Cover of I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets!

I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets!

The Complete Works of Fletcher Hanks seriesbook 1 of 2Next:You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation!(2009) →

Welcome to the bizarre world of Fletcher Hanks, Super Wizard of the Inkwell. Fletcher Hanks worked for only a few years in the earliest days of the comic book industry (1939-1941). Because he worked in a gutter medium for second-rate publishers on third-rate characters, his work has been largely forgotten. But among aficionados he is legendary. At the time, comic books were in their infancy. The rules governing their form and content had not been established. In this Anything Goesera, Hanks' work stands out for its thrilling experimentation. At once both crude and visionary, cold and hot as hell, Hanks' work is hard to pigeon hole. One thing is for certain: the stuff is bent. Hanks drew in a variety of genres depicting science-fiction saviors, white women of the jungle, and he-man loggers. Whether he signed these various stories "Henry Fletcher" or "Hank Christy" or "Barclay Flagg" there is no mistaking the unique outsider style of Fletcher Hanks.

Read more

Cartoonist Paul Karasik (co-adapter of Paul Auster's City of Glass, and co-author of The Ride Together: A Memoir of Autism in the Family) has spent years tracking down these obscure and hard to find stories buried in the back of long-forgotten comic book titles. Karasik has also uncovered a dark secret: why Hanks disappeared from the comics scene. This book collects 15 of his best stories in one volume followed by an afterword which solves the mystery of "Whatever Happened to Fletcher Hanks," the mysterious cartoonist who created a hailstorm of tales of brutal retribution...and then mysteriously vanished.

2008 Eisner Award WINNER: Best Archival Collection/Project — Comic Books

2008 Eisner Award Nominee: Best Short Story, "Whatever Happened to Fletcher Hanks?" by Paul Karasik

Audience
adult
Length
short · 120 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets!? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets!. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Rising Stars: Visitations Shares graphic novels, superhero, science fiction
  2. Art Out of Time: Unknown Comics Visionaries, 1900-1969 Shares graphic novels, art, history
  3. Alan Moore's America's Best Comics Shares graphic novels, superhero, science fiction
  4. Powr Mastrs 1 Shares graphic novels, science fiction, fantasy

“People who read I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets! tend to reach for these next.”

  1. Weathercraft
  2. Pim and Francie: The Golden Bear Days
  3. The Boulevard of Broken Dreams
  4. West Coast Blues

“If you want more of the same (superhero about art), start with these.”

  1. The Flash (2016-) #2
  2. Green Lantern Corps, Volume 5: Uprising
  3. Green Lantern: Rise of the Third Army
  4. The Thanos Quest: Book One: Schemes and Dreams

“If it was the graphic novels that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. DV8: Gods and Monsters
  2. Showcase Presents: The Elongated Man, Vol. 1
  3. Faith
  4. God and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. 9-11: Emergency Relief
  2. Tales of the Batman: Archie Goodwin
  3. My Life in Comics
  4. Masterful Marks: Cartoonists Who Changed the World