Amazing Mysteries: The Bill Everett Archives (Bill Everett Archives)

The 1939 creation of the Sub-Mariner for the first issue of Marvel Comics assures Bill Everett a place in history. Co-creating Daredevil, the Man Without Fear, for Marvel Comics in 1964 gave Everett a link to one of the most popular superheroes of the past 50 years. And producing over 400 additional pages of superhero-related work in the very early days of the Golden Age of Comics (1938-42) makes Bill Everett a legend.

This book collects over 200 pages of this never-before-reprinted work from titles such as Amazing Mystery Funnies (1938), Amazing-Man Comics (1939), Target Comics (1940), Heroic Comics (1940), and Blue Bolt Comics (1940). These titles feature an endless array of great vintage Everett characters such as Amazing-Man, Hydroman, Skyrocket Steele, Sub-Zero, The Chameleon, and many more, all produced by Everett's shop Funnies, Inc. for such clients as Centaur, Novelty Press, and Eastern Color, and all displaying Everett's brilliant cartooning and energetic storytelling.

Edited and compiled by best-selling author and comic-book historian Blake Bell (Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko), Amazing Mysteries: The Bill Everett Archives is a stunning companion to Bell's 2010 critically acclaimed Everett biography and art book, Fire and Water: Bill Everett, The Sub-Mariner and the Birth of Marvel Comics. This volume follows the format of Bell's Steve Ditko Archives series; never-before-reprinted, beautifully restored, full-color stories from one of comic books' greatest visionaries and most accomplished artists. Also includes an introduction by Bell that delves even deeper into Everett's life, fiery personality, and the history of the era. The resultant package enhances Everett's place in history as one of the first and best comic-book creators of all time.

"Eisner Hall of Fame cartoonist Everett worked during the golden age of comics, giving the world Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, one of the earliest of the classic superheroes, and his efforts during the dawn of the 'Marvel Age' in the early 1960s found him co-creating Daredevil with the infinitely prolific Stan Lee. But what of his other output from a career lasting more than three decades? Comics historian Blake Bell compiled and edited this collection of Everett's more obscure works in what can be seen as a companion piece to Bell's 2010 Fire and Water: Bill Everett, The Sub-Mariner and the Birth of Marvel Comics. This volume provides an illuminating look at the artist's numerous attempts at catching Sub-Marineresque lightning in a bottle for a second time, a task that mostly eluded him. The comics studios of the golden age were product mills that threw any idea against the wall in hope it would stick, and Everett did much the same. Forgotten sci-fi and superhero creations, as well as forays into westerns, historical retellings, and crime comics, populate this loaded volume, which reads like it fell straight out of some four-color twilight zone." Publishers Weekly Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

A classic collection of pre-WWII super-hero comics by one of the founding fathers of the genre.

Blake Bell is the author of Strange & Stranger (a retrospective of Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko), Fire & Water: Bill Everett, The Sub-Mariner, and the Birth of Marvel Comics; Amazing Mysteries: The Bill Everett Archives; I Have to Live With This Guy!, and Strange Suspense and Unexplored Worlds (two volumes in The Steve Ditko Archives). He lives in Toronto, Ontario with his son.Bill Everett, the creator of the Sub-Mariner and the co-creator of Daredevil, died in 1973.