You side with George even though you admit BWS didn't say anything bad about Kirby? Which is the only point of contention. Wha???

It was released as a two-volume, hardcover slipcase edition, initially; then, a three-volume, slipcase, paperback edition, later.  The increase in the number of volumes for the paperback edition was to make them more stable, as the glue binding of a paperback gets pretty unstable at that kind of size (and the volumes were big, like the Calvin & Hobbes 3-volume set)  As it was, the hardcover editions suffered from binding problems.  The individual books were big and weighty and the binding wasn't as solid as older generation books.  The publishers went cheap on book bindings, especially after the 90s and with the outsourcing of printing to places like China.

There was a second edition of Maurice Horn's The World Encyclopedia of Comics, released in the late 90s (I think...might have been the beginning of the millennium), which had updated entries and additional entries for newer strips, revised from the edition released in the early 70s (when the Neal Adams X-Men stories were recent).  The thing was a monster.  I later got my hands on a set of an edition published for libraries, in multiple volumes, splitting up the alphabet, like a regular encyclopedia set.  It was much handier and great for pulling out for quick reference, compared with the single volume.  Fewer hernias, too.

The real difference between the two editions, aside from the additional material was that the original had contributors from around the world, while this edition seemed to be all Horn, in terms of the writing.  In several places, it was clear he had never read the comics in question and in others, there are more critical opinions.  The original edition was generally positive to neutral about entries, with only the entry for Philippe Druillet  sounding extremely negative, basically saying he was overrated.  It sounded like there was a personal issue between Horn and the artist (probably a woman, since they are French, but I wouldn't rule out money).

I wish I had hung onto it, but I downsized my library in my last move and that set, and other comic book reference books, were pretty bulky.....and I had pretty much memorized the info in them, from successive readings.  At one point, I had quite a comic book reference library, with Ron Goulart's histories, Will Jacobs & Gerard Jones The Comic Book Heroes in two editions, the Horn encyclopedia in two editions, a couple of other books edited by Horn, Jeff Rovin's encyclopedias of super herooes and other related topics, the Mike Benton reference books, Stan's Fireside collections, the 30s/40s to the 70s DC books, the DC encyclopedias from Michael Fleischer, Dick Lupoff & Don Thompson's two books, Jules Feiffer's Great Comic Book Heroes, a reprint of Seduction of the Innocent, a couple of the DK books, a couple from CBG, the Fantagraphics Bill Maudlin Willie & Joe set, the Les Daniels books, Peter Sanderson's Marvel Book, a couple of books with creator bios, The Comic Book Rebels, the Smithsonian books on comic books and the comic strips volume, Jerry Robinson's book, the Penguin history of comics, the superhero book that came in a fat paperback, in the 90s, Fred Schott's manga history/survey and a few others I am forgetting.  20 years as a bookseller and a previous decade or so of buying any book I found about comic books and their history.

Thanks to Calidore and Codystarbuck for the Far Side info. I'll probably go with the 3-volume set as it's cheaper and there doesn't seem to be anything superior about the 2-volume unless one has a preference for hardcovers.

Groth had his usual agenda and I agree he was always a hypocrite when he would slag off DC for publishing superheroes while giving left handed compliments to Sandman or admit that Howard Cruse's Stuck Rubber Baby was a great book and published by DC, while Love & Rockets and others were being funded by "porn comics."  However, those involved in those comics produced them under better terms, so there is that, even if it was for a lesser page rate.  Also, a large chunk of what Eros put out were European erotica, with some notable creators, and not just cheap junk with explicit sex.  They also reprinted stuff like Eric Stanton and Wally Wood's adult comics and Frank Thorne's stuff.  There were other publishers who were doing the cheaper and tawdrier stuff; so, even in their "porn," Fantagraphics had some standards.  Not a lot of them, but some.

There is a certain snobbery within fandom, too, about indie comics and vice versa, and also about adult comics with sexual content, with the label "porn" being thrown about, regardless of the context of the sex scenes in the work.  To me, that is no different than Groth attacking DC and Marvel for existing and publishing superheroes, while still putting out some more mature material, which Groth will only acknowledge with left-handed compliments, unless he is interviewing someone like Neil Gaiman...in which case he is full of praise (and full of it, to be sure).  Groth is at least consistent with his stance on work-for-hire contracts and, to his point, there is a Faustian bargain to work for DC and Marvel and get a better page rate, since you cede any rights to the material.  Book publishing, for the most part, doesn't operate that way (except in licensed works and publisher owned series; but, even them the terms are better, for royalties) and European and British comics do not (hence Marvel's problems with reprinting Alan Moore material from Marvel UK, without his consent).  I can at least see where Groth is coming from, in guys like Buscema who stay working under those conditions, rather than sratch the itch to create and own their own material, like Kirby or Starlin or the Image guys.  I don't appreciate him using the term "hack," which signifies more some one who slops it out for a regular paycheck and that isn't Buscema.  Unlike Groth, though, I recognize that some guys are quite happy with steady work doing assigned titles and have no real itch to scratch...or not one within comics.  Dan Spiegle drew tons of comics under work-for-hire, dabbled a tiny bit in ownership, with Crossfire (which he shared with Mark Evanier); but, his pleasure was in painting, not in creating his own comics.

We saw his face in FF annual #2, but that was when he was younger and still handsome as they come.

His badly disfigured face... I have never seen it clearly. In Fantastic Four #200, Doom is unmasked in a room full of mirrors, and we get to see a blurred (or hatched) version of it: he's still got two eyes, a nose, a mouth that's normal, so his injuries are probably only skin-deep.

In FF #278, "True Lies", we see him after his original lab accident; he only had a big scar across a cheek, but was in no way horrible to look at. His ego wouldn't stand anything less than perfection, though, and so he considered himself disfigured; later in the same story, he has his still-hot newly forged mask laid straight on his features, causing them to go pshhhhhhhh. (This last bit reflects his origin as told in FF#2, although then the mask just looked painfully hot; not flesh-melting scalding.)

Over the years we got glimpses of his face, and the flesh around his eyes seem very bumpy and burned... hamburger-like, as is the case for some patients being treated for skin cancer.

If we were ever treated to a clear view of his ruined features, I do not know.

I don't think it'll change anyone's mind because everyone's opinions seem so hard-set on this subject, but for readers who don't think Kirby could draw and that he needed Sinnott or Romita to make his artwork passable, I'd encourage them to look at Kirby's un-inked pencils from the '60s period.