JoeDeclassified.com

I got this a couple of weeks ago, and I have to say it's a great read! 320 Pages of Joe goodness.

It is written by Jonathan Maberry, Duane Swierczynski, Chuck Dixon, Matt Forbeck, and Dennis Tafoya. Cobra Wars is edited by Max Brooks(who also writes the final story). I know I forgot somebody.

There are some illustrations for each story and they are ok.

The highlight of the book, to me, was the Skidmark story. which was great. I don't want to post any spoilers so you can enjoy the book(But I believe this was the teaser story IDW gave us in the Cobra special).

Please check it out it 's great!

I know it's on Amazon but it's available for Re-order from Diamond so your local comic shop should be able to order it for you.

I'm currently reading this.

I love the idea of Joe novels. I can see it becoming something similar to Star Wars line of Expanded Universe novels. And I hope Joe can do that someday.

I'm just worried that this isn't the delivery method for doing it. It's not a comic book and well IDW Publishing does do non-comic stuff, they get lumped in as a comic book publisher. Borders has this listed as a "graphic novel", it's not. It's an anthology of novellas. It's a prose book and should be in the mystery/thriller section which is where these writers are. That would help it get cross promotion.

My Borders didn't even have it on the shelf, I had to ask for it and they had to get it from out back.

So I think this is going to be a minor bump in the road. It's not getting much push by IDW and most Joe fan sites aren't even caring about it.

Now I'm only a couple novellas in and I'm not that impressed. It's decent. Nothing earth shattering and the writer's aren't that top-notch. Brooks isn't a very good editor.

But it's Joe in novel form. I'm all for more.

So this is a collection of short stories involving various characters?

Yes, that is right.

Reading Troy's reviews has probably saved me from having to track this down. I wanted it to be a great read. Maybe they'll get it right down the road.