The delay between the release of a single track from Comic Books: Unlimited – “Superfriends” – and the rest of the proper disc was roughly three months. That’s a pretty long time in terms of internet releases. But while considering that, this release also calls into question what distinctions there actually are between mix tapes and albums released via the web. To me…there isn’t a difference. But a number of folks – QuESt and Treazon amongst them – seem to be able to differentiate between the two. Regardless of that, though, Comic Books: Unlimited, the follow up to Print’s previous Comic Books: Book One, is considered a proper album. And in all fairness, it is roughly an hour and a half of music. So, I suppose if you create that much work, you can call it what you please.

Apart from the fact that Print seems to be obsessed with Marvel comic book heroes â?? which sounds similar to Charles Hamiltonâ??s love of Sonic the Hedgehog â?? what sets this work apart from the rest of the interweb rap crowd is the production. Granted, there are a lot of jazz â?? not so much funk â?? and soul samples. Beyond that, though, an airy quality persists throughout the twenty one tracks. Of course, the fact that most of the work on this disc is somehow tied to comic book heroes and various esoteric story lines is almost enough to place this in its own territory. The one draw back, though, is the pervasive use of female singers for the hooks.

That criticism of Printâ??s work is from a personal place, but on â??Save the Cheerleader, Save the World,â? â??Heroes,â? and â??Ridinâ?? High,â? which shares its name with a Wailers track, all suffer from these vocal inclusions. Even this, though, which seems to occur more towards the end of the offering, canâ??t detract from the overall quality of the disc.

Comic Books: Unlimited finds Print alongside countless contributors. But itâ??s always easy to pick his flow out from the crowd. At points, when the production calls for it, Print augments his normal timbre and rhythm to better fit the track â?? and of course thatâ??s just the hallmark of a talented emcee. But again, the production sticks out as much as anything else on the (digital) disc.

The drumming â?? programmed or sampled â?? pretty frequently moves past what most emcees would be comfortable with. Surely, top tier dudes wouldnâ??t have a problem with these beats, but for a blogosphere creation, Print holds his own over top of everything. Pretty early on, the drumming moves towards something akin to IDM territory. The supplemental melodic pieces included here serve to push that comparison forward as well. And for that reason it seems odd that Print and his various releases have been pushed by 2dopeboyz and other blogs. I suppose, though, that behind each one of those sites are some dudes that just appreciate good music. And as a result of all of this, it would seem reasonable to find Print on a physical record at some point. He might not be Blu all over again, but this disc certainly wonâ??t be the end of his career.