This June Running Press will publish The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics ($17.95), a 480-page collection of crime comics from around the world edited by Paul Gravett, the author of the authoritative Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics and Graphic Novels: Everything You Need to Know.  The comics included range from classic newspaper strips and uncensored pre-code comics to modern graphic novels from European and American creators such as Jacques Tardi, Jordy Bernet, Charles Burns, and Max Allan Collins.

Modern day comics readers raised in the era of superhero dominance may not realize that in the late 1940s crime comics were far more popular than those featuring costumed crimefighters, and that the crime comics genre was as negatively affected by the Comics Code as were the horror comics of EC.  Among the highlights of this volume are the first appearance of a prototype of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer and the never-before-printed last comic book drawn by EC artist Bernie Kriegstein, a bizarre tie-in to Ed McBain's 87th Precinct novels.  Other key creators include Will Eisner, Dashiell Hammett and Alex Raymond, Joe Simon & Jack Kirby, Alex Toth, Johnny Craig, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Joe Kubert and Jose Munoz & Carlos Sampayo.