4 out of 5

Deadpan weirdness.  There are a few guys working in this field – Sammy Harkham, Jordan Crane – making comix-style randomness that’s either confessional or surreal or a drug trip or… something else entirely, although that last tag belongs exclusively to Haven.  Other artists in this style tend to be going for genre or (god forbid!) a point; Eric’s work just follows a muse through warped, sci-fi touched worlds of ice giants, plane-obsessed, monster-fighting heroes, people who get spied on pooping, and casual killing of cartoonists, and its goddamned fascinating, glorious stuff.

‘Compulsive’ collects ‘Tales to Astonish’ and ‘Aviatrix‘ – I’d have to dig ’em out to tell you whether or not they’re complete collections, but it’s at the very least the majority of pages from both – along with some extra unseen / rare bits.  If you have the mentioned titles, I’d argue for the convenience of having them altogether, as well as the attractive presentation: a slick new, color cover by Haven in a pulpy vein; a Scholastic-sized 6″ish x 9″ish binding; and nice, thick pages that show off both the black and white and color really well.  If you bought UR, it’s the same form factor, so it’ll look nice together.  Okay, okay – the stitched binding is rather stiff, but you’ll blaze through it in a single read, so I demand you not mind.

The only thing dragging this down is the completely-lacking-context ‘The Accuser,’ which is, unfortunately, the unpublished stuff.  According to Haven’s notes, this was from an anthology-ish aborted Sparkplug book, and while I’d like the gods and fate conversation to work in the same random fashion as the other stuff, it’s clear it ties into some story of which we’re not aware, and just sorta prattles on for too long, with talking head art.

The gold found on every other page far outshines the meh experience of The Accuser, though, so, like, spend your money already.