Organizing the ToC for Bill Everett Archives v1

With my Steve Ditko Archives series (volume three out this November!), we've been publishing the stories from Ditko's pre-Spider-Man career in chronological fashion (literally in the case on volume two onwards; by story # versus publication date). Because the stories are just random genre tales, the value is in seeing the progression of Ditko's style versus Charlton random publishing efforts where a story could sit on a shelf for over a year before seeing print.

But we have a unique opportunity with our two volumes of the Bill Everett Archives (which reprints Bill 1938-42 non-Marvel work). Virtually all stories feature Everett's action/superhero creations. One concern of mine, with the way the Table of Contents (ToC) would play out chronologically over two volumes, is that all the Amazing-Man stories would fit into volume one and all the Hydroman stories would fit into volume two. So what we're going to do is group the stories of each hero together regardless of publication date. We will, however, spread out the "biggies", like the two aforementioned heroes, over the two volumes. We're also going to do that for Skyrocket Steele and Sub-Zero. Some heroes will only be featured in each volume, since they don't have enough stories worth spreading over two (e.g., The Conqueror, Rex Reed).

This way, people who pick up both volumes will be assured that they get great value in each volume, and that each volume shows Everett's style progressing over the four years. That was another concern, that doing it chronologically would split his stylistic advances into what one could argue would be two distinct phases.

The other good news about this approach is that, if those who are sending a story or two come through for me, then I only need one more story to have all the visuals for volume one in the can. I'll detail out tomorrow what we still need for both volumes, but the one story that no one's come forward yet with is in Blue Bolt v1 #6 (Nov '40), the Sub-Zero story. If you have this and can contribute scans, please contact me privately first before scanning. You'll receive a free copy of the first volume. Thanks to everyone so far for your contributions! It's looking amazing, folks!