After the news item from January 14 about DK’s Black Panther the Ultimate Guide two more books were released. This was my review for Color Your Own Black Panther on my Facebook timeline from March 1:
“I just received my comp copy of the “COLOR YOUR OWN BLACK PANTHER” coloring book from Marvel and, damn, am I impressed! I had no idea that these were the size of thin b&w trades at 60 pages! It has a diverse selection of iconic images starting with his Kirby/Sinnott debut in Fantastic Four in the silver-age through his Avengers covers, Jungle Action and Kirby solo series in the bronze-age through all the modern runs as helmed by Priest/Hudlin/Coates. Sal Velluto has 4 covers included where he inked himself and in addition we have 11 Sal&Bob combo images! Sal & I have always tried to produce art that would strongly hold it’s own even if printed in b&w and this is the first time that is being showcased as some of our detailed work was disappointing when printed almost 20 years ago as a lot of the textural fx were obscured in print. Not only does this reproduce work by The King & The Joltin’ One but also by Big John Buscema & Tom Palmer, Gil Kane & Klaus Janson, Mike Deodato, Jr., Alan Davis & Mark Farmer, Brian Stelfreeze & Karl Story, Andy Kubert, Kirby & Mike Royer, John Byrne & Dan Adkins, JRJr. & Janson, Ken Lashley, Doc Bright & Nelson DeCastro, Mike Manley, Mike McKone, Stephen Segovia, Kyle Hotz & Eric Powell and so many more! Even better, all the artists, including the INKERS are listed on the front credits page! The individual images are not identified, though, unless it’s from a cover that they signed. *Special thanks & appreciation goes out to Marvel’s Jennifer Grunwald, Caitlin O’Connell, Mark Beazley, Jeff Youngquist, Jess Harold and everyone else involved in this project and it’s research efforts! *All-in-all, if you’re an old or recent fan/collector of Black Panther and/or the artists this is a MUST pick-up IMHO. **AND AN OFFICIAL INKWELL AWARDS THUMBS-UP!
And on February 15 I commented about Black Panther: The Illustrated History of a King- The Complete Comics Chronology:
“I don’t know if anyone had ordered/picked up this large 14.5″X11.25 hardcover book “Black Panther: The Illustrated History of a King- The Complete Comics Chronology“ released January 9 from Inside Editions and authored by Dennis Culver but I finally got mine which I was interviewed for through a several Q&As email in the fall from Dennis and Katie Kubert. A snippet of it is used on page 93 which starts discussing/showing content from Priest/Velluto & my period on the series with many full page cover art and other large images ending around page 105.