Colón's stunning artwork powerfully conveys the facts, insights, and urgency of the original. Published on the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States, an event that has left no aspect of American foreign or domestic policy untouched, The 9/11 Report puts at every American's fingertips the most defining event of the century. "Never before have I seen a nonfiction book as beautifully and compellingly written and illustrated as The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation. I cannot recommend it too highly. It will surely set the standard for all future works of contemporary history, graphic or otherwise, and should be required reading in every home, school and library. " -Stan Lee A Statement on The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptationby Sid Jacobson and Ernie ColónThe cave paintings in Altamira, Spain, tell stories. Mostly they tell tales of the hunt. Drawn during the Paleolithic Stone Age, they still amaze us with their lucidity and directness. As an artist, and as an editor and writer in the graphic medium, we each pay homage to those delineators and interpreters of experience. They offered accounts of what happened and provided a way of remembering, honoring, and learning. When retold by the fire's flickering light, these stories must have lent the drawings a compelling, virtual movement. There is something eerie, but deeply gratifying, in knowing that a direct line runs from our contemporary comic art to these earliest efforts to record and convey what happened. Storyteller, audience, drawings depicting continuity of event: it all sounds familiar. In a culture that has become the most visually oriented in the history of humankind, comics retain the original concept of storytelling and remain a potent force of information. Read more Excerpts from The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation Timeline of Terror American Airline Flight 11 (AA 11)Boston to Los Angeles • 7:59: Takeoff • 8:14: Last routine radio communication; likely takeover • 8:19: Flight attendant notifies AA of hijacking • 8:21: Transponder is turned off • 8:23: AA attempts to contact the cockpit • 8:25: Boston Center aware of hijacking • 8:38: Boston Center notifies NEADS of hikacking • 8:46: NEADS scrambles Otis fighter jets in search of AA 11 • 8:46:40: AA 11 crashes into 1 WTC (North Tower) • 8:53: Otis fighter jets airborne • 9:16: AA headquarters aware that Flight 11 has crashed into WTC • 9:21: Boston Center advises NEADS that AA 11 is airborne heading for Washington • 9:24: NEADS scrambles Langley fighter jets in search of AA 11 United Airline Flight 175 (UA 11)Boston to Los Angeles • 8:14: Takeoff • 8:42: Last routine radio communication • 8:42-8:46: Likely takeover • 8:47: Transponder code changes • 8:52: Flight attendant notifies UA of hijacking • 8:54: UA attempts to contact the cockpit • 8:55: New York Center suspects hijacking • 9:03:11: Flight 175 crashes into 2 WTC (South Tower) • 9:15: New York Center advises NEADS that UA 175 was the second aircraft crashed into WTC • 9:20: UA Headquarters aware that Flight 175 had crashed into WTC American Airline Flight 7 (AA 77)Washington, DC to Los Angeles • 8:20: Takeoff • 8:51: Last routine radio communication • 8:51-8:54: Likely takeover • 8:54: Flight 77 makes unauthorized turn to south • 8:56: Transponder is turned off • 9:05: AA headquarters aware that Flight 77 is hijacked • 9:25: Herndon Command Center orders nationwide ground stop • 9:32: Dulles tower observes radar of fast-moving aircraft (later identified as AA 77) • 9:34: FAA advises NEADS that AA 77 is missing • 9:37:46: AA 77 crashes into the Pentagon • 10:30: AA headquarters confirms Flight AA crash into Pentagon United Airline Flight 93 (UA 93)Newark to San Francisco • 8:42: Takeoff • 9:24: Flight 93 receives warning from UA about possible cockpit intrusion • 9:27: Last routine radio communication • 9:28: Likely takeover • 9:34: Herndon Command Center advises FAA headquarters that UA 93 is hijacked • 9:36: Flight attendant notifies UA of hijacking; UA attempts to contact the cockpit • 9:41: Transponder is turned off • 9:57: Passenger revolt begins • 10:03:11: Flight 93 crashes in field in Shanksville, PA • 10:07: Cleveland Center advises NEADS of UA 93 hijacking • 10:15: UA headquarters aware that Flight 93 has crashed in PA; Washington Center advises NEADS that Flight 93 has crashed in PA.

And then there's Snoopy. To readers unfamiliar with the early days of the strip, Snoopy's appearances here will no doubt come as the biggest surprise. Although Snoopy has started talking/thinking to himself, he does no imitations (except for one brief shark impression), he doesn't sleep atop his doghouse (much less type or fly a Sopwith Camel), and has no fantasy life—in fact, he doesn't even walk upright! But as we know, he is merely biding his time, and his evolution continues its fascinating course within these pages. Peanuts is the most successful comic strip in the history of the medium as well as one of the most acclaimed strips ever published. (In 1999, a jury of comics scholars and critics voted it the 2nd greatest comic strip of the 20th century—second only to George Herriman's Krazy Kat, a verdict Schulz himself cheerfully endorsed. ) Charles Schulz's characters—Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus, Schroeder, and so many more—have become American icons. A United Media poll in 2002 found Peanuts to be one of the most recognizable cartoon properties in the world, recognized by 94 percent of the total U. S. consumer market and a close second only to Mickey Mouse (96 percent), and higher than other familiar cartoon properties like Spider-Man (75 percent) or the Simpsons (87 percent). In TV Guide's "Top 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All-Time" list, Charlie Brown and Snoopy ranked #8. Good grief! The Complete Peanuts is the most ambitious and most important project in the comics and cartooning genre: over a period of 12 years, Fantagraphics Books will release every daily and Sunday strip of Charles M. Schulz's "Peanuts," the best-known and best-loved series in the world. 1950-52 Most everyone with an interest in its history has seen the very first strip ("Good ol' Charlie Brown. How I hate him!"), but this first volume follows it up with 287 pages (three daily strips or one Sunday per page) of vintage material in chronological order. "Peanuts" was unique at the time for portraying kids who seemed like real kids, but they also had a wisdom beyond their years, embodied especially by the lovable loser, Charlie Brown, who even in these early years has lost 4000 checker games in a row. We see him don his familiar jagged-stripe shirt for the first time (December 1950) and, at the age of 4, at his peak as a babe magnet. Shermy is the other significant boy, and the girls in their lives are Patty (not to be confused with Peppermint Patty) and Violet. Schroeder is an infant who has learned to sit up in order to play Beethoven on his toy piano. Snoopy is an anthropomorphic dog who plays baseball (April 1952) and has his own thoughts (October 1952). In March 1952 we meet a bug-eyed Lucy, who by November has been designated "Miss Fuss-Budget of 1952" and is pulling the football away from Charlie Brown (Violet had done it a year earlier). Her baby brother Linus arrives in July 1952. The book itself is beautifully packaged, the strips printed large and clear on high-quality paper and accompanied by an in-depth essay by David Michaelis, a 1987 interview with Schulz, an introduction by Garrison Keillor, and even an index of characters and subjects. 1953-54 The second volume covers 1953-54, and the visual style and character development is closer to the kids we know and love, as they try to exist in a grown-up world. Charlie Brown is no longer the object of Patty and Violet's affection-derision, more like-and his pattern of losing continues. His misery at checkers hits 5000 (June 1953), 6000 (August), 7000 (November), 8000 (still November), and 10,000 (December) consecutive games, he gets shut out on Valentine's Day (February '53), he wears his first bad Halloween costume (October '54), and he gets a form rejection slip from Santa (December '54). On the baseball diamond, though, he actually has the lead in a game (April '53, but we don't see the final score) and briefly plays catcher. By now Lucy has become the main girl in the strip, and in addition to beating Charlie Brown at checkers, she begins her romantic pursuit of Schroeder (January '53), joins the baseball team (August '54), and wins her third consecutive Miss Fussbudget of the Year title (November '54). Her younger brother, Linus, starts what will become a longstanding feud with Snoopy in the first Sunday strip of '53, shows he's a prodigy in jump rope, blocks, houses of cards, and balloon blowing, and cuddles his security blanket (May '54). Schroeder continues his obsession with Beethoven and reveals the secret to playing great literature on a plastic piano with painted-on black keys (practice and "getting the breaks"). We meet two new characters, the perpetually dirty Pig-Pen (July '54) and the loudmouthed Charlotte Braun, whose funny name wasn't enough to keep her around for long. Charles M. Schulz, whose own insecurity manifested itself in Charlie Brown (who not coincidentally draws his own cartoons), came up with his first multiple-strip storyline (starting with a four-Sunday series of Lucy joining a golf tournament coached by Charlie Brown, May '54) in this period, and provides us with a glimpse of the 1950s-deco furniture ("What in the world is a 'rocking chair'? asks CB), 3-D movies, H-bomb testing, and even what in hindsight looks like a prediction of the troubles in Vietnam (May '54). The second volume maintains the high quality of the first volume; even if it doesn't have the same extent of extra materials, it has an introduction by Walter Cronkite, a note on one strip that had to be partially reconstructed, and that handy index of characters and topics. -David Horiuchi.

Several comics stories are also reproduced in their entirety. Almost as impressive as the stunning art design is Daniels's narrative: covering the 60 years from 1938 to 1998, he collects interviews with several writer-artist teams that detail the changes in the Man of Steel and his relationships with Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Lex Luthor, and Perry White. Daniels's examination of the "Death of Superman" story arc, in particular, is a fascinating study of Superman's commercial and archetypal appeal. The final pages preview Superman tales by Barry Windsor-Smith and Alex Ross (whose beautiful painted graphic novel Kingdom Come turned many heads), and the hardback cover holds a special surprise underneath its paper wrap. -Patrick O'Kelley.