Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Note: this review refers to the English hardcover edition, copyrighted 2019, not the Kindle version. If you encountered Moebius’ Incal in the original format in Heavy Metal magazine, or in the Epic trade reprints from the late 80s, there are a few things to know about this Humanoids edition. Most importantly, this book is smaller; the actual art size here is about 90% of those. The translation of the dialog and captions have been redone, with some minor editorial variances (e.g., “Emperoress” instead of “Emperoratrix”). As such, the lettering is not the original hand-lettered version, but is a computer font. While this font is more consistent in size throughout, it’s also considerably smaller, both relatively and absolutely. The physical text size is either 6 or at most 7 points high, which is extremely tiny (especially for older eyes). It also lacks some of the specialized custom treatments of the original. The wonderful original coloring is retained, and while it doesn’t match some of the hallucinatory oversaturation of earlier versions, it’s more even and less blotchy, and may be a closer match to the original art. The paper and binding are high quality, and the included cloth bookmark is a nice touch. At this point, I don’t ever expect to see an oversized “Absolute” version of The Incal (or Lieutenant Blueberry, for that matter) that would showcase Moebius’ extraordinary linework at the dimensions it truly deserves. But why not reproduce at least to the original magazine dimensions? In the end, this edition is still a great bargain, but I’m disappointed and surprised that Humanoids would go to the bother of doing such a high-quality print job of this major work at a reduced size. That extra 10 or 12% makes a huge difference in legibility, for both the linework and and the ludicrously small text. Dark Horse published the comparably lengthy “World of Edena” – which I ordered at the same time – at the original size, and the difference in reproduction quality for the slight additional weight is significant. For size comparison, I’m throwing in a photo showing a page from this book with the identical one from the larger 1988 Epic version, but am doubtful whether Amazon will allow it for copyright reasons; don’t be surprised if it’s not there.