Comic book artists and publishers know they can couch almost any concept in an action-packed format, dose it heavily with scantily clad females, and sit back to count the profits as young male readers snap it up. One book which took the concept a little further and actually provided a good story and phenomenal art was William Tucci's Shi.

In 1995, Tucci released the collected edition of Shi: Senryaku, a three-part mini-series he'd conceived to be separate from the ongoing monthly series about a white-faced Japanese warrior woman in America who, coincidentally enough, usually didn't wear a lot when she fought.

Others can debate the merits of the ongoing Shi series. Senryaku is a masterpiece.

There is no plot to this book. It is, in short, a colorful repackaging of Thirty-Six Strategies, a classic Chinese treatise on war and living. The Thirty-Six Strategies are ranked with the likes of Suz Tzu's Art of War and Musashi's Book of Five Rings for endurance and excellence.

Although collected in various written forms today, the Thirty-Six Strategies are based on an oral tradition, and the oral tradition is, in a way, the manner in which writer Gary Cohn chose to present them here. Each strategem is stated simply on a double-page spread, and each is explained to the budding young sohei Ana by her grandfather Yoshitora. But this is no textbook explanation or lecture; each point is illustrated through a story, taken either from Ana's fictional life or from the real histories of China and Japan.

They are, in essence, 36 short stories.

Thus, we learn the tactics used by the Great Khan to breach the Great Wall of China with a small army of Mongols, and we learn from the Russo-Japanese War how teen-aged Ana can win the heart of a boy by focusing her affections elsewhere. The real "conquest" of Hawaii by America parallels Ana's bid to participate in a martial arts competition. The girl even has something to learn from a video of the famous bout between Ali and Foreman.

Each of these stories is headlined with a single principle from the Thirty-Six Strategies. Those words of wisdom -- "Attack one foe to win another," "Kill with a borrowed sword," "Watch the fire from across the river," "Let them climb to the roof, then take away the ladder" -- don't always make much sense until the accompanying story is revealed.

Who blew up the Maine? It wasn't the Spanish, but America used that lever to start a war. That's another history lesson which explains one of the strategies here -- specifically, "Make something from nothing." The British use of opium to foment addiction in China (in order to secure their tea trade) illustrates the strategy "Rob a burning house."

The book gathers a notable assortment of fantasy and comic book artists for the colorful splash pages. And splash pages are all you'll find here; there are none of the small comic book panels to be found.

Famed fantasy artist Frank Frazetta provided the cover. Tucci himself did the back cover in a bold, Nagel-like style. Inside art was submitted by the likes of Jim Lee, Joe Quesada, Dave Sim, Angela Daskalakis, Marc Silvestri, Jae Lee, Jim Balent, Dan Jurgens, Amanda Connor, George Perez, David Mack, Peter Gutierrez, Julie Bell, Scott Lee, Terry Moore, Adam Hughes and Joe Jusko.

The fact that the art usually has nothing to do with the story on that page doesn't seem to matter. Each does illustrate the point being presented on that page, it's just usually presented in a markedly different way. (Although it is a little disconcerting, sometimes, to read a light-hearted story about, for instance, giddy teenage romance pasted over paintings of bloody battle!) The artwork is icing -- very good icing, indeed -- but the stories are the cake.

My only complaint here is the double-page presentation. Many of the gorgeous artworks are displayed sideways, forcing readers to turn the book sideways, and of course that means the middle of every picture disappears into the binding. (I know Ana is depicted in classic comic "good girl art" style and is supposed to be enticing ... but did we need this extra step to make it seem like we're looking at a Playboy centerfold?) Smaller pictures, one to a page, would have served the book better.

[ by Tom Knapp ]