5 out of 5

A hardcover collection of material all previously printed by Humanoids – Anibal 5, Megalex, and 3 selections from the 2000-era Metal Hurlant comic, later reprinted in the Screaming Planet collection.

It’s possible to knock a point off of this depending on how you feel about cash-in reprints. Since this stuff is all available in individual formats, do you get frustrated that you’d spent money way back when on the originals? Possibly. There is a lure, after all, that might make you double-dip: Anibal comes with some pages from the original Spanish language version of it (prior to when it was redone for artist George Bess – clearing up some of my confusion as to how that was considered Jodo’s first comic) – otherwise containing all of the bonus sketches from the previous printing – and there’s interesting info related to each story’s genesis as forewords / afterwords either from the artists, Jodo, or, I’m guessing one of the book’s editors – Alex Donoghue? One could also be critical of only reprinting some of Screaming Planet in this volume for the same to buy / not to buy logic – why not wait until you have room to reprint all of the contents in a succeeding volume, and save pages so you can lower the pricepoint?

But that’s all very subjective stuff. For me, the one thing I didn’t previously own was Megalex (excepting what was in the same Metal Hurlant issues), but I think $40 for a beautifully put-together – Humanoids never scrimps on that – 400 page hardcover is fair, and it definitely saves me shelf room by combining other books. And obviously if you own none of this stuff, it’s a great deal – these are not odds and ends stories by classic ones, showing different sides of the Jodo style, from the goofy erotica of Anibal to the world-building craziness of Megalex, and the one-shot social commentaries in Screaming Planet.

Besides the aforementioned extras and gorgeous, solid printing quality, you have a table of contents and sewn-in bookmark. Sorta weird that page numbers are dropped for the Screaming Planet section only, but I’ll give it a pass.