The Slings and Arrows Comic Guide
Published by Slings and Arrows Ltd.
Distributed by Top Shelf Productions
You might think that a book like this, with phrases like "Essential," and "A Critical Assessment," on the front cover, is setting itself up for a massive fall. To the contrary, this astonishing book surveys the length and breadth of the comics artform over many decades, summarizing virtually every title that you will try to find within its nearly 800 pages.
This is not a price guide, and there are virtually no pictures to be found here. Instead, what The Slings and Arrows Comic Guide sets out to do is provide a useful summary of any given title, along with specific issues to recommend where warranted. The length of the review each title is given varies, with some getting a paragraph or two, while others (especially long-lived titles like Action Comics) get many pages as their storied histories are recounted.
I was familiar with Slings and Arrows from an American version of this project a couple of decades ago that was published as The Fantaco Chronicles Annual, but two decades on many hundreds (thousands?) more titles have been published, and damn if I had a hard time finding one that isn't covered. Titles as undeservedly obscure as Forlorn Funnies get the Slings and Arrows treatment, and while I didn't always agree with the critical assessments the team delivers, it's hard to imagine a book this comprehensive in which you'd agree with the authors 100 percent of the time.
Despite that, I think their critical faculties are sufficient to the task and that this is probably the most indispensible single volume about comics ever produced. If it is updated even every five years, it will be a crucial part of any comic reader's library. Grade: 4.5/5