Finding the Spark
I don’t think I fully realized it until last week, but I lost a little bit of enthusiasm for comics over the past year. There was plenty of good work coming out, stuff I enjoyed reading and that I’m happy to have in my collection and on my bookshelf. But there was a spark missing somewhere. The books I really loved all seemed to sputter and fade in 2002. Either they were cancelled due to low sales, or they ran into scheduling problems, or the creators that made them special left to do other books. Even the few new series I did check out were good, but not outstanding. Our trips to the comics store were becoming the sort of thing we did when we got around to it, not something to specifically plan for. Sure, part of that’s because our schedules have changed radically over the last year . . . but in part, it’s because there was never anything we were in a particular rush to get.
Fortunately, I didn’t really realize that enthusiasm was gone until I got it back. Last week was the first Wednesday we made it a point to get to the comics store I could remember. (New books usually arrive in comics stores on Wednesdays.) We made the midweek trip in part to free up our weekend, but just as important to Pattie and me was this: for the first time in over two years, Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson and Alex Ross produced a new issue of Astro City. As Pattie’s fond of saying, she nearly tackled Busiek in San Diego in 2001 to find out when the next issue was coming, so it’s fair to say we had built up some anticipation.
You know what? It was worth it. As a reintroduction to the series, it covered some old ground, but I think that just shows the strength of this series and its character-intensive approach. I didn’t mind that the narrator was telling me things about Astro City that I already knew, because he was doing it while telling me about himself. When Busiek’s at the top of his game, he makes the triumphs and failures of the everyday person come alive, and in 22 pages he made me care about a character I’d never seen before. The book looked terrific, with Ross turning in one of the best covers I’ve seen him do. Anderson uses a couple of splash pages to convey different aspects of the city, but he mostly employs a pretty dense panel structure in order to cover a lot of narrative ground and handle the amount of conversation and narration that Busiek writes. (I gotta say, it was nice to read a comic where it actually took some time to read the thing.) Astro City: Local Heroes 1 is a wonderful celebration of courage and compassion, and I am not ashamed to say that my eyes well up every time I read it. It is that damned good, and it reminded me why I love this medium.
When I finished reading the book, one of my first thoughts was ‘Why can’t I find more books like this?’ In the last week, as I’ve done my usual browsing about the web, I’ve realized that it looks like some more of those old favorites like Astro City should be making their returns in 2003. This week, it looks like Christian Gossett and his comrades at Archangel Studios will relaunch The Red Star under the auspices of CrossGen Entertainment. While that series has never gone away, it’s been a while since the last story arc concluded. If I can believe the Archangel website – and I think I can – this relaunch is the beginning of a more-frequent publication cycle, and that has me enormously excited.
Way back in May 2001, Barry Kitson told us that he and Mark Waid would be taking their Empire series over to DC’s Homage imprint. I’ve been checking the news regularly to see when this story of a successful world conqueror would be back on the shelves, and now DC’s website says we can expect it in late summer. Kitson sounds very excited about the return of a series that may as well be entitled Dave’s Favorite Creators Do The Best Work of Their Careers, so that’s one more hint that 2003’s going to be an excellent year.
DC also recently solicited a new issue of Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, and Laura DePuy’s Planetary, and even though they promptly canceled that solicitation, they did so with an announcement that Batman/Planetary will ship this summer. To an extent, I’ll believe it when I see it, but I’m in an optimistic mood. This’ll be a great series to have going during the summer blockbuster season.
Jeff Smith’s outstanding Bone series is slated to wrap up this year, and while I’ll be sorry to see it go, I can’t wait to read the conclusion and see what other projects Smith has on tap. Jay Hosler’s Sandwalk Adventures will be collected early this year, which will be fantastic. I’m looking forward to reading both of these books, and the thought that in the next few years I’ll be able to read them to my daughter makes me look forward to them that much more.
More than anything, though, what thinking about all of these returning favorites has done is get me excited about comics in general, which means I’m more likely to go hunting for new creators and new stories and find the next thing that excites me as much as any of my old favorites. I can’t wait.
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.