Staff Picks (January): Sam Glanzman's USS Stevens — The Collected Stories

War comics are not the kind of comics you normally pick up at your local comic shop on Wednesdays, but in the days before comic shops you had to search for comics, and war and western comics were as abundant and many times were better than the super heroes of the day. Creators like Harvey Kurtzman, John Severin, Russ Heath, Joe Kubert, and Robert Kanigher are the ones most associated with war comics, but Sam Glanzman is one of my personal favorites.

Sam was one of the first professionals to ever reply to one of my fan letters (Gene Colan, Jim Aparo, and Joe Kubert being the others). I loved his work on the Hercules series from Charlton and got a really nice letter and drawing of Hercules and a chance to meet him at one of the old Seuling New York Comic Con interviewing him for a fanzine. We talked about his current comic work at the time for DC, his earlier work particularly The Lonely War of Willie Schultz and Hercules for Charlton as well as Charlton’s unauthorized Tarzan comic which, while I love Russ Manning’s work, Sam’s Tarzan felt more like the ERB character, and it took Joe Kubert to bring that feel again to that character years later.

Talking to Sam was like talking to my dad as both were in the Navy and, while they didn’t serve together, they both had stories of their time covering every aspect of living with the aspect that this is war and who knows what will happen next.

In this final collection of Sam Glanzman’s stories of the USS Stevens, we are treated to his final newly created USS Stevens 4 page story.  This book collects more than 60 stories from numerous DC war comics as well as from Marvel’s Savage Tales 1980s revival, fully restored and recolored.

With great recommendations from Mark Waid, Walt Simonson, and Garth Ennis, you should add this book to your collection. 

—Steve Leaf

Publisher: Dover Publications Item Code: JAN161403 Release Date: 03/16/16 SRP: $29.95