Posted By Dan Greenfield on Jun 25, 2016 | 3 comments

Sun Tzu wasn’t the only one who understood the Art of War.

On 6/29, IDW is publishing the Best of DC War Artist’s Edition and it includes a number of brilliant, rare original-art pages by giants like Joe Kubert, Jack Kirby, Russ Heath, John Severin — and Alex Toth.

There are complete stories and individual pages. It’s utterly magnificent.

We’re presenting an EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW in two parts. Here, we’re highlighting several (but not all) of the stunning pages by Alex Toth. Meanwhile, click here to see art by Kubert, Kirby, Heath and Severin.

Why does Toth get the extra spotlight? Because he was born June 25, 1928, and we wanted to celebrate his birthday by calling out his work both in comics and animation. (Toth died in 2006.) In fact, check out some of his great animation model sheets — featuring the likes of Space Ghost, the Super Friends and the Fantastic Four — by clicking here.

And here are four Toth pages from the Artist’s Edition. The first three are from “Burma Sky,” published in Our Fighting Forces #146 (cover-dated Dec. 1973-Jan. 1974). The last page is from “White Devil … Yellow Devil!” published in Star Spangled War Stories #164 (cover-dated Aug.-Sept. 1972).

Oh, and what’s that poster up top? The imaginative folks at IDW created faux war propaganda posters from various panels, and they’re used to introduce stories in the edition.

Dig it.

Don’t forget to check out the pages by Kubert, Kirby, Heath and Severin, here.

The Artist’s Edition offers these pages in their original, prepub sizes, so you can see these beauties in all their detailed glory, blemishes and all. It’ll run you in the $100-$115 range, depending on where you get it. Click here for details.