The principals of the Del Mano Gallery have presented an excellent photographic rendition of the extraordinary craftsmanship exhibited at their Los Angeles (Brentwood) gallery.

While the photo illustrations are excellent, the photos do not do justice to the actual visual representation of each piece. These works of art need to be seen first individually in order to appreciate their craftsmanship.

i'm about halfway through this collection, and it's not so bad. it does have that kinda corny 60s dialogue, but that's the way comics were back then. i am twenty years old, and i just started reading comics. when i was younger, i watched all the cartoons and collected the cards, but i never actually read the comics. now that i have started, i've realized how worth reading all of these comics are! anyway, if you want to start getting into Daredevil, this would be a good collection to read. once you get past it, i would read some of the issues that Frank Miller wrote. those are supposed to be some of the best. as a new comic-reader, i am open to reccomendations of good comics that i should read. if anyone has anything they think i should read, please let me know.

this has been Apollyon

It is so fascinating to compare the art styles of the three giants of comic art represented in this collection. After a so-so start with Bill Everett and Joe Orlando (inked by Vince Colletta), Wally Wood takes over with his eccentric, disciplined, almost scientific approach to illustrating castles, weird inventions and other gee-whiz stuff. Then John Romita brings his muscular, vibrant, dynamic and organic compositions to the title, and it really comes alive (his work looks exactly like the bright, catchy, somewhat "cartoony" classics Romita did for Spiderman as that character's best artist). Next comes Gene Colan, who's facile virtuosity, flowing figures, and unique camera angles became the definitive Daredevil "look" that originally caught my young eyes back in the '60s. Stan Lee's trademaked psuedo-hip wisecracking and underlying decency bring nostalgic warmth and amusement to my heart. Though the art has never been equaled and looks strong in black and white, this series of reprints should be in color! And not the phony computor color they're using nowadays with the little airbrushed-looking highlights, but just plain old ordinary flat comic book color like they had in the ones my mother threw out.

Once upon a time I bought every comic book that Marvel put out each month. Of course, that was back when comic books were about a quarter apiece. Then suddenly there was a giant proliferation of titles, the New Universe line, and everything else they could think of to throw our way. When "Conan the Barbarian" went down for the count I cut back big time and was reading only two Marvel title: Iron Man and Daredevil. I always thought there was some sort of significance to the combination, since there were relatively unique as Marvel superheroes without super-strength. I started reading "Iron Man" around the time Tony Stark starting hitting the bottle big time but "Daredevil" was the second Marvel comic I started reading after "Spider-Man." I liked the fact that Matt Murdock was a lawyer; actually I thought they should have played it up a lot more than they ever did in the comic.

I suspect "The Essential Daredevil, Volume 1" is going to receive a lot of attention once the movie version opens at the end of this week. Unfortunately, readers might be put off by the fact that they are not going to find Electra, Bullseye or the Kingpin of the Frank Miller glory years in these reprints of the first 25 issues of "Daredevil: The Man Without Fear!" They will find good ol' Franklin "Foggy "Nelson, as well as Karen Page, and even Mike Murdock, along with guest appearances by Spider-Man (#16), the Thing (#2), and Namor the Sub-Mariner (#7). Reading these issues again I was struck by how much trouble DD had finding really good villains. I think borrowing Electro from Spider-Man for issue #2 was a mistake, because that works against establishing the character on his own terms (ditto with the Ox in #15). The Owl (#3, #20) seems like a second rate Vulture, the Stilt-Man (#8) seems one of the most impractical villains ever, and it is a toss up as to who is sillier, the Matador (#5) or the Leap Frog (#25). Mr. Fear (#6) is the villain who should be pop up the most as DD's obvious counterpart, but it is the Gladiator (#18, #19, #23) who gets the most storylines. However, the best stories are those where Daredevil goes up against heroes like the Sub-Mariner, Ka-Zar (#12, #13, #24) and Spider-Man. No wonder it took a long time for Daredevil to find his own villains (the Jester was my favorite until the Kingpin became the major player in the series).

The front cover lists Stan Lee, Wallace Wood, John Romita, Gene Colan & Friends, which means a couple of significant artists get dumped in the "Friends" category, namely Bill Everett and Joe Orlando, who drew the first issues, along with Jack Kirby, who did layouts for Romita to ink on a couple of issues. With all due respect to the remarkable transformation Frank Miller in terms of writing and page layouts, Gene Colan was always by favorite Daredevil artist. I always liked the fluidity of his art, not only on DD but also "Dr. Strange" and "Dracula," not to mention the way he drew the ladies in general and the Black Widow in particular. The 25 stories represented in this collection are not the best Daredevil stories, but they are the groundwork for what was to come. Hopefully the fact that the movie has come out will get them to put out the next couple of volumes in this series (although we know they will stop long before they get to Miller's issues, which I believe are already available in full color reprints).

Wallace Kaufman doesn't know what he is talking about. And it's dangerous. He talks and talks and people believe. He says things ("facts") that aren't true. In his book, he doesn't do his research, jumps to conclusions, and sends a boulder crashing through his neighbor's roof. In a similar way, he comes to conclusions about the environment, woodworking, recycling, &c. It's dangerous.

Our local paper (like Kaufman I'm from Pittsboro, NC) printed a letter to the editor from a woman who had read Kaufman's new book, and believed it. Now she is sure recycling is bad for the environment and that the rain forests aren't disappearing.

Here are some "facts" that aren't true, that I know enough to correct. I'm also going to give the sources of my information (unlike Kaufman).

When talking about a neighbor's new porch (p. 127) he says, "'Those red oak boards will rot,' I warned him...Three years later, the boards had turned black and mushrooms began to grow out of them." He goes on to say of red oak boards that you have "to drench them with preservatives" to make them last. Now it is true that milled red oak will rot, but people make riven shingles out of red oak and they last for 30+ years without preservatives. Roy Underhill, in THE WOODWRIGHT'S COMPANION, p.154 says, "Since the splitting follows the grain of the oak from end to end, the exposed surface is made up of tiny tubes torn open down their whole length... Many folks like to shave shingles to a taper and a smooth surface. If you were to do this on a riven red-oak shingle, you would cut into the pores of the wood, open the grain, and allow it to become saturated with water, and it would rot in no time. Sawn shingles are just as bad or worse."

Kaufman also talks about owl pellets (see p.148), "An owl pellet (in common language we have to call it a turd)..." An owl pellet is a bundle of hair, bones, &c. that an owl regurgitates after it's meal. However, my dictionary's definition of 'turd' is, "a piece of dung." 'Dung' led me to 'excrement', the definition being, "waste matter from the bowels."

On p. 125 he says, "The house had endured because builders had selected the very best yellow pine and white oak. They had used only slow growth heartwood that is heavy with crowded annual growth rings." Back to Roy Underhill's book, THE WOODWRIGHT'S COMPANION, p16. "In pine timber slow growth and tight rings make tough, dense, strong wood, just as you might expect. In oaks, however, the effect is just the opposite. Slow growth in oak makes for weaker, more porous wood of a lower density. The reason for this is that every spring an oak has to put out a new set of leaves before the next tree or it's out of business. To get this mass of vegetation out, massive amounts of water must be run up through new plumbing that forms in the wood each spring. These large vessels form a band of constant width in every growth ring, followed by the denser, stronger wood formed during the summer growing season. The slower an oak tree grows, the closer together these bands of weaker spring wood will be. A slow grown red oak can become so porous that it appears to be 90 percent nothing."

These are just things I, a 16 year old, knew enough to find fault with. It would be interesting to see what someone knowledgeable about the environment or the Native Americans would find is incorrect in Kaufman's book.

Kaufman spends twenty years doing what all of us nature lovers think we could do-Live alone in the woods for a lifetime. Well Kaufman isn't always alone and 20 years may not be a lifetime but it is a signifcant commitment to "the simple Life." And the revelations Kaufman comes back with are not exactly what one might expect. Like modern advancements and capitalism is good for nature? Not totally, but similar to Bill Bryson's observations in his big hit A Walk in the Woods, the reality of modern enviromentalist's ideals is not always what it is cracked up to be. And I think 240 months(20 times longer than Thoreau) in the woods qualifies Kaufman as much as any body to say so. Though he lacks Bryson's swift narrative and comical anecdotes, what we gain from Kaufman is an update from Walden Pond that we might be surprised to read. The book will also help quell any idyllic thoughts you might have about dropping out of society to pursue a life in the woods. Because after finishing this book you may find that Kaufman's experience was enough.

Here is a writer who conveys the complexity and beauty of nature without putting on rose colored glasses. Coming Out of the Woods inspires, entertains, informs and tells a page-turner story that reveals how all human interaction with nature demands tradeoffs. Think of it as an update of Thoreau's Walden, but with a strong story line and conclusions appropriate for our time. I recommend it highly for introductory environmental studies courses, American literature courses, or courses on literature and the environment.

Orrin Pilkey James B. Duke Professor of Geology Emeritus Duke University

I liked the book, but I wish they had more dates than just when he was born. It would have been fun to know how old he was when he did or invented certain things. I think I am like him because I like to find ways to make work easier.

I would like more detail like on how he was born and when he died. I like this book because it talked about all his jobs and what he made and when he made it.