The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 123: The Agency Preview, 2001

I feel a little bad offering this as my comic for the day, as it has, I think 8 pages of story and the rest is sketchbook material. But these have to be read and appreciated too. I've always enjoyed Paul Jenkins' work. I think what really did it for me with him was his work on The Sentry, which I still maintain is one of the best Marvel comics to have been published. At least, the first series. His work on Spider-Man was pretty fantastic too. This preview comic for The Agency doesn't really give us too much to go on. Lots of black and white art and explosions. It really makes the case for the colourist, as much of the comic is difficult to make out clearly. One of the characters calls another "Agent Funbags," and as you can see from that cover, those certainly are something that are prominent and distinguishable from the rest of the action of the comic. If the sketches and previews of the next 5 issues' covers is anything to go by, said agent's breasts are a focal point of the story. Or focal points, I suppose.

The preview gives us very little to go on for background or story. The characters seem to be part of a private security firm, and also seem to be either cybernetically or psychically enhanced. That's about all I can tell you. Oh, and "Agent Funbags," whose actual name I'm  not totally sure of, has a cybernetic eye.

I suppose the mark of a good preview issue is that it makes either a reader or a retailer decide to pursue the series. I can say that this one did not do any such thing for me, either as retailer or reader. I received the preview while running my store, and, if my collection is anything to go by, I ordered issue 2, but strangely not issue 1. It being an Image/Top Cow title, that might have been all that was published in the 10 months my store existed.

Okay, a bit of a cop-out today. I know I said I'd get back to some of the series we were looking at, but I'm tired and the sun is very hot here in Calgary. Preview issues, I've decided, are good for days on this project where I feel lazy. Hopefully I'll be back to fighting strength tomorrow. See you then!