YOE-YOE TRICKS You wouldn't think editing and producing books could be as cool as being creative director for the Muppets and Nickelodeon. But Craig Yoe's wildly creative historical comics collections do what he says: put the comic back in comics with objet d'art packaging. Since Muppeteer Jim Henson's death in 1990, the Eisner Award-winning Yoe! Studio has churned out a scale-breaking library spanning several publishers.

Beginning with the iconic The Art of Mickey Mouse (Rizzoli, 1991), the "Indiana Jones of comics historians" (as dubbed by Vice magazine) later cut loose with distinctly nonkiddie material: Clean Cartoonists' Dirty Drawings (Last Gasp, 2007) and Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-creator Joe Shuster (Abrams, 2009). After The Great Anti-War Cartoons (Fantagraphics, 2009), IDW nabbed Yoe for his very own imprint, Yoe! Books.

Debuting with the 1950s and 1960s suspense stories of Steve Ditko--Spider-Man's Michelangelo--the IDW imprint has focused on more family-friendly fare, while Yoe has occasionally popped out goodies for other publishers, like Krazy Kat and the Art of George Herriman (Abrams).

Yoe's books put veteran scrapbookers to shame with their coffee-table glamour and wide-ranging content. Rare visuals, internal memos, promo flyers, encomia, and insider stories enrich the volumes. The recent Archie (see review, p. 60) documents how Archie artists were directed to draw up-to-date teen fashions and display as end-papers a saucy, never-published Archie dream: Veronica and Betty as harem girls. It's all there for enjoyment, not reference, since these collections lack features like chronologies, further reading, and sometimes tables of contents.

Yoe collected the Popeye strips of Bud Sagendorf, one of the three great artists to draw that iconic character--in one comical episode, Popeye fights a shape-changing Martian. Another volume houses nearly 100 strips from "Tiger Tea," the only extended story line from George Herriman's Krazy Kat, about a hilariously mind-bending concoction of brewed catnip. Retro-leaning fans should enjoy Dan DeCarlo's charming Jetta, a 1950s red-haired cutie from the futuristic Neutron High School.

Still other Yoe titles assemble horror classics: "Klassic Krazy Kool Kids' Komics," Felix the Cat "tails," and Christmas stories. Nearly all comics lovers will enjoy some of these beautifully produced hardbacks, and libraries can choose what best suits their readers.--M.C.

Bradbury, Ray (text) & Dennis Calero & others (illus.). Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles: The Authorized Adaptation. Hill & Wang: Farrar. 2011.153p. ISBN 9780809067930. pap. $30. F

One of the most poignant sf stories of all time, Bradbury's classic anthology of loosely connected vignettes paints a picture of humanity that may take to the skies but remains mired in terrestrial flaws. Earth invaders of the red planet and the (also flawed) Martians kill and deceive one another--and themselves--until cataclysms on both planets set the stage for a hoped-for new beginning. This skillful adaptation includes 15 of the vignettes, about half the originals, that together preserve the texture and momentum of the original. The text also maintains much of Bradbury's poetic diction. Calero's mostly realistic colors integrate smoothly with the stoW and are well designed. However, the...