The Collected Captain Hard-On #[nn]

Dan Collins handles every creative role — writing, drawing, inking, coloring, and lettering — on this Fantagraphics collection, and the cover makes a bold first impression: a massively built superhero in a red-and-orange costume with a bold "O" emblem surges forward, fists clenched, while a gallery of monstrous, anguished faces looms in the grey background behind him. It's a gleefully over-the-top parody of superhero bombast, rendered with genuine comic-book craft and a knowing wink. For fans of underground and alternative comics, this 2006 collection looks like a thoroughly committed one-man labor of irreverent love.