This auction is now closed.
The bookcase purge for charity continues! You can see a complete list of all auctions here, in chronological order starting with the latest, here. Full auction details are included at the end of the article, but to bring the new folks up to speed real quick:
Every weekday until Friday, June 5th, we publish a new Shelf Bound article announcing a bind or bound set up for auction.
Each bind auction’s bidding starts when its article is published and ends 72 hours later, so today’s auction will close at 4 PM EST on May 8, 2020.
Bids must be posted in an item’s comment section to be considered for that item; highest bid posted before close of auction wins.
Bids from outside the U.S. are welcome, although shipping outside the U.S. may incur additional fee.
The winning bidder emails me (greg at multiversity comics dot com) to verify donation particulars, then makes the donation and send me verification.
I send out the bind.
Everyone wins.
30 weekdays. 34 binds. All proceeds going to charity. Sound good? Let’s get to it!
THE RINGS OF THE NIBELUNG
Written by: Roy Thomas, P. Craig Russell
Drawn by: Gil Kane, P. Craig Russell
Inked by: Gil Kane, P. Craig Russell
Colored by: Jim Woodring, Lovern Kindzierski
Lettered by: John Constanza, P. Craig RussellPublished by: DC Comics | Dark Horse Comics
Collecting:
- The Ring of the Nibelung #1-4 (Dec 1989 – Mar 1990)
- The Ring of the Nibelung: The Rhinegold #1-4 (Feb 2000 – May 2000)
- The Ring of the Nibelung: The Valkyrie #1-3 (Aug 2000 – Oct 2000)
- The Ring of the Nibelung: Siegfried #1-3 (Dec 2000 – Feb 2001)
- The Ring of the Nibelung: Gotterdammerung #1-4 (Jun 2001 – Sept 2001)
Additional Material: None, although the material bound does include the several original explanatory text pieces.
Bind Details:
- Oversewn binding
- Green imitation leather cover material
- Green/white headbands
- White endpapers
- Page edges trimmed
Signatures: None
Sketches: None
Bound by: Herring & Robinson Bindery.
They’re gonna think it’s a typo.
Even though at the time, ‘they’ was only going to be whomever happened to see it on my actual bookshelf, that’s what went through my head as I typed out the spine text on the order slip. There’s only one ring. Everybody KNOWS there’s only one ring. It’s the Ring cycle, not the RingS cycle!
True, but this book was going to have TWO adaptations of Wagner’s Ring cycle. Gil Kane & Roy Thomas’ 4-issue Ring of the Nibelung from DC Comics and P. Craig Russell’s 14-issue Ring of the Nibelung from Dark Horse. The whole reason I was doing the book was to have the two Ring stories side-by-side. One Ring plus one Ring equals two Rings; hence the title.
Now that I’ve exorcised THAT particular demon, let’s get on to the business at hand: talking about this bind!
It’s hard to think of how these two adaptations could be more different. Kane & Thomas’ version is straight out of the pulp fantasy comic tradition; a tradition laid down by some of the duo’s own work on Marvel’s Conan. It’s probably more faithful to Wagner’s original intent of an awe-inspiring, blood-pumping visceral experience than Russell’s. With far less pages to work with, grace notes and grace itself are the first to be sacrificed. Also, I’d forgotten than Frank creator Jim Woodring colored this! I’d love to hear the story behind THAT matchup one day.
But if the 1990 adaptation is Mel Gibson’s Hamlet, then the 2000-01 adaptation is Kenneth Branagh’s full-text 1996 version. Not that Russell didn’t have to make choices about what material to leave out, but his version is given the space to pause, to breath, and to capture a much broader range of emotions and inspiration from the source material.
Russell had been planning this work for his entire career up until then, and specifically did not look at the Kane version prior to his own (I’m not sure if he read it afterwards). Transmogrifying an aural experience like opera into sequential art was something he’d done on smaller scales with Salome and The Magic Flute, but this was the end goal. Ring was intended to be his magnum opus.
Continued below
(For more on Russell’s Ring work specifically, you can listen to Mike Romeo and I talk about it on our Robots From Tomorrow Book Club Discussion.)
Why You Should Bid
The Russell adaptation is readily available, even having been reissued as a single hardcover and TPB not too long ago. The Kane/Thomas version was originally released as Prestige Format single issues then a TPB; those are both out of print as I type this.
This is also one of the few books I had bound in a material other than the cloth-based Arrestox. There was no upcharge for going with imitation leather, and I wanted to give the book a spruced-up look befitting the refined reputation of the source material. I’m very happy I did. It’s hard to tell from the pictures, but the book does have a different texture and feel to it. It may be called ‘imitation leather’ but it certainly feels like the real thing!
So you COULD take the time & effort to track down either the single issues or the TPBs and turn them into your own book via a binder using the techniques & approaches we cover every month in Shelf Bound . . .
OR
you could bid on the bind we’re auctioning today, get the benefit of someone else doing all that work for you, AND do some good for the comics community we all love in the process!
Starting Bid: $25
Auction Ends: May 8, 2020 at 4 pm
Proceeds Benefit: The Hero Initiative
AUCTION FINE PRINT
- This auction ends 72 hours after the date & time of this article’s posting.
- Bids MUST be placed as comments below to be valid.
- DO NOT TRY BIDDING FOR THE BOOK BY REPLYING TO THE ANNOUNCEMENT TWEET!!!!! BIDS SENT IN THIS MANNER WILL BE IGNORED!!!!!
- Highest bid posted before the end of the auction wins. The winning bidder has 24 hours to contact me via twitter or email (see below) to set up payment. If contact is not made in this timeframe, the winning bid is invalidated and the next highest bid will be the winner.
- Winning bidder will make the donation in the amount of the winning bid to the agreed-upon charity. Upon successful donation and receipt of receipt (hehe) by me, the bind will be mailed out via Media Mail on the following Saturday unless an alternate schedule is agreed upon by all parties.
- Feel free to post any additional questions you may have prior to the end of the auction below; I will do my best to answer them ASAP. Additional and/or specific pictures of the bind are available on request.
- Thanks in advance to anyone bidding on these binds. Good luck!
