Marvel Encyclopedia

Another marvelous (pardon the pun) Christmas (and early birthday) present this year came from friend Terri. The DK MARVEL ENCYCLOPEDIA limited edition! Number 852 out of only 1200 produced worldwide to be precise! If you’ve seen the regular edition at your local book superstore, you know that it presents an authoritative, more or less up-to-date look at 1000 current Marvel heroes, villains and fellow travelers, illustrated in a hundred different styles with comic clips as well as art done especially for this volume. Everybody from Kirby and Ditko to last year’s flavor of the month illustrators that I’ve never even heard of are represented here. The limited edition, in fact, features two (count ‘em! Two!) signed art prints in their own separate little portfolio slot in the slipcase. These are done by artist Frank Cho who did (still does??) the marvelous LIBERTY MEADOWS strip! I didn’t even know he did any work for Marvel. Anyway, this is a marvelous (okay, that time it was on purpose) resource for all things in the Marvel Universe. As limited and as special as it is, however , I’m almost afraid to actually READ it! Maybe I should get the regular edition, too? Thanks, Terri!