Erotic Comics vols.1 & 2
(both 2008 - Abrams)

(by Tim Pilcher) Not appropriate for children or adolescents. This first volume focuses less on examples of sequential art than you would expect and presents more comic & book covers, as well as any number of single panel gag cartoons. The format is to draw together several encyclopedia-like entries into roughly chronological thematic chapters, each of the entries focusing on a particular trend, publication, artist or writer. Of the 192 pages, there are 106 dominated by the art, with 79 of those being single large reproductions each to a page. There are three double-page spreads, but only one makes acceptable use of the book's center. The captioning seems adequate, though some of the artists apparently couldn't be identified. Pulling examples from sources that would be termed hard-core and not meant for minors, this book should be considered in the same pool. There is a nice index of individuals's names. The 'well-presented' artists are: Édouard-Henri Avril, Gene Bilbrew (3), Jack Cole (3), Aline Kominsky Crumb, Robert Crumb (2), Dan DeCarlo (3), Eugene Deveria, Will Elder (7), Gil Elvgren**, Ernst, Joyce Farmer, Arthur Ferrier, Don Flowers, R.C. Harvey, Michael Hubbard, Denis Kitchen, Ken Landau, Don Lomax, Arnold Miesch, G. Mouton, Jason Pearson, Norman Pett, George Petty**, Pablo Picasso, Barb Rausch, Luis Royo, Franco Saudelli (3), Jacke Schneider, Dave Sheridan, Doug Sneyd, Eric Stanton (2), Karl Story, Alberto Vargas*, Franz Von Bayros (2), Bill Ward (5), Bill Wenzel (2), John Willie (7), S. Clay Wilson (2) Dean Yeagle (4), and UNKNOWN (8).

* - Note that that the 'well-presented' piece here by Vargas can additionally be found so in his own collections on The List

** - Note that Petty's, and Elvgren's, 'well-presented' pieces here cannot additionally be found so in their collections on The List

[-BELOW THE LINE-] (by Tim Pilcher) Not appropriate for children or adolescents. While this 192-page second volume indeed has more examples of sequential-art than anything else, it does have an admirable gathering of book covers and single art pieces (though not enough to get itself up on The List . . .). Its informative text is in the form of a series of loosely connected, roughly chronological, essays on artists and the other topics of adult comics, with those pulled into five thematic chapters. There are 36 pages with a large reproduction of an artist's single-image work and another 19 with multiples of such single-images sharing the page. One double-page spread is put on display, but not satisfactorily. All the art is narratively captioned with the artist's name and its source, as well as the book having a three-page index and a two-page directory to the whole thing. The artists selected for the 'well-presented' work are: Jason Atomic, Mark Bodé (2), Vaughn Bodé, Jacques Boivin, Giovanna Casotto (2), Howard Chaykin, Frank Cho, Howard Cruse, Jess Fink (2), Makoto Fujisaki, Melinda Gebbie (3), Vitorrio Giardino, Jerry Mills, Junko Mizuno (2), Morpheus, Oh! Great, Brad Parker, Jason Pearson, Joe Phillips, Dave Stevens (2), Gengorah Tagame (2), Frank Thorne, Tom Of Finland, Tim Vigil, Ron Wilber (2), Suwa Yuuji, and UNKNOWN.