Paul Karasik's You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation! has completed the task of collecting in book form all 51 of Fletcher Hanks' stories written and drawn for early '40s comic books - and what odd stories they are. Even taking into account that many of the better stories were published in Vol. 1, I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets, there's more than enough disturbing, outrageous and daring work here to entertain the most jaded comics reader - work full of anger, inadvertent humor, naïveté and creepiness. Most new Hanks converts flock to the outer space exploits of Stardust the Super Wizard and the unique weirdness of Fantomah, Mystery Woman of the Jungle, but my favorite Hanks work features the exploits of lumberjack Big Red McLane. How many nefarious competing lumberjack companies can there be to keep generating new plots? Hanks himself seemed to realize the limits of his formula when he sent McLane into the big city for a boxing saga at the tail end of his run.
WWII begins to make its way into many of Hanks' series towards the end of the book, when his stories, with page designs more commonplace, began incorporating fifth column saboteurs and red-blooded American boys ready to thwart them.
Karasik also writes a fascinating forward displaying Hanks' art school samples, includes Hanks' sad death certificate, and uses rare original Hanks artwork as endpapers. It's, all in all, a beautiful package, printed on non-glare paper and reproducing the original coloring. If you own the first volume, this second one's a must. If not - buy them both.
