What do you think?
Rate this book
Roy Thomas Presents
Roy Thomas Presents: The Heap, Vol. 2
- GenresComicsGraphic Novels
240 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2013
About the author
Carmine Infantino
961 books26 followersCarmine Michael Infantino was an American comics artist and editor, primarily for DC Comics, during the late 1950s and early 1960s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmine...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmine...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 17, 2022
Roy Thomas Presents: The Heap, Vol. 2 collects all the Heap appearances from June 1948-December 1950.
This is going to be a short review since my whole house has been stricken with disease. Yay, daycare!
Anyway, this volume is notable because The Heap finally acquires his green color after being white or brown in the first volume AND because The Heap battles his third octopus. Some of the stories in this volume are crime stories where The Heap shows up at the end to settle someone's hash but most of them are The Heap lurking around the remnants of his old life.
I didn't enjoy this one as much as the previous volume, partly because some of the newness has worn off and partly because The Heap's origin was retold a few times, introducing all kinds of inconsistencies. A lot of the stories blended together after a while but I don't think writers 70 years ago expected people to read five or six Heap stories in a sitting.
I'm going to save the final Heap volume for October, I think.
This is going to be a short review since my whole house has been stricken with disease. Yay, daycare!
Anyway, this volume is notable because The Heap finally acquires his green color after being white or brown in the first volume AND because The Heap battles his third octopus. Some of the stories in this volume are crime stories where The Heap shows up at the end to settle someone's hash but most of them are The Heap lurking around the remnants of his old life.
I didn't enjoy this one as much as the previous volume, partly because some of the newness has worn off and partly because The Heap's origin was retold a few times, introducing all kinds of inconsistencies. A lot of the stories blended together after a while but I don't think writers 70 years ago expected people to read five or six Heap stories in a sitting.
I'm going to save the final Heap volume for October, I think.
March 19, 2015
Starts off sort of as a crime feature featuring a huge man-vegetable hybrid. The stories slowly become a more supernatural-oriented weird tales. Fascinating if you're interested in much monsters in comics.
September 26, 2023
This batch of stories with the original comic book swamp monster aren't as enjoyable as the earlier ones found in Volume 1. The artwork remains good throughout, and the writing has honest to gosh continuity, an uncommon occurrence for the era. This was a fun read in smaller doses.
The raw scan presentation has the benefit of the feeling of reading the original comic book. The drawback, which is a huge one subjectively speaking, is that all of the shortcomings of the primitive four color printings presses are apparent. Line bleed, off register printing, and other anomalies are all present. It's a warts and all approach. Your mileage may vary and it all boils down to your preference.
The raw scan presentation has the benefit of the feeling of reading the original comic book. The drawback, which is a huge one subjectively speaking, is that all of the shortcomings of the primitive four color printings presses are apparent. Line bleed, off register printing, and other anomalies are all present. It's a warts and all approach. Your mileage may vary and it all boils down to your preference.
November 4, 2023
Really surprised how great this collection is. Highly recommend!!
March 25, 2024
"Months pass, and then from the bog rises a monstrous hulk -- vegetable and man, joined in a horrible freak of nature -- THE HEAP!!"
This was a real slog to get through, no pun intended.
My initial excitement at discovering the first comic book muck-monster gave way to the realization that the lower end of the Silver Age of publications were done with very little finesse or much concern for characters or story continuity.
A good 20 years before (the obvious rip-off) Man-Thing, by Marvel Comics, and Swamp Thing, by DC comics, there were the continuing tales of THE HEAP (as back-up filler in Airboy comics); the story of WWI German flying ace, Baron Eric Von Emmelman, sabotaged and shot down in a Polish swamp, and reborn as the titular plant creature.
The idea that all the stories were set in Europe seemed like a novel idea, considering how American-centric the vast percentage of comic books are, but beyond this there were too many detracting factors for me; poor continuity (his backstory is revised several times), unnatural and over-indulgent writing/dialogue, unrelated plotlines, and very inconsistent artwork. I do understand that it was "pulp" material; not expected to be saved, revisited or scrutinized, but it was pretty clear most of these stories just took what was to be the main character -- THE HEAP -- and shoe-horned him into whatever the writer felt like doing, regardless.
I would not recommend reading this collection all in one go, and at this point I'm reticent to delve into volumes 1 & 3 at all, but I do appreciate that it has been reprinted in hardcover editions for posterity/novelty, if nothing else. I just wish I could say it had grown on me.
⭐⭐
This was a real slog to get through, no pun intended.
My initial excitement at discovering the first comic book muck-monster gave way to the realization that the lower end of the Silver Age of publications were done with very little finesse or much concern for characters or story continuity.
A good 20 years before (the obvious rip-off) Man-Thing, by Marvel Comics, and Swamp Thing, by DC comics, there were the continuing tales of THE HEAP (as back-up filler in Airboy comics); the story of WWI German flying ace, Baron Eric Von Emmelman, sabotaged and shot down in a Polish swamp, and reborn as the titular plant creature.
The idea that all the stories were set in Europe seemed like a novel idea, considering how American-centric the vast percentage of comic books are, but beyond this there were too many detracting factors for me; poor continuity (his backstory is revised several times), unnatural and over-indulgent writing/dialogue, unrelated plotlines, and very inconsistent artwork. I do understand that it was "pulp" material; not expected to be saved, revisited or scrutinized, but it was pretty clear most of these stories just took what was to be the main character -- THE HEAP -- and shoe-horned him into whatever the writer felt like doing, regardless.
I would not recommend reading this collection all in one go, and at this point I'm reticent to delve into volumes 1 & 3 at all, but I do appreciate that it has been reprinted in hardcover editions for posterity/novelty, if nothing else. I just wish I could say it had grown on me.
⭐⭐
July 4, 2019
Stronger then volume one, as we have a regular artist and writer, but still wandering around, so it feels not so much like an ongoing, but rather like the Heap got lost and is randomly strolling through some EC comics.
The stories are all decent done in one crime, adventure and horror stories, but the title character still tends to feel like a guest star.
That and I think we are up to eight separate times that they have retold the Heap's origin, and each story adds something different to it.
It's bizarre, yet in a weird way kind of entertaining to imagine all eight things happened at the same time and that's why the Heap is the only one of his kind.
Cause what are the odds of it happening that way twice?
Interesting as a piece of history, and you can almost imagine Alan Moore seeing these and it influencing his own swamp monster comic, and the stories are well done, but still pretty disjointed.
The stories are all decent done in one crime, adventure and horror stories, but the title character still tends to feel like a guest star.
That and I think we are up to eight separate times that they have retold the Heap's origin, and each story adds something different to it.
It's bizarre, yet in a weird way kind of entertaining to imagine all eight things happened at the same time and that's why the Heap is the only one of his kind.
Cause what are the odds of it happening that way twice?
Interesting as a piece of history, and you can almost imagine Alan Moore seeing these and it influencing his own swamp monster comic, and the stories are well done, but still pretty disjointed.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews