbler and Bat-Pod.

First out of the blocks, though, was a new take on the Batsuit from Batman Begins and the opening act of The Dark Knight: Hot Toys MMS 67 The Dark Knight (Original Costume).

As fine a figure as Hot Toys' 2006 take on the Batman Begins suit had been, certainly for the time, the revamped version was in a different league. Hot Toys' first attempt had featured an outfit comprising segmented rubber panels affixed to rubberised bodysuit, while the masked head sculpt, although nicely crafted and painted, wasn't as lifelike or evocative of a cowled Christian Bale as one might have wished. For The Dark Knight, the Begins Batsuit was realised as moulded, sculpted, matte rubber, more closely approximating the look of the adapted "Nomex survival suit" of the films, while the masked head sculpt was a remarkably realistic representation of Bale in a cowl.

By this juncture, Howard Chan's creative team had been bolstered by co-producer and lead painter JC Hong and sculptor Yulli, whose exceptional work could be seen not just in the cowled head sculpt of MMS 67, but in the unmasked head sculpt that came as part of the package. The year before, Hot Toys had released a military figure, USMC Three Infantry Battalions in Fallujah M29 Saw Gunner, which sported a head sculpt clearly inspired by Christian Bale, but MMS 67 was better still.

Hong and Yulli would achieve an even more accurate Bale likeness with the unmasked head sculpt of Hot Toys' take on the new, more flexible "hardened Kevlar plates over titanium-dipped tri-weave fibre" Batsuit unveiled in The Dark Knight, MMS 71, and produce yet more lifelike portraits of Heath Ledger's Joker – MMS 68, and especially the extraordinary MMS 79, alias the Bank Robber Joker, still one of Yulli's favourites – plus a fine attempt at Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent/Two-Face, MMS 81.

Over the ensuing two decades, Hot Toys would revisit and revamp all of those initial Dark Knight figures multiple times, not just in the Movie Masterpiece Series but as part of the Deluxe (DX) Series, often improving on the originals. But despite at least two further 1/6th-scale attempts at the Begins Batsuit, for my money MMS 67 remains the high-water mark for that particular suit. While the unmasked head sculpt has since been surpassed, the cowled sculpt stands as a fine piece of craftsmanship, so much so that Hot Toys have reused it several times. The Batsuit boasts a movie-accurate matte finish and shows no signs of deterioration even after nearly 20 years, and unlike subsequent Hot Toys takes on the Begins Batsuit, the accessories include the Pneumatic Mangler, used by Batman to apprehend Scarecrow in The Dark Knight.

For a Dark Knight Trilogy devotee like myself – I still vividly recall seeing Batman Begins on the big screen back in 2005 when I was working at Titan Books and we were releasing tie-in graphic novels and art books, and I got to write about all three films in my 2024/2025 book DC Cinematic Universe – MMS 67 The Dark Knight (Original Costume) stands as a figure to cherish: a fairly faithful 1/6th-scale recreation of the first Bale Batsuit, and a relatively scarce item to boot (unlike MMS 71 Batman The Dark Knight Version, which was distributed in the US and UK by Diamond, MMS 67 wasn't distributed in the West).

The Dark Knight may have been the biggest film of 2008, but that year also saw the release of another significant comic book movie, one that marked the start of not just a soon-to-be all-conquering cinematic universe, but an accompanying line of figures from Hot Toys...

A History of Hot Toys, Part 3: Batman Begins (2005/2006)

2025-12-12T07:12:00.017-05:00

After five years of making meticulously crafted, tailored and accessorised 1/6th-scale military action figures, in 2005 Hong Kong company Hot Toys made a return to high-end movie figures. Back at the turn of the millennium the then-neophyte outfit had released three 1/6th-scale action figures based on film stars and directors, the Famous Type Figure. Those had been unofficial, however. This time, Hot Toys' movie figures would be fully licensed.

Ever since Hot Toys had released their first military figure in 2000 – the U.S. Air Force Combat Aircrew Pilot, based on Tom Cruise in 1986's Top Gun – company founder (and former TV screenwriter) Howard Chan had believed there was scope for a line of high-end figures based on movie properties. Convincing the Hollywood studios he was right proved to be another matter though. "That was a huge hurdle," Chan told the South China Morning Post in 2015. "We were trying to get licenses through Hong Kong agents, and we said we wanted to make action figures. But the agents said, 'What are action figures?'" Chan had little luck getting the agents to understand the kind of adult collectibles market he had in mind, until he went through a Japanese agent instead and landed licenses to create upscale figures based on James Cameron's Terminator (1984) and Aliens (1986). The Movie Masterpiece Series was born.

Released towards the tail end of 2005, the initial wave of 1/6th-scale Movie Masterpiece action figures – Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese in Terminator (MMS 01), a battle-damaged T-800 from Terminator (MMS 02) and Michael Biehn again as Corporal Hicks in Aliens (MMS 03) – bore the benefits of the years of hard craft Hot Toys' artisans had been putting in on the company's military figures, refining articulation, outfitting, sculpting and painting. (As noted in the previous post in this series, Hot Toys had been taking inspiration for the head sculpt likenesses of their military figures from film stars and other famous folk, but in 2004 they'd also made a tentative return to movie figures by collaborating with artist and figure designer Eric So on a 12-inch James Dean figure.) By the first half of the following year, the Movie Masterpiece line had expanded to include Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), Robocop (1987) and Alien vs. Predator (2004) figures. Then, in summer 2006, Hot Toys released an action figure based on an even bigger blockbuster from 2005: Christopher Nolan's Christian Bale-starring Batman Begins.

The previous year Hot Toys had secured the rights to produce smaller scale Batman Begins blind box diorama snap kits, with the boxes containing variously a Batman bust, a small action figure, a Batmobile/Tumbler and other snap-together models.

Now, over a year on from the release of the film, Hot Toys unveiled their first ever 1/6th-scale high-end Batman figure, MMS 13.

Limited to just 1100 pieces, each figure came accompanied by a hand-numbered certificate of authenticity, and featured several interchangeable hands, Grapnel Gun, Batarang and mini-mine accessories, and an epically voluminous cape.

For the time it was an impressive piece, as contemporaneous reviewer Anti-Hero pointed out on Michael Crawford's Captain Toy site, and even today it stands up as an evocative, cleverly engineered and costumed representation of Christin Bale's Batman Begins suit.

Just two years later, however, Hot Toys would take a second crack at the Batman Begins costume, to coincide with the release of Christopher Nolan and co.'s sequel The Dark Knight – and this time the results would be even more impressive...

A History of Hot Toys, Part 2: First Official Release (2000) and Modern Military Figures

2025-12-05T07:30:00.006-05:00

At the turn of the millennium, Hong Kong designer and TVB screenwriter Howard Chan channelled his love of action figures into first a pop culture toy and collectible shop – Cool Toys on Causeway Bay – then a line of high-end 1/6th-scale action figures: Hot Toys. Chan's initial foray into the 1/6th figure scene was the Famous Type Figure. Unlicensed and unofficial, each of the three released Famous Type Figures was based on film stars or directors: Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible 2, Keanu Reeves as Neo in The Matrix, and George Lucas as, well, George Lucas in his signature plaid shirt and jeans.

Thereafter, for their first major release, Chan and his cohorts turned their attention to modern military figures, no doubt inspired by the success of fellow Hong Kong outfit Dragon Models, who in 1999 had launched their 1/6th-scale military New Generation Life Action Figures. But though Hot Toys would spend the ensuing five years concentrating on military figures, not returning to movie figures until 2005, that didn't stop Chan and co. from basing the likenesses of their military types on famous film folk...

Released in 2000, Hot Toys' first official 1/6th action figure was the U.S. Air Force Combat Aircrew Pilot F-14 Tomcat Pilot. Identified on the back of the box as one "Jack Carter", there was no mistaking who the figure was actually inspired by: Tom Cruise's Pete "Maverick" Mitchell from 1986's Top Gun.

For the time, the quality and attention to detail on the figure was remarkable, from the head sculpt to the body, the outfit to the accessories. Interviewed by the South China Morning Post in February 2015, Howard Chan recalled that in order to ensure the accuracy of the walkie-talkie accessory, he slept in the Chinese factory producing the figure for three days. "You know how those old walkie-talkies had these twisted wires?" he explained. "We ended up taking a huge spool of wire, dipping it in hot water to soften it, then a worker would take a needle and coil it by hand."

The same year, Hot Toys released a second Combat Aircrew Pilot, an F/A-18 Strike Fighter Pilot by the name of "Alan J. Nance", clearly based on Will Smith' Captain Steve Hiller from 1996's Independence Day. Thus the company's course was set for the next few years, as Hot Toys issued a succession of highly detailed and accessorised military figures featuring head sculpts bearing striking resemblances to everyone from Ice Cube (Nuclear, Biological & Chemical Protective Gear, 2002) to David Beckham (U.S. Airborne Ranger, 2006), Jake Gyllenhaal (Air Force T.A.C.P., 2006) to Russell Crowe (U.S. NSW Forces Desert Ops Mk43, 2008).

By the mid-2000s Hot Toys had returned to producing film-based figures with the Movie Masterpiece Series – this time fully licensed and official – yet the company carried on creating military figures well into the late 2000s, its sculptors and painters continuing to hone their talents on ever more realistic head sculpts. One of the most significant of these came with the USMC Three Infantry Battalions in Fallujah M249 Saw Gunner in 2007, a figure which sported a sculpt based on an actor who would feature prominently in Hot Toys' plans going forward – and who in a different guise had already made an appearance the year before as a Movie Masterpiece figure...

A History of Hot Toys, Part 1: The Famous Type Figure (Circa 2000)

2025-11-25T10:08:00.010-05:00

For the first post proper in this prospective series on Hong Kong company Hot Toys and their 1/6th-scale high-end action figures – following a prelude in the form of George Lucas's head – here are a couple of examples, taken from my own collection, of the earliest Hot Toys figures:

The Famous Type Figure. Produced in limited quantities (some estimates put it at just 500 of each figure) circa 2000, there were three of these, all unlicensed (in other words, unofficial): a figure based on the aforementioned Mr. Lucas, alias The Director; a figure based on Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible 2 (directed, not entirely coincidentally I suspect, by Hong Kong action movie maestro John Woo), and a figure based on Keanu Reeves as Neo in The Matrix. As I noted in my prelude post, I only own the head sculpt of George Lucas, but I own complete examples of the other two Famous Type Figures, in the two types of boxes they were issued in.

Opinions differ as to which was the first to be released. Some collectors say Neo came first, packaged as he is in a black box with no sign of the Hot Toys branding, unlike the yellow-and-orange boxes of Ethan and George. Others say the reverse is true, that Ethan and George came first in their bright Hot Toys boxes, with Neo following in the black box with all references to Hot Toys removed (the presumption being for legal reasons, these being unlicensed figures). The release dates of the movies in question – 1999 for The Matrix, 2000 for Mission: Impossible 2 – would suggest that Neo came first, but while there is a copyright date of 2000 on Ethan's yellow box, there's no date at all on Neo's black box. Muddying the waters still further, I've seen examples of not just Neo but Ethan and George in the black-design box. Perhaps if Hot Toys founder Howard Chan is ever passing this way, he can pronounce on which was actually the first Famous Type Figure.

In any case, the Famous Type Figure was by no means the first line of high-end 1/6th-scale action figures to be based on film characters. Takara had produced Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992) Real Action Figures, albeit with limited articulation, while in 1995 fellow Japanese outfit Medicom teamed with Takara to produce Judge Dredd (1995), Alien (1979) and Predator (1987) figures, launching their Real Action Heroes line (or Real Action Series as they were originally called).

What Howard Chan and his coconspirators brought to the party was a body (or "buck" in collector parlance) with articulation comparable with the contemporaneous likes of Medicom or Dragon Models ("over 34 joints" as the box blurb puts it), outfitting and tailoring that was a cut above the 1/6th figure competition, and likenesses that were remarkable for their time.

Neo, Ethan and George are all recognisable as their celluloid/real-world counterparts, and sport outfits that hang fairly realistically on bodies that approximate how the human body moves. Neo in particular is an impressive piece considering his age. On first inspection his black outfit looks quite simple, but the tailoring is excellent, his trench coat is wired along the edges to enable dynamic blowing-in-the-wind poses, he has all the requisite gun holsters underneath, and his boots boast painted silver buckles and brushed silver toecaps. In addition, his accessories comprise four metal guns – two Berettas and two Heckler & Koch MP5Ks – and a pair of shades that sit nicely on his five o'clock-shadowed face.

It would be five years before Hot Toys returned to making 1/6th figures based on film properties, launching the Movie Masterpiece Series in 2005 with figures based on The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986) and other franchises, this time fully licensed and official. In the interim, the company turned to creating modern military figures – although still taking inspiration for head sculpt likenesses from famous types, starting with Hot Toys' first official release...

A History of Hot Toys Prelude: George Lucas's Head

2025-11-20T05:30:00.008-05:00

Besides collecting books and comics and records (and, along with those, dust), I also collect action figures – on and off. This occasional diversion dates back to my time working at Titan in the early 2000s, when I edited Star Trek Magazine and tie-in souvenir magazines to movies like Hulk and X2, and launched and edited late lamented (by me) toy and comic collector magazine Memorabilia (a kind of British version of Wizard but with better jokes). Back then it was American companies like Marvel/Toy Biz and their early super-posable 6-inch action figures – Spider-Man, Daredevil, the 2002 Spider-Man movie range – or DC Direct and their superhero figures that I tended to gravitate to, but I also nurtured a fascination for Japanese companies like Sega and their 7-inch Real Model Neon Genesis Evangelion range or Medicom's Lego-like Kubrick figures (some of which I might blog about at some point).

My interest in action figures has waxed and waned over the years, but whenever my curiosity has been piqued in the past two decades it's tended to be by Japanese and Hong Kongese figures: Kaiyodo's Revoltech and Yamaguchi ranges (Evangelion again, but other anime/mecha too, plus sci-fi and Iron Man figures); Bandai and Medicom's 6-inch S.H. Figuarts and Mafex lines (mostly Marvel and DC movie figures); and the 1/6th-scale (i.e. 12-inch) high-end figures produced by Medicom in their Real Action Heroes range and Hot Toys in their Movie Masterpiece Series and Deluxe DX line. While Medicom were the trailblazers as regards 1/6th-scale movie and TV tie-in action figures, producing Judge Dredd and Alien figures as far back as 1995, since the early 2000s Hong Kong-based Hot Toys have risen to become leaders in the field, innovating in everything from articulation and artistry to craftsmanship and tailoring.

Naturally there have been numerous sites and YouTube channels which have charted Hot Toys' development and wares over the years: Michael Crawford's excellent Captain Toy site springs to mind, as do YouTubers like Dean Knight, Sean Long, Shartimus Prime and the seemingly surname-less Justin and his Collection. What there hasn't been so much of is historical exploration and appreciation of Hot Toys' extraordinary toys, and so that's what I thought I'd do in this series of posts, taking an idiosyncratic look at Hot Toys-gone-by in the form of figures from my own collection. Starting with this:

This is George Lucas's head. More specifically, it's a head – and neck – belonging to one of Hot Toys' first forays into 1/6th figures, the Famous Type Figure. Produced circa 2000, there were three of these, all unlicensed (i.e. unofficial): one clearly modelled on George Lucas, director of such films as THX 1138 (1971), American Graffiti (1973) and a long-forgotten space fantasy by the name of Star Wars (1977); one based on Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible 2 (2000), and one modelled on Keanu Reeves as Neo in The Matrix (1999).

I don't have George's body or box as I bought his head as part of a job lot of 1/6th bits and pieces, but even disembodied it's notable how even at this very early juncture, 25 years ago, the ability of Hot Toys' sculptors and painters to capture a likeness was in evidence.

Within the space of a few years Hot Toys' artisans would start to achieve uncannily lifelike head sculpts, in concert with cleverly engineered TrueType bodies that replicated the way the human body moves and outfits boasting finely detailed tailoring. But before we get to any of that, for my first post proper in this series I want to take a look at the two Famous Type Figures I own in full – these guys:

Signed Patricia Highsmith Books: Edith's Diary, People Who Knock on the Door and Found in the Street

2025-07-16T05:10:00.002-04:00

As I mentioned in my post the other week on a significant (to me, if no one else) piece of signed Patriciaphernalia relating to Ripley's Game, I also have several signed Patricia Highsmith first and other editions I've been meaning to blog about for bloody ages – which, in order of publication, are as follows:

A 1977 Heinemann first edition of Edith's Diary, Highsmith's seventeenth novel. I've blogged in brief before about a previous copy of this edition, bought in 2010 in the Chichester branch of Kim's Bookshop (which, I've only just learned, closed down last year, though the Arundel branch still seemingly prospers) and subsequently sold to, I think, my friend Ric, co-proprietor of Lewes's fine (and pretty much only these days) secondhand and antiquarian bookshop Bow Windows. (And in a pleasing instance of serendipity, just the other day Ric drew my attention to Elena Gosalvez Blanca's piece about her time as Highsmith's assistant, in which Blanca highlights Edith's Diary as her favourite Highsmith.) This copy, however, is signed on the title page:

And dated 21 November 1988, a good decade on from publication. What Highsmith was up to on that particular day I couldn't say – while I own Edith's Diary, I don't own Highsmith's Her Diaries and Notebooks, if that day is even mentioned in there – but Andrew Wilson's 2003 biography Beautiful Shadow suggests she might have been in America, where this copy came from. Evidently whatever she was doing included signing a book, and three years earlier, around summer 1985, Highsmith was also signing books:

Namely the first American edition of her nineteenth novel, People Who Knock on the Door, published by Penzler Books in a numbered, limited, signed edition in September 1985:

One of half a dozen of Highsmith's works published by Penzler in signed limited editions, this is another book I've blogged about before (again back in 2010) in its 1983 Heinemann first edition, when I was in the process of securing firsts of as many Highsmiths as I could. And would you believe it I've blogged about the final book I'm showcasing before too, although not this particular edition:

An uncorrected advance proof of Found in the Street, Highsmith's twenty-first novel, published in the US in 1987 (the year after the UK Heinemann first edition) by Atlantic Monthly Press, with whom Highsmith signed after Otto Penzler dropped her dedication to "the Palestinian people and their leaders" from the above-showcased US edition of People Who Knock on the Door. This one I can state with reasonable certainty when and where it was signed, as it's an association copy originally belonging to Greg Gatenby, founding artistic director of the Toronto International Festival of Authors; his ownership signature can be seen on the half-title page above Highsmith's signature:

In October 1987 Highsmith was a guest at the festival, where she was interviewed for Sight & Sound magazine by film critic Gerald Peary, who noted what a coup her appearance was. According to Andrew Wilson, on 20 October, as part of her festival duties, Highsmith read from Found in the Street at Toronto's Harbourfront – and that locale, I would hazard, is where this proof of the US edition was signed.

Patriciaphernalia: A Signed Patricia Highsmith Letter Regarding Ripley's Game

2025-07-04T04:00:00.004-04:00

I've a number of Patricia Highsmith signed books I've been meaning to blog about for bloody ages – years in fact – but the demands of work and life have meant that my blogging activity has largely been restricted to whichever books I've written or edited myself. However, I'm hoping to make more time for Existential Ennui besides simply blogging about whichever project I'm working on – case in point being my post the other day on Patrick Gierth – and have every intention of getting to those signed Highsmiths soon (and adding them to my dedicated Patricia Highsmith page). First, though, I want to showcase something even more remarkable:

A note Highsmith wrote on 9 February, 1975, regarding her "third Tom Ripley" as she puts it – in other words, 1974's Ripley's Game. The third in Highsmith's five-book Ripliad, Ripley's Game is, as I've noted many, many times, my favourite novel, not just of hers but full stop. I've never managed to secure a signed edition – though I do own a 1974 US Knopf first with an owner inscription by James Bond/Ian Fleming biographer John Pearson – so when I saw this note offered for sale I knew I had to have it so I could pair it with my 1974 Heinemann first edition of Ripley's Game (the book which began my book-collecting odyssey).

Addressed from Highsmith's then-residence in the village of Moncourt, France, where she wrote both Ripley's Game and the next book in the Ripliad, 1980's The Boy Who Followed Ripley (a signed US edition of which I blogged about back in 2017), the note is penned in response to a missive from one Peter Ladkin. An inveterate letter writer judging by the number of other examples of his author letters offered for sale at the same time (he also corresponded with the philosopher and LSE Professor John Watkins), Mr. Ladkin had evidently written approvingly of Ripley's Game, eliciting the following response from Highsmith:

Dear Mr Ladkin,

Don't worry about sending me the cost of return postage. I thank you very much for your remarks about my work and am glad you enjoyed my third Tom Ripley.

Yours sincerely

Patricia Highsmith

As the mention of "return postage" suggests, Mr. Ladkin had also seemingly requested Highsmith's signature and an accompanying inscription, which she duly supplied on a separate piece of paper, presumably so it could be used as a bookplate:

So there we have it: two notes regarding Ripley's Game, written from the house where Patricia Highsmith wrote that novel. Quite the pair of pieces of Patriciaphernalia for a Highsmith/Ripley's Game obsessive like myself.

Painter, Illustrator and Book Jacket Designer Patrick Gierth and the West Sussex Village of Wisborough Green

2025-07-02T04:10:00.004-04:00

Among the dust jackets collated in my Beautiful British Book Jacket Design of the 1950s and 1960s gallery is an evocative one belonging to a 1951 Michael Joseph first edition of Rogue Male author Geoffrey Household's terrific rural thriller A Rough Shoot (a novel wherein, as I noted in my review back in 2012, the unsuspecting reader will find such bucolic details as badger ham). The dust jacket's designer, Patrick Gierth, also designed the wrapper for the 1951 Joseph first edition of John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids (among other jackets), but he had a broader artistic life stretching far beyond the bounds of book cover art. His 1943 painting Guard Relaxing, the Stables, Wynnstay is held in the Government Art Collection, while his poster for Shell/BP is held by the British Council, and his name pops up in the Imperial War Museum collection. Yet he found artistic expression in the parochial as well as the national, as I learned after I bought this:

This is a 9.7 by 14.6-inch watercolour painting I came across whilst googling Patrick Gierth. It was listed by the seller under the surname Gierth – it's signed, but only with a surname – dated 1986 and described as "A charming watercolour with gouache highlights." I had no idea whether it was actually by Patrick Gierth, but his was an unusual surname, and stylistically it looked like it could be, plus it was only thirty quid, so after some deliberation I decided to go for it.

With the painting in hand I did some further digging and determined that until his death in November 1994 Gierth lived in the West Sussex village of Wisborough Green, about an hour's drive from where I live in Lewes. While I was pretty sure I'd driven through the place, I'd never visited it, so although I suspected the scene depicted in the painting might be somewhere in the village, it wasn't anywhere I recognised. Gierth's given address upon his death was School Lane; could the painting depict the road where he lived, I wondered?

Google Street View gave me a sense that I might be on the right track, but while I thought the church glimpsed in the picture could well be the Wisborough Green parish church (alias St Peter Ad Vincula), I wasn't able to pinpoint precisely the vantage point. I did, however, discover that Gierth was instrumental in the creation of the Wisborough Tapestry which hangs in the church, and that he designed the village green sign.

There was only one thing for it: I was going to have to go to Wisborough Green. And so earlier this year, on my birthday, that's precisely what Rachel and I did, painting in hand(s). It didn't take long to find the place where the picture was painted, round the corner from the village hall and pond, just down from where Gierth lived in High Barn. You can see the view in the photos in this post, along with other photos I took of the village sign, the tapestry, and as it turns out several other pieces Gierth produced for the church.

Confirmation, then, that this rather lovely painting is indeed by the designer of the dust jacket of one of my favourite thrillers, and moreover depicts the road in Wisborough Green where he lived.

Testing, Testing: Build the Guardians of the Galaxy Ship!

2025-04-04T04:07:00.000-04:00

Currently swooping into view in newsagents and supermarkets... somewhere in the country (I have no idea where – if you've seen it out in the wild, please do leave a comment!) is this:

Hachette Partworks' Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy Ship! It's something I've been working on for the past couple of years: a step-by-step build of the Guardians' – and Avengers' – ship from Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, Thor: Love and Thunder and indeed I Am Groot, accompanied by a magazine delving into all aspects of the Guardians and cosmic Marvel both on screen and in comics. I wrote and edited the magazine – which was designed by the amazing Amazing15 – and in my capacity as author of Guardians of the Galaxy Ultimate Guide, Marvel Arms and Armour and other Guardians and Marvel books have been advising on the ship, the build, the Guardians, Marvel and multifarious other aspects of the project.

What's appearing in shops right now... somewhere in the UK (again, I really don't know where – I wish I did) is a four-issue test comprising the first four magazines and sets of parts. If the test goes well, then the partwork will launch nationally. So if you want the chance of building a huge model of the Guardians' ship (or the Infinity Saga ship as I like to call it) with working lights and engines, movable wings and tail, and even the auxiliary pod that Thor, Rocket and Groot use in Infinity War and War Machine and Nebula use in Endgame, and you want to know what else I have planned for the magazine, grab yourself an issue or three if it appears in shops near you, or head to the website and subscribe. Believe me, the ship truly is a thing of beauty – and the magazine's a damn good read too!

The DC Heroes & Villains Collection Extension Issues 101 to 110

2024-12-05T10:00:00.006-05:00

I've blogged about the 20-volume extension to the DC Heroes & Villains Collection a couple of times now, and posted repeatedly in the DC Heroes & Villains Collection Facebook group, but those posts have been somewhat piecemeal in nature, and not everyone has the time, patience or, frankly, interest in putting the various pieces together. So I thought a straightforward rundown of the first ten releases in the extension might be of more use, along with a little additional background.

First out of the blocks, and already in some readers' clammy hands, are issues 101 and 102, namely Batman: Universe and Justice League vs. Suicide Squad, both of which I wrote about in this post, along with issues 103 and 104:

The Joker: The Series and Batman: Ten Nights of the Beast, which will be published later this month and early in the new year. Having already blogged about all four of the initial volumes in the extension, I shan't dwell on them here... except to say that as magnificent as Batman: Universe and Justice League vs. Suicide Squad are – and as huge a book as the latter of those two is, at nearly 300 pages – The Joker: The Series and Batman: Ten Nights of the Beast are even more special because they're unique to the DC Heroes & Villains Collection: bespoke volumes collecting, respectively, all of the mid-1970s The Joker series – including the 'lost' 10th issue – plus two key Denny O'Neil, Neal Adams and Irv Novick issues of Batman, and the first half of Jim Starlin's late-1980s Batman run, including the classic Ten Nights of the Beast. On top of which, both books are chock-full of bonus features.

Speaking of the Joker and bespoke volumes – and indeed big extents – later in January there's issue 106, The Joker: Vengeance. Collecting all 21 chapters of the lead storyline from James Tynion IV, Guillem March and co.'s 2021–2022 15-issue The Joker series – for my money one of the best extended comics storylines of the last five years – it's one long twisty-turny suspense thriller in one unique 328-page graphic novel. Just ahead of that book there's issue 105, the visually spectacular The Man of Steel, featuring showstopping art by, among others, Jim Lee, Jason Fabok, Steve Rude, Ryan Sook, Kevin Maguire and Adam Hughes, and then in February we have releases 107 and 108:

Batman: The Cult and Justice Society Returns! I vividly recall reading both of these on original publication, in 1988 and 1999 respectively, which is true of a good many of the comics in the DC Heroes & Villains Collection, and an indication of how personal the collection is to me (although personal preference obviously wasn't the only criteria for the selection of the stories). Published a couple of years after Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Jim Starlin and Bernie Wrightson's The Cult was only the second Batman miniseries to be published in the then-relatively new upmarket Prestige Format, and thus felt like a very different kind of Batman comic when I picked it up off the shelves of Forbidden Planet on Denmark Street: one seemingly set in current continuity, but bearing the influence of the dystopian Dark Knight Returns, as Starlin readily admitted.

The Cult was a high-profile project for DC at the time, whereas the Justice Society Returns! event flew very much under the radar in 1999, yet was a revelation for me: a terrific introduction to the Justice Society of America (with whom I was only passingly familiar at the time) ahead of the JSA series which launched in its wake, by the architects of that series, James Robinson and David S. Goyer, plus the likes of Mark Waid, Geoff Johns, Ron Marz, Chuck Dixon, Michael Lark, Eduardo Barreto, Peter Snejbjerg, Stephen Sadowski, Chris Weston and Russ Heath. Moreover, the format of the event – two issues of a revived All Star Comics bookending seven resurrected Golden Age titles, with the story reflecting the way JSA stories of the past saw the team splitting up into smaller units – was a really nice idea.

With both Batman: The Cult and Batman: Ten Nights of the Beast in the extension, it's only fitting that the remainder of Jim Starlin's stint as Batman writer be included too, which it will be in March, in the shape of issue 109, Batman: A Death in the Family. Collecting not just that notorious storyline but the issues either side of it, it's another bespoke volume and boasts some terrific bonus content, including Jim Aparo's original art pages for the alternate outcome of Batman #428 alongside their coloured and lettered counterparts, which were only belatedly published this year. A 400-page follow-up volume, Batman: Under the Red Hood, will be published later next year – I'll blog about that book nearer the time – but before then, and rounding out the initial ten releases in the extension, we have issue 110, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. Originally published from 2021–2022 as an eight-issue miniseries, Tom King and Bilquis Evely's celebrated sci-fi fable is a story that I suspect a lot of people will be interested in reading, due to the Craig Gillespie/Milly Alcock movie currently in pre-production.

Inside the DC Heroes & Villains Collection Graphic Novel Extension

2024-11-12T06:50:00.004-05:00

As promised in my previous post about the 20-volume extension to the DC Heroes & Villains Collection – which, lest we forget (and I mean how could we when I'm forever banging on about it), I'm the editor of – I thought I'd delve a little deeper into the extension than the four volumes thus far announced – or rather five, as subscribers have also been told about the 400-page Batman: Under the Red Hood. That volume's not due to be published until next spring, but it's worth spending a moment on it now because it might help illuminate how both the extension and the collection as a whole developed.

Way back in the mists of time, or more accurately the tail end of 2019, when I first noted down some thoughts on which stories we could potentially include in the collection, Judd Winick, Doug Mahnke and co.'s Red Hood storyline from Batman was one of those on my initial list. It's a run of comics that I loved when it was first published in the mid-2000s, a twisty-turny Bat-thriller that audaciously brought back a character who had been killed off in the late-1980s, yet kept readers guessing as to the true identity of that character (much as Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting were doing around the same time with their Winter Soldier storyline in Captain America; truly the mid-2000s were a great time to be reading superhero comics).

With a licensed partwork like the DC Heroes & Villains Collection, there's often a bit of give and take in terms of what can and can't be included, and for whatever reason, possibly the storyline's length (I can't actually remember at this point), Under the Red Hood didn't make it onto the final list of 100 volumes. But in common with some other titles that fell by the wayside, I never forgot about it – you should see my various voluminous docs of notes and ideas – and promised myself that should the collection ever be extended I'd revisit it, even though its length would likely mean splitting it across two volumes.

Incidentally, on the subject of the extension, there's an assumption amongst those familiar with partwork graphic novel collections that they always get extended past their initial run, but I had every reason to believe that the DC Heroes & Villains Collection would end at 100 volumes. Its extension was a genuine surprise to me, albeit a pleasant one, because it represented an opportunity to revisit previously rejected volumes and include new ones.

As discussions about the extension between myself, Hachette and DC developed – over a very short space of time I should add, as confirmation of the extension came quite late in the day – it became clear that not only would we be able to revisit stories that had fallen by the wayside and add in stories only relatively recently published, but include stories that I didn't think we'd ever get agreement on – and furthermore have a number of volumes with greater page counts, including one 400-page one.

Well hello, Batman: Under the Red Hood.

Once Under the Red Hood came into play – and after a different story dropped out of the extension – I started thinking about another title I intended to include: a volume collecting the first half of Jim Starlin's late-1980s Batman run, including the classic Ten Nights of the Beast. If those comics were on the table alongside the Red Hood storyline, wouldn't it make sense to also include the second half of Starlin's run, in particular the notorious A Death in the Family...?

I shan't spoil the events of those stories for anyone who hasn't read then, but anyone familiar with them will understand the significance of Starlin and Winick's respective Batman runs appearing in sequence in the collection's extension. And the icing on the cake: I'd already determined to try and include Jim Starlin's other significant Bat-story, the 1988 Prestige Format miniseries Batman: The Cult – with art by the great Bernie Wrightson – and so the extension will feature all of the Bat-books written by Starlin, brought together in a unique fashion.

Batman: Ten Night of the Beast has already been announced as the fourth release in the extension, published at the start of 2025, while Batman: The Cult, Batman: A Death in the Family and Batman: Under the Red Hood will be arriving in February, March and April – and of course will be stuffed with extras and bonus content. Before those, however, there are two other volumes set for a January release:

The Man of Steel, which collects the start of Ultimate Spider-Man co-creator Brian Michael Bendis's Superman run from 2018 and features spectacular art by Jim Lee, José Luis García-López, Ivan Reis, Jason Fabok, Evan "Doc" Shaner, Steve Rude, Ryan Sook, Kevin Maguire and Adam Hughes;

and The Joker: Vengeance, which collects the entire 21-chapter lead story from James Tynion IV, Guillem March and co.'s 2021–2022 The Joker series: to my mind one of the most gripping comics storylines of the past five years, in one unique 300-plus-page volume.

As for the other titles to be released early next year, not to mention the remainder of the DC Heroes & Villains Collection extension... more anon.

DC Heroes & Villains Collection – Extended!

2024-10-10T04:30:00.007-04:00

As I've noted before on this 'ere blog, for the past few years I've been the editor of, and lead writer for (I write the introductions and a fair number of the bonus features), the DC Heroes & Villains Collection, a fortnightly DC Comics graphic novel partwork. Launched at the beginning of 2021 and building into 100 hardback volumes, the collection brings together the best of the modern DC Universe, from 1980, when Marv Woman and George Pérez's New Teen Titans revolutionised DC, to the Rebirth relaunch of 2016, incorporating everything from big blockbuster events like Crisis on Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis to more obscure delights like Batman: Nocturna and the Night-Thief and DC Comics Presents: Cosmic Encounters, with plenty of previously uncollected comics and bespoke volumes unique to the collection.

For a DC devotee like myself, one who's read and collected DC comics since childhood, getting to select and curate 100 volumes of comics, some of which I first read as a 12-year-old, write about them, and see them published in splendid hardback editions has been an absolute joy – something of a dream project in fact. Which is why it's an immense thrill to report that, with the publication of the collection's 100th issue imminent, the DC Heroes & Villains Collection has been extended for another 20 volumes!

Over the past few weeks I've been teasing the long-suffering members of the DC Heroes & Villains Collection Facebook group with info about the initial volumes to be released in the extension, and an announcement has just gone out to subscribers, as follows:

With the first 100 volumes of the DC Heroes & Villains Collection, the aim was to give readers a grounding in the modern DC Universe, from the advent of New Teen Titans in 1980 to the Rebirth relaunch of 2016.

Now, with this 20-volume extension, we get to go even broader and deeper, adding some of the best stories of the Bronze Age, Modern Age and recent years. First out of the blocks will be Brian Michael Bendis and Nick Derington's mind-bending thriller Batman: Universe, followed by Joshua Williamson, Jason Fabok and co.'s blockbuster throwdown Justice League vs. Suicide Squad.

After that, Joker: The Series collects the entirety of Denny O'Neil and co.'s '70s Joker run, including the 'lost' 10th issue and O'Neil and Adams' classic Joker-starring Batman #251. Plus, Batman: Ten Nights of the Beast brings together the first half of Jim Starlin and Jim Aparo's acclaimed '80s Batman run for the first time.

Looking further ahead, fans can expect stories starring Batman, the Joker, the Justice Society and the Justice League by James Tynion IV, Guillem March, Bernie Wrightson, James Robinson, Tom King, Bilquis Evely, Tom Taylor, Scott Snyder, Steve Englehart and many more!

If that wasn't enough, you'll receive a bumper-sized issue 111 with Batman: Under the Red Hood, at a staggering 400 pages long!

That last announcement will be news even to the Facebook group members, but given that I revealed to them that not just the first half but all of Starlin and Aparo's Batman run will be collected as part of the extension, including the notorious storyline that dominates the second half, the penny might drop as to the relationship between those volumes and this huge Batman: Under the Red Hood one. But as enticing a prospect as all that may be – at least, I hope so – to my mind the other volumes in the extension are just as exciting. And I'll be revealing a little more about some of them in my next post.

Cover Reveal: DC Cinematic Universe by Nick Jones and Stephen "Win" Wiacek

2024-03-14T05:40:00.005-04:00

Just in time for London Book Fair – which I was doing the rounds at yesterday – there's a cover* up on Amazon for my next book:

DC Cinematic Universe: A Celebration of DC at the Movies. Co-written with Stephen "Win" Wiacek and published by DK, it's a fully licensed, lavishly illustrated guide to eight decades of DC films, serials and TV series, from 1941's Adventures of Captain Marvel to 2023's Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, with Win handling everything up to the end of the 1990s, and me taking on the majority of the movies from Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy onwards. I'll no doubt divulge some more details about the book ahead of the September pub date, but for now I'll just say it was a thrill to get to write about some of my favourite films – not least the aforementioned Batman Begins and its sequels – and note that anyone interested in DC's cinematic endeavours, not to mention films and filmmaking in general, should find it a darn good read.

* Designed, I've since learned, by the supremely talented Steve Anderson.

Marvel Arms and Armour Out Now!

2023-10-05T04:21:00.004-04:00

If it seems like all I ever blog about on Existential Ennui these days are books that I've written – or edited – that's because I'm too busy writing – or editing – those books to blog about anything else. For instance, right now I'm in the middle of co-writing a book – on movies for a change, out autumn next year – whilst editing two DC Heroes & Villains Collection volumes and pondering what to write for the two volumes after those. All of which leaves me little time to do anything other than, well, briefly blog about yet another book that I've written:

Marvel Arms and Armour: The Mightiest Weapons and Technology in the Marvel Universe, which is published by DK in the UK today. I posted some spreads from the book back in June, along these lines:

but there's also now a back cover on the Amazon listing, which will give some indication of what the book's about:

My author copies haven't turned up yet, so hopefully when they do I'll be able to find the time to, er, briefly blog about an actual physical copy too.

The Art of Classic Sci-Fi Movies: An Illustrated History Out in November

2023-07-13T10:05:00.005-04:00

Speaking of covers, as I was last month in relation to my forthcoming book Marvel Arms and Armour, which is out in the autumn, there's also a cover and info up on Amazon for another book I've contributed to, which is also out in the autumn. Edited by Adam Newell, The Art of Classic Sci-Fi Movies: An Illustrated History is a phantasmagoria of sensational SF poster art culled from across the 20th century, and comes complete with an introduction by Kim Newman and essays by Stephen Jones, Margaret A. Weitekamp, Mark Salisbury and me. As you can see, I'm in rarefied company, so it was a thrill to be asked to contribute, and to get to write about two of my favourite science fiction films. As to what those films are, I'll reveal the titles, and the era I discuss, a little nearer the publication date, which is 1 November 2023.

Marvel Arms and Armour by Nick Jones: Cover and Interior Pages Revealed!

2023-06-16T08:34:00.000-04:00

Just a quick note to say there's a rather splendid-looking cover up on Amazon for my next book, Marvel Arms and Armour: The Mightiest Weapons and Technology in the Marvel Universe. Titled, naturally, Marvel Arms and Armor in the US, it'll be out in October, and there are sample spreads on Amazon too. Feast your eyes on this lot, and rest assured I'll be banging on about the book a lot more ahead of publication.

Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy The Ultimate Guide New Edition by Nick Jones (i.e., me) Is Out Now!

2023-04-04T14:23:00.002-04:00

Or rather, Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy The Ultimate Guide New Edition by Nick Jones (i.e., me) is out now in the United States and on Thursday 6 April in the UK. So actually it's out twice! Except 'Out Twice!' looked a bit weird in the blog post title, hence why I went with 'Out Now!'

I like to think that one day I'll manage to write a snappy opening to one of my posts, but clearly that day isn't today.

Anyway, the gist of all this is I have a new book out – an updated edition of my 2017 book Guardians of the Galaxy: The Ultimate Guide, revised throughout (by me) and with an additional 16 pages (also by me). On first inspection it might not appear to be radically different to the original edition – its splendid new cover aside – but every page has been revised or tweaked in some fashion and/or shuffled around in the running order so that the whole thing is now a tighter, better read. I always intended the book to be read narratively from front to back as well as in a dip-in-and-out manner, and the updates and changes mean that it now does so even more effectively. Plus, the additional pages allowed me to bring the story of the Guardians in comics up to a more natural – and obviously more up-to-date – stopping point, rather than being curtailed two-thirds of the way through the Brian Michael Bendis run.

As well as James Gunn's much-anticipated third Guardians of the Galaxy film, there's also a new Guardians of the Galaxy comic series imminent, so the timing of The Ultimate Guide New Edition is perfect. Basically, if you want to know pretty much everything there is to know about the Guardians ahead of either the movie or the new comic, grab yourself a copy of Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy The Ultimate Guide New Edition (or borrow it from your local library – either works for me).

Batman, Detective Comics, the DC Heroes & Villains Collection, and the Rise of Killer Croc

2023-02-05T10:36:00.013-05:00

The earliest DC comics I remember reading as a kid were reprints in various British publications, chiefly 'Superman, You're Dead... Dead... Dead!' from Action Comics #399 (April 1971), a shocking story – to an impressionable lad who was unaware that Superman almost certainly wasn't dead – by Leo Dorfman, Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson which I either read in a secondhand copy of the 1973 Superman Annual No. 1 or in the 1981 Hamlyn edition of Superman: From the 30's to the 70's (or both); and 'The Secret of the Waiting Graves' from Detective Comics #395 (January 1970), Denny O'Neil, Neal Adams and Dick Giordano's groundbreaking first Batman collaboration, which I probably read in black-and-white in the October 1980 first issue of The Super Heroes Monthly. But the earliest DC comics I remember reading in their original American comic book format are the ones collected in the latest volume of the DC Heroes & Villains Collection:

Batman: The Rise of Killer Croc, namely Detective Comics #523–526 and Batman #357–359 (February–May 1983). I bought most of these comics in a long-since-vanished newsagent opposite Beckenham Rec, most memorably the double-sized Detective Comics #526 (May 1983), an extra-length all-star villain extravaganza by regular writer Gerry Conway and artists Don Newton and Alfredo Alcala. It's still my favourite Batman comic all these years later, but the whole storyline is great, weaving between Detective and Batman – the two titles tied together so closely by this point that they effectively became one fortnightly series, a Conway innovation – featuring fine work by Don Newton's fellow regular Bat-artist Gene Colan, plus guest artists Curt Swan and Dan Jurgens, and introducing not just the new villain of the DC Heroes & Villains Collection edition title – actually my title; this storyline has never had a proper title, so I gave it one – but a Robin-to-be in the shape of Jason Todd.

When I was first putting together notes and ideas for what would eventually become the DC Heroes & Villains Collection, one of the first storylines – if not the first storyline – I put on the list of potentials was this one (titled simply the 'Killer Croc saga' at that point). It remained on every iteration of the list right through to the finished collection itself; I made damn sure of that. I loved these comics as a kid, and forty years later I got to collect them in a discrete volume for the first time (the storyline has been collected once before in full, as part of Tales of the Batman: Gerry Conway Vol. 3, but not as its own edition) under a title I came up with. Even better – from my perspective if not necessarily the poor readers' – I got to write a 500-word introduction and 6000-word feature on the Conway/Colan/Newton era of Batman.

I would rest on my laurels here, but the DC Heroes & Villains Collection rolls ever onwards, plus I've got a book to write, so there's no rest for the wicked just yet. But now I have a copy of it in my hands – a freshly printed hardback, with its spot-varnish cover and that inky new-book smell – I will take a moment to leaf through and linger over Batman: The Rise of Killer Croc, a book I reckon 12-year-old-me would have been well impressed by.

DC Heroes & Villains Collection Festive 50!

2022-12-06T05:30:00.005-05:00

It's almost two years since we launched the DC Heroes & Villains Collection, the fortnightly graphic novel collection of which I'm editor and chief feature writer (and over three years since I started putting the whole thing together); which means that, this week, we've reached the 50th volume! And just in time for Christmas too, hence the 'Festive 50' in the title of this post – also an allusion, for those of a certain age and indie disposition, to John Peel's annual rundown of his listeners' favourite tracks of the year (the apogee of which, surely – and I invite no argument here – was when House of Love's blistering 'Destroy the Heart' topped the 1988 chart).

But anyway, as ever the continuing demands of the collection (I'm currently working on the 59th and 60th volumes, with an eye on the 61st and 62nd) plus other work (I'm also writing a book) mean that I don't have much time to blog, but I wanted to mark the occasion at least, and hail the hard work that's gone into the thing thus far – by myself, obviously, but also everyone at Hachette (plus Steve White, late of that parish, since gone on to more artistic endeavours) and designer Martin at Amazing15. As I've mentioned before, for me the DC Heroes & Villains Collection is a labour of love – a love letter, in a way, to the DC comics of the past 40 years or so... albeit a meandering and prolix one.

The 50th release (volume 90 in the correct numbering), Justice Society of America: The Next Age, may well be in some subscribers' hands already, but is officially published tomorrow, and as is now traditional with the DC Heroes & Villains Collection, it goes above and beyond the previously published DC edition of the same title, collecting not just the first four issues of the 2007 Justice Society of America series, but issues #7 and 8 as well (issues #5 and 6 will be in the Justice League of America crossover The Lightning Saga), plus the usual bonus material.

Merry Christmas, and here's to the next 50 volumes!

Guardians of the Galaxy The Ultimate Guide New Edition Coming April 2023

2022-11-24T04:47:00.002-05:00

I posted this on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, but it deserves a post here as well, if only to raise the consciousness of Existential Ennui from the freezing reefersleep it's slipped into. What can I say: these days I'm back to spending most of my time writing professionally – as opposed to editing, though I also do a fair amount of that – so I don't really have the time to blog here too. But anyway, up for pre-order now – on Amazon, obviously, but it's also available through the likes of WHSmith – is the new edition of my 2017 book Guardians of the Galaxy The Ultimate Guide!

Pleased as I was with the first edition, this new edition is even better, fully updated with new info, images, and even more pages, bringing the story of the Guardians in comics bang up to date – and not a moment too soon either: published on 6 April 2023, it'll be out just ahead of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, so if you want to know who Adam Warlock is ahead of the film, Guardians of the Galaxy The Ultimate Guide will explain all. You can read more about the book here, and no doubt I'll be banging on about it at greater length ahead of publication – and about the other book I'll have out later next year, and the other other book I've contributed an essay to.

Meanwhile... in the DC Heroes & Villains Collection: Joker's Dozen and The Untold Legend of the Batman

2022-03-18T07:45:00.010-04:00

The next release going out to DC Heroes & Villains Collection subscribers is significant, because not only does it boast one of the volumes I was keenest to include in the collection when I put the whole shebang together, but it comes accompanied by a subscriber-exclusive special edition.

That special edition is Joker's Dozen, a 432-page bumper collection of some of the best Joker stories of the 1980s – 13 Clown Prince of Crime Classics, as I put it in the subtitle. There was a bit of back-and-forth with DC on the contents, but I think we've arrived at something unique: 13 Joker stories – 20 comics in total – which delineate a decade of change at DC, as the Bronze Age of Comics gave way to the Modern Age. The murderers' row of creative talent on the front cover – Len Wein, Walt Simonson, Gerry Conway, Don Newton, Jim Aparo, José Luis García-López, Doug Moench, Gene Colan and Marv Wolfman – isn't even the half of it, because there are also stories from Paul Levitz, Joe Staton, Martin Pasko, Dan Mishkin and Gary Cohn, Paul Kupperberg, Alex Saviuk, Max Allan Collins, Chris Warner, Ross Andru, Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle, many of which have rarely been reprinted since original publication.

On top of that, the book includes October 1986's Batman #400, a 60-page multi-villain extravaganza written by Doug Moench and with art by – among others – John Byrne, Steve Lightle, George Pérez, Bill Sienkiewicz, Arthur Adams, Joe Kubert and Brian Bolland which has only been collected by DC once since its original publication 36 years ago. Plus, it's preceded by September 1986's Detective Comics #566, a Doug Moench and Gene Colan lead-in story to Batman #400 that's never been reprinted – though its cover may be familiar from posters, prints, T-shirts and the like:

As for the volume I was keen to include in the DC Heroes & Villains Collection, that would be our 32nd release, The Untold Legend of the Batman, which features the eponymous 1980 three-issue Len Wein, John Byrne and Jim Aparo miniseries. Only ever collected under its own title as a book once before – by Tor Books in 1982 as a pocket-size black-and-white paperback, long out of print – it's a terrific mystery thriller that expertly weaves together decades of piecemeal Batman continuity, an approach reflected by the four other stories in the volume, each of which I selected for the brilliant way they too embellish the legend of the Batman. (Incidentally, the Untold Legend miniseries was reissued in 1989 as a three-part 'audio theater' edition, each issue comprising a mini-version of the original comic and an audio cassette; you can hear the audio, and its accompanying funky theme tune, on YouTube.)

Speaking of those other stories, one of them is mentioned in a 'Meanwhile...' column I was reading just this morning. For those who don't know, back in the 1980s, DC's Executive Editor, Dick Giordano, wrote an editorial column, 'Meanwhile...', which appeared in most DC titles on a monthly, then later weekly, basis. The 'Meanwhile...' that appeared in comics which went on sale on 3 July, 1986 was an especially notable one, because it announced some epochal changes to come in the Batman corner of the DC Universe over the remainder of that momentous year. It's also pertinent not just to the aforementioned bonus story that appears in the The Untold Legend of the Batman, but to a pair of stories that appear in the DC Heroes & Villains Collection's edition of 1986–87 crossover event Legends, and a sequence of stories that will appear in the DC Heroes & Villains Collection down the line. Click on the column below and see if you can work out which comics I'm referring to.

The Existential Ennui Review of the Year 2021

2021-12-22T07:30:00.000-05:00

Time was I would mark the end of the year with a post, or even a series of posts (ha! those were the days...), rounding up everything I'd read or watched or listened to or, sometimes, worked on over the previous 12 months – a record of certain aspects of my life, preserved for my own posterity (after all, it was pretty unlikely anyone else would be interested in years to come – or even right then for that matter). The last time I managed anything along those lines was the end of 2019; the pandemic, the death of my dad, and my complete inability to read a book – three things which were not unrelated – put paid to any notion of a round-up last year. This year has been better both personally and work-wise, and in recent months I've even managed to start reading novels again (albeit at a much slower pace than previously), so although the pandemic is still very much a going concern, and life continues to throw shit at us all with alarming abandon, I thought I'd post something about what I've been up to.

First and foremost, there's the DC Heroes & Villains Collection. I've written about this graphic novel partwork a few times already, so I shan't dwell on it here, except to say that editing it has allowed me to do more professional writing (as in, writing for money; I can't speak to the professionalism or otherwise of the actual writing) than I probably have since the start of what I laughingly call my career (back when I was a music journalist in the 1990s). By the time the collection reaches 100 volumes in about three years' time, I'll hopefully have written a fairly thorough history of the DC Universe since 1980, bit by bit, in the introductions and bonus features in each volume (alongside the occasional creator interview by my good friend Tim Pilcher). That's the plan anyway.

The DC Heroes & Villains Collection launched in January (during lockdown no less), and is now up to 25 volumes, which is no mean feat considering everything that's been going on. Meanwhile, in November, the book pictured at the top of this post was published: Marvel Universe: Map by Map, co-written by James Hill and me, and illustrated by Adam Simpson, Matt Taylor and Andrew DeGraff (and, of course, a legion of Marvel Comics artistic legends). It's a lovely great big beast of a book – you can get a good look at it here – and it was an honour to be asked to play a part in its existence (by DK's estimable Senior Editor, and British comics vet, Cefn Ridout, to whom go my thanks). Four months before that, another DK book I contributed to was published: the updated edition of the DC Comics Encyclopedia, which I wrote even more of this time, and which in this new version sports a spectacular Mikel Janín cover. And somewhere in amongst all of that, Titan and I relaunched Star Trek Magazine as Star Trek Explorer, with all sorts of new-fangled features and regulars in it, including brand new fiction.

So that's what I've been up to this year. As to what I've read, I haven't actually kept a record of whatever comics I've consumed, but I have been making note of the books I've read since I managed to pick one up again, which in order have been:

The Moat Around Murcheson's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
Dune by Frank Herbert (which I read shortly before seeing Denis Villeneuve's excellent and powerful film adaptation)
The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds
Elysium Fire by Alastair Reynolds
Jack Kirby by Tom Scioli
The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist by Adrian Tomine

I might also manage to finish Alastair Reynolds' most recent novel Inhibitor Phase – a first edition of which he kindly inscribed to me (he's featured in the forthcoming second issue of Star Trek Explorer) – before the end of the year. We shall see.