Black Phoenix magazine is, at its core, a contemporary comics magazine featuring original characters and stories of various comics genres–all dreamed up by its sole author and illustrator, Rich Tommaso (Eisner Award winning creator of Clover Honey, Spy Seal, Horror of Collier County and many more). Don’t be fooled by the pseudonyms seen inside–he changes names as often as drawing styles. But, the magazine is also like a journey through comics history itself. Each volume focuses on a particular cartoonist or publishing house style from The Golden Age of Comics. 

This collection of Black Phoenix features Tommaso’s take on the classic 1950s genre stories of EC Comics, the 1940s romance comics of Archie, the late 1930s pulp adventure strips of Detective Comics and Marvel Mystery Comics–and even the Franco-Belgian comics explosion sparked by Tintin. 

Inside you’ll find an array of hand-illustrated advertisement parodies, full page, stand-alone illustrations, letters to the editor, illustrated prose features, art essays and– the comics! So many comics! Including: Zipper Dick Fryer, X-Ray Spectre, Ghostlady Gertrude, Yearling, Sam Hill: The Mysterious Case, The Gorras, Retired Gun, Lucy Goose, Galoot!, Ball And Chain, Blood Letters, Vikings’ End, Invaders, Over My Dead Body, Spy Seal, Earth To Venus, and so much more! 

Everything is here: this beautiful, full-color collection published by Floating World Comics contains the complete Black Phoenix run from issues #1-10, covers and all!

Inspired by the crime and horror films of the 1970s - 1980s, artist/writer Rich Tommaso has effectively utilized those influences in his first two original titles at Image, DARK CORRIDOR and SHE WOLF. Having grown up during these same time periods, he's also been able to draw from his own life experiences to elevate and personalize his comics while simultaneously working within those classic genres.