DC Comics Cover Art by Nick Jones – Out Now!

I'm breaking my blogging silence (blame the pandemic for the lack of blog posts this year – it's as good an excuse as any... and it actually has been a tough year in some respects, as it has for many of us) to note that my new book, DC Comics Cover Art, is available now from all the usual places, published by DK. As the title suggests, it's a showcase of some of the best DC Comics covers of the past 80 or so years, selected by me (largely; a few other folk had input), with commentary also by me. Naturally I stuffed it full of as many of my favourite DC covers as I could, but that's not to say I wasn't also employing my critical faculties. Criteria for selection included bold, striking, or unusual designs; notable issues (i.e. first appearances, deaths and the like); unusual layouts and logo treatments, and of course just knockout art – all arranged under the recognised eras (Golden Age, Silver Age, and so on).

I think it's come together really nicely. I haven't seen a final printed copy yet*, but I did see layouts all the way through, and the juxtaposition of covers on spreads is very pleasing. As for the text, I worked hard to make it as informative and insightful as I could – a lot of research went into how and why covers were created – but how successful I was will, in the end, be determined by the reader. Obviously there are bigger things to worry about at the moment than a book about comic book covers, but maybe this book about comic book covers will bring some pleasure into someone's life. 

Incidentally, I'm working on a couple of other DC-related projects at the moment; still a little early to say anything more about them, but I should be able to share some info soon.

* Update 5/10/20: my author copies arrived today, and I'm delighted to report that the final printed book looks lovely.

A Ripley's Game Reprise: 1974 US Knopf First Edition of Patricia Highsmith's Third Tom Ripley Novel

What scant posts there have been on here of late have been to do with comics – those are, after all, what have been preoccupying me both personally and professionally over the past year or so – but I have been picking up the odd book here and there too, and among those have been a number by another perennial preoccupation of mine, Patricia Highsmith. Just the other day I came into possession of this:

An American first edition of Ripley's Game, published by Knopf in 1974, dust jacket design by Janet Halverson (whose other jackets include the 1970 and 1978 US firsts of Graham Greene's Travels with My Aunt and The Human Factor, and the 1981 US first of Ross Thomas's The Mordida Man). You may recall... actually at this point I doubt anyone recalls anything I've written on Existential Ennui, but anyway: Ripley's Game, the third book in the Ripliad (soon to become a TV show, with Andrew Scott as Tom Ripley – intriguing and encouraging casting there), is not only my favourite Highsmith novel, but my favourite novel full stop, and it was the acquisition of a 1974 Heinemann first a dozen years ago (in a long-since-vanished Cecil Court bookshop) that first got me into book collecting. As such, it's a totemic book for me.

I had my eye on a Knopf first six years ago, but it slipped through my fingers (as compensation I settled instead for a 1989 Heinemann Uniform Edition). The notion of getting my filthy mitts on a Knopf (ooer) has floated in and out of my head ever since then, but just the other day it seemed the fates had finally aligned when I was in Lewes's Bow Windows Bookshop and co-proprietor (and friend of mine) Ric mentioned he'd come into possession of one as part of a box of books – mostly crime fiction and spy fiction – he'd bought from a local. Or at least he thought he had: when we looked in said box, there was no sign of Ripley's Game. Bugger.

I'd pretty much resigned myself to the fact that once again the Knopf first had eluded my grasp when two days later Ric sent me a message saying he'd found it. And it turned out that not only was it a first edition (not a later printing – the Knopf edition went through a few), but it was once owned by local author John Pearson, he of James Bond: The Authorized Biography and The Life of Ian Fleming fame.

So I'm very happy with my copy (even though the dust jacket is a little battered: the sign of a well-read book, whether by Mr. Pearson or whoever it was Ric bought it off – and quite right too), not least because it affords me the opportunity to compare the US and UK first editions. The text in the Knopf edition, which was published in May of '74, a few months after the Heinemann edition, has been Americanised, or I suppose – depending on whether Highsmith, who was American, wrote the manuscript in American English – re-Americanised: within the first few sentences, there's a "parlor game" as opposed to "parlour game" in the Heinemann edition.

The Knopf has deckled edges, as is often the case with American editions, and a red-stained top block. I also rather like the jacket flap description of Tom Ripley as "energetic, amoral, overcivilized" and "undersensitized".

Now I suppose I'll have to write something abut the other Highsmith books I've picked up – especially as they're all signed.