To start with, DC Comics short-lived series Solo is a must-read and highly recommended to any serious comic book readers. I mean serious too because not only is the writing is more than an average comic book, but the art is very involved too. Unlike most comic book series, this took me a few days to finish. I loved almost all of the art and enjoyed a fair amount of the writing.Tim Sale’s part I think was the strongest with the writing. The story with Supergirl was a real sweet, but very sad at t...

This is in my opinion one of the most underrated experiments I've seen one of the "big two" do. Some really interesting and weird stuff is shown through the creative freedom given to these artists! Although it wasn't all my kind of think what I liked i loved and what I didn't necessarily enjoy personally I still respect for the work thats there! An amazing collection of work from an amazing collection of people!(Read this through two collected version of the issues but plan on getting the deluxe...

Cool concept with a 12 volume set giving 12 different writers free reign to do what they like. Has some really fun stories (a couple of misses). The real standout volume was Sergio Aragones volume. He had a really fun Batman story and a few autobiographical stories including one in which he meets (out of all people) Marty Feldman.I would give it a higher rating, but some of the stories fall short.

This collection allowed me to discover some artists that I didn't know (and some that I knew, but I just didn't know their names!), and exposed me to stories that I wouldn't normally have gone out of my way to read (like westerns, for example). Overall a satisfying read, a little uneven here & there, but that is to be expected with anthologies of this type: Something for everyone, but not everything for anyone.Of the contributing artists, I've broken them down into four categories:[1] Corben, Po...

This was a hard one to rate as it is a collection of comics from different artists. They were asked to do stories that they always wished to tell and some of them are fabulous and some not so much. It's a matter of taste really. My absolute favorite of the whole series is Teenage Sidekick by Paul Pope. It was a truly revelatory story about Robin the Boy Wonder. Robin is such a divisive character in the comic book world, but this story really captured the essence of who Robin (Dick Grayson Robin)...

A collection of a 12 part series where each issue had a single artist with carte blanche to create stories using DC characters or just the kind of stories they would like to see in comics.Being a collection of short stories the quality is variable but good overall. There was more work that did not use DC characters than I would have liked.The main gripe is the claim that 12 of the greatest artists were gathered to contribute to the collection. Any such claim is subjective of course but the defin...

A massive collection of 12 48 page comics. Each issue is the creation of a famoius comic book artist who was given forty eight pages and allowed to do whatever they liked.the results are varied but mostly excellent. Howard Chaykin, Richard Corben, Scott Hampton and Tim Sale all stand out.there is also some deep strangeness here. Damion Scott does stories using graffiti art which are quite strange. Add to that Brendan Mccarthy pyschedelic oddities.This is a concept I hope they'd do again with ano...

Issues by Tim Sale, Mike Allred, Darwyn Cooke, Howard Chaykin, Paul Pope, Scott Hampton and Jordi Bernet are fantastic, Great art, great stories. Unfortunately the series is brought down some by horrible stories by Damian Scott, Teddy Kristiansen, and Brendan McCarthy. Damian's art has no depth to it and is hard to follow because of it. Teddy's stories have zero point to them and remind me of Nietzsche. McCarthy's "stories" take psychedelic comics to its extreme to the point where it seems like

I hardly noticed this book when it was coming out back in the day -- just that it was supposed to be a boutique anthology series featuring big name creators, but either I didn't like or hadn't heard of the artists for the particular issues I saw. I think if I'd seen the Michael Allred issue I would have flipped out, but it still doesn't surprise me that I skipped over this at the time.This is a kindred spirit with DC's other semi-recent anthology series, Wednesday Comics, also edited by Mark Chi...

Originally published as twelve double-sized issues from 2004 to 2006, DC's anthology series Solo showcases one artist per issue. The impressive list of contributors includes underground legend Richard Corben, alternative favorite Paul Pope, and pop-art-inspired Mike Allred and Darwyn Cooke. All artists were given a high degree of creative freedom to either play around with the DC cast of characters or come up with their own, unrelated material.With little competition in the anthology/short story...

This thick deluxe edition caught my attention for the sole reason that it featured Adam West' wacky Batman in his most iconic pose. I was definitely more than intrigued and I knew even before I ever found out about its contents that I must possess it, sooner rather than later. When I did get to purchase it, I was stunned by the range and depth of this collection which featured a promising roster composed of talented men who are said to be 'twelve of the greatest artists in comics'. The body of w...

The premise is simple: take twelve of comics' top artists and give each of them one issue of a series to do whatever they want. If they wish to bring in a collaborator or two, that's fine--some opted to work with writers; others were happy to write their own material. The result is a 12 issue, Eisner-winning series that's quickly becoming a legend. Being an anthology series, the quality varies, but remains generally high. Some artists chose to work with established DC characters. Others took the...

This mammoth book collects all 12 issues of DC's Solo, an ambitious series in 2004 that each issue, gave a comics industry luminary free reign to tell whatever stories they liked. The lineup is as impressive as it is diverse, featuring Tim Sale, Richard Corben, Paul Pope, Howard Chaykin, Darwyn Cooke, Jordi Bernet, Michael Allred, Teddy Kristiansen, Scott Hampton, Damion Scott, Sergio Aragones and Brendan McCarthy. Each issue is a mini-anthology of unconnected stories, some serious, some whimsic...

Eisner Award Winner, 2006:Best Short Story - "Teenage Sidekick," by Paul PopeBest Single Issue or One-Shot - Solo #5, by Darwyn CookeBest Anthology - Mark Chiarello, editorThis is a must-read for any comics fan. This is first and foremost a showcase for some of the best artists at the time Solo was first published. The writing is a bit hit and miss. But the range of diverse artistic styles is amazing. Because of this diversity, I doubt any reader will enjoy every one of them, but hopefully can a...

I'll rate this 5 stars for creative amazement but in the end four stars because (let's face it) most of the short stories were not memorable and some (okay one, in particular) of the artists were not worthy of being included.But I still STRONGLY recommend this book because it was such a delight to be exposed to the unique styles of 12 professional artists. For fun, I'll rate them from fav to least fav:1) Darwyn Cooke (I love his art and retro stories SO much)2) Michael Allred (I have always dug

12 modern day male artists are given 40 pages and carte-blanche(ish) to show us what they can do.What? weren't there any lady artists "good enough" for this exercise? The art goes from cartoonish to comic-book-ish to downright masterful. Most of it is good, some of it isn't. The stories vary... although many are of DC's cast of characters, I think most veer off into the artists' personal collection of what may be, in some cases, material they had lying around the studio that they had never manag...

STILL haven't decided if I'm getting this mammoth used then selling the 8 I've read or if I'm just going to pay too much for the issues I haven't read yet: #1 Sale, #3 Pope, #5 Cooke and #11 Aragones.WHY is this the only edition? Having a 608 page deluxe hardcover as the only option is absurd- they should print it as two paperbacks.

Great collection, real riot of styles and ideas. 12 top artists got 48 pages each to tell any stories they wanted. Some heavyweight collaborators like Neil Gaiman, too.

I was considering giving this collection a 3-Star rating because while I fell in love with artists that I’ve never heard of before-as well as fall in love all over again with artists I know all too well and am constantly searching for new works/projects they’ve had a hand in-I didn’t feel the same way about a number of new-to-me artists (which, to be fair, is a quite a long list.) now I know that the artists I may not have cared for, are world renowned and have an impressive following, but perso...

A 3.5 rating.A great collectible of a book. Filled with a plethora of artstyles, that are great to look at in their own unique way.As far as the stories go.. well, that's where it loses some points. Some stories were great - small, but hitting the right spot in the feels. Others, were just... okay. And some that are bad - but the good and the okay is a subjective opinion, especially in the case of this book.