Annotations And Other Pursuits

by Jess Nevins

(these annotations are mirrored at Peter Karpas' Comic Book Annotations site)

7 May 2009: Annotations to Century: 1910 are done.
Now on sale: Impossible Territories: The Unofficial Companion to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Black Dossier, the book-length version of my annotations to League v2. A Blazing World Contains my annotations in a revised and expanded form, comments by Kevin O'Neill on my annotations, an introduction by Alan Moore, and an interview with Alan Moore.   


I am, I admit, something of a geek. I use my time in ways that most folks will find useless. Among the things I do is annotate comic books. You understand that I don't find this a useless waste of time. And, for some people, the fruits of my labors are entertaining and welcome, and that's enough for me.

(I do many other things, of course, and annotating comics is a light diversion, one I have now stopped in favor of more rewarding work). But I get more attention for this than anything else.  

Here are some of the things I've annotated:

The excellent Kingdom Come miniseries, from DC:

These notes have been revised and published, along with three essays, Kevin O'Neill's commentary on the annotations, and a long interview with Alan Moore, as Heroes & Monsters, which was nominated for an International Horror Guild award and favorably reviewed in Locus and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Well, glory be, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volume 2 has arrived. And so, too, have my annotations: As mentioned in the note at the top of this page, the notes to League v2 have been published and are now on sale as A Blazing World. I don't know whether it will be nominated for any awards or get any positive reviews, but I'm happy with it anyhow.

I've done the notes on Alan Moore's Top Ten: I did some notes on Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert's 1602: I did some notes on Alan Moore and Zander Cannon's sequel to Top 10, Smax: I'm taking time away from book writing to do a few more annotations: Back again, back again, jiggety-jig, for another League of Extraordinary Gentlemen project: Notes to the latest League of Extraordinary Gentlemen work: Apart from future League of Extraordinary Gentlemen projects I will no longer be doing any comic book annotations. If you're curious as to the reasons for this decision, please e-mail me.

I'm not sure the following count, strictly speaking, as annotations, but this is the best place to put them, so they're going here:

A Guide to Marvel's Golden Age Heroes. Which is to say, a listing, with descriptions, of all the heroes that Timely/Marvel published between 1939 and 1949. Updated 26 June 2002.

A Guide to Marvel's Pre-FF #1 Heroes. The Table of Contents page for my site listing all of the heroes that were active in the Marvel Universe before the events of Fantastic Four #1. Updated 26 June 2002.

The Golden Age Heroes Directory. What will eventually be a guide to every hero who appeared in comics between 1939 and 1945. Right now it just lists most of them, more than any one site out there. The material on this site will be revised into manuscript form and published (working title: The Encyclopedia of Golden Age Superheroes) in 2007. 

There's this, which isn't mine, but which I'm more than happy to host: The Robert Wicks Unofficial Chronology of the Marvel Universe, 3rd Edition, which is a detailed chronology of what happened in the Marvel Universe from the Big Bang up to Fantastic Four #1. Reloaded 22 June 2002.

And, finally, there's this, which like Robert Wicks' Chronology isn't my creation, but which I'm proud to host: The Unofficial Wolverine Chronology, which is my pal Ronald Byrd's outstanding attempt to provide a coherent history of Wolverine's life--no small feat, that. Updated 25 January 2003.

Formerly a gentleman by the name of Greg Plantamura was good enough to allow me to host his annotations to Uncle Sam. However, he's moved them on to his own site, so why not go there, to the Annotations for U.S. - The Graphic Novel site, to see them?

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