The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1491: The Zaucer of Zilk #2, November 2012

Seriously. Look at that cover. That's got to be one of the best comics covers I've ever seen. And I want a pair of "fancy pants."

The Zaucer travels "behind the scenes" in his pants, exposing himself to ravenous consumers of content who float on clouds. I'm not sure there's a lot of social commentary in the story, but this part definitely is. The Zaucer must escape these creatures, who transform into a giant mouth, before they devour him.

And then he enters Dankendreer, Errol Raine's domain, and the McCarthy colours disappear. Pages and panels are streaked across with rain, bleeding from the panel borders right across our field of view. It's a lovely touch, to give us the impression that literally everything in this dimension is sodden and miserable. Such wonderful contrast to the psychedelic swirliness (that's the technical term) of the rest of the comic.

A nice thing that we see, and I like to these days call it The Squirrel (or Zquirrel?) Girl Effect, is that the Zaucer attempts to help the bad guy (who isn't who you might think), rather than simply defeating them. So much violence is born of fear and feeling powerless - if we can help people to not feel that way, we reduce the amount of violence in the world. I'm not trained in these sorts of things, but that seems pretty straightforward to me. Help people, don't hurt them = better world.

If only that were a majority sentiment.

"A thousand billion aeons of time burst from Charognae's every cell, to seep into the infinite mansion of Darkendreer --"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 369: Time Twisters #21, April 1989

Before saying a thing or two about the two short Morrison stories in this issue, it's worth noting that some of the rest of the stories are not only really pretty fun, but also feature some great writers and artists. The first story, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World!" offers some early-ish Alan Davis art, and there's a little epilogue to Halo Jones from Moore and Gibson at the very end of the issue that teases the idea of a fourth volume (we're still waiting, guys!).

Morrison's contributions to this issue are fairly standard "Future-Shocks"/"Time-Twisters" fodder, one taking on a case of mistaken alien identity that is actually a Public Service Announcement warning of trips to Planet Earth, and the other a cautionary tale that features Barry Kitson on art. They're pretty standard, notable only for the fact that they're early Morrison tales. As with the short piece in the 2000 A.D. comic from a couple of days ago, we can see Morrison meddling with the themes and tropes that have really come to define his oeuvre, but they're not stories that are quite pushing the boundaries in the same ways that something like Animal Man and Doom Patrol did. I suppose we have to consider whether or not it's even possible to push boundaries that way in such a small space. It probably is, but I've yet to find a comics short story that does so.

Which is one reason why I keep reading. Onward!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 367: 2000 AD Presents #13, April 1987

It's appropriate for this issue to show up at the beginning of my second year. Back at the beginning of the project, when I thought there was going to be some kind of order to my read through, I did a couple of weeks of 2000 A.D. With this issue, I finally get to finish a couple of the stories I started a year ago. Sort of. This is the last issue of this series before being once more taken over by a different (sort of) company. The last time this happened, the content of each issue changed substantially. Will I ever find out what happens to Harry 20? Probably not, though this issue's story was a shocking one. Will space-Fascist Dan Dare "liberate" more oppressed peoples? Probably. Will Strontium Dog...be a grim outer space Batman some more? All signs point to yes.

The Grant Morrison story in this issue is called "Return to Sender," and it sees a very, very early Morrison attempt at metafiction, though only for the sake of a shaggy dog sort of joke. It's also very, very highly influenced by The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with English coincidentally setting off an interstellar war, and a space empire being wiped out on account of their tiny, tiny size. But, honestly, I'd have been surprised to find out that Morrison was not familiar with Hitchhiker's. It's a seminal work of science fiction, and was quite popular at the time that Morrison was developing his talents as a writer. Rather than direct copy, perhaps we can consider the story an adaptation of science fiction tropes introduced by Adams' series.

Much the same way we can see The Matrix in light of Morrison's The Invisibles.

I think this is the earliest of the Morrison short stories I'm reading, so it's interesting to see that both this story and yesterday's story are very explicitly metafictional. I had a professor during my Master's degree who told me he thought that some really great writers took one topic and then spent their lives coming at it from as many different vantage points as possible. The interaction of fiction with reality, the ways that texts seem to ape self-awareness and talk to us - these are Morrison's topics.

More tomorrow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 37: Alien Worlds #8, November 1984

Taking a suggestion from reader Martin de la Iglesia, today's comic will be reviewing a comic that was reviewed here by Aaron Kashtan at The Ogre's Feathers. Because my Web-Fu is not strong, I have no idea how to link directly to the place on the page where the review is. It's about a third of the way down the page.

The comic grabbed me from the moment I opened the cover solely because the title of the lead story is a line from one of my all-time favourite pieces of poetry, Robert Frost's "Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening." The story offers a couple of other interesting things to think about. First, it's set in 2022. Yep. Captain Murdock is diagnosed with a terminal alien disease on some incredible alien planet and (spoiler spoiler spoiler) a mere 7 years from now. Even when the comic was published, which I'm assuming was well after Nolan originally penned the story, 2022 was only 38 years. Ah, the optimism of the speculative fictionist. The other interesting notion is whether or not Nolan himself adapted the story from his short story. The credits list Nolan as the writer, but, from a glance at the original story, it's hard to tell if he adapted it, or if artist Al Williamson handled that chore.

Moving on, I would agree whole-heartedly with Aaron's review that praises the artwork in the stories, though I'd add Ken Steacy's work to the list, because I really like his work, and it captures a particular aesthetic from the 60s and 70s of which I'm particularly fond. I've got a bunch of his stuff spread throughout the collection, much of it from indie comics like this one, and the "ground level" comics represented by titles like Star*Reach and Quack!. Shall I move on to a week of Steacy? Perhaps...

As Aaron's review notes, the stories here are all "shock-ending" stories (and I agree, in 1984, the declaration of love between two men probably was considered shocking), and they get me thinking, as I did before, of the sometimes needed gap of a month or so between issues of a comic. I had mentioned yesterday that Louapre's stories, at least the early ones, read very similarly, so the publication space gives one a bit of breathing room. I imagine, with a title like this, that reading them one after the other would have a wearying effect, always expecting that twist ending.

One last thing is a parallel that might make an interesting comparison: these stories are, in their execution and subject matter, very similar to the "Future Shocks" and "Time Twisters" short stories from 2000 A.D. A comparison of the two would be neat, if only to see it there are intrinsically national qualities to these tiny science fiction stories.

Thanks again to Martin for the suggestion. That was fun. See you tomorrow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 11: 2000 A.D. Presents v.2 #12, December 1987

One little known fact about my comics collecting habits is that I have a soft spot for Christmas comics. This is not one. The cover's a Christmas cover, but there's no actual Christmas story within. D.R. and Quinch actually manage to have the Earth destroyed, rather than saved.

This'll be my last 2000 A.D. for a while. I have to admit to having enjoyed "Harry Twenty" more than I thought I would, though I still maintain that Gerry Finley-Day writes some pretty bad dialogue. But the prison escape story is neat. I may have to try and track down the bits and pieces of the story that I'm missing, just to see how it all turns out.

The last week and a bit of these comics has solidified my position on Judge Dredd and his universe, however. It just didn't grab me. That's not to say, necessarily, that it's not good, and maybe the stories that were reprinted here were just not great ones. I've not read any of Garth Ennis' Dredd stories, and he's an amazing writer who probably spatters the Dredd-verse in all kinds of bodily fluids. But the Judge Anderson stuff in these last few was pretty weak.

Today was a long day of academic conference speak. I co-chaired my department's conference, the theme of which was "Freaks and Geeks," and there was surprisingly little comics talk. Which, honestly, is good. Sometimes I feel like comics scholars are the standard bearers of geekdom in the academy, so it was nice to have some film and television papers, some video game papers. There was one paper on "Homestuck" that has convinced me that I have to read this insane web comic. But that'll have to wait until my road to Secret Wars is done.

See you tomorrow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 10: 2000 A.D. Presents v.2 #11, February 1987

The second last of my 2000 A.D. kick-off reads. The Anderson stuff is pretty good, kind of weird and demon-y, which I wasn't expecting from a Dredd-verse comic, as I mentioned yesterday. Dare continues to be a fascist in the guise of a freedom fighter, and it's weird. He's like the dark version of Kirk from the original Star Trek. In fact, I could totally see Dare and his cronies as the Mirror Universe doubles of the Enterprise crew. Intertextuality......
"Harry 20" is actually picking up, and I really hope I have the conclusion to the story in the next issue of this comic, otherwise I'm going to have to see about tracking down the bits and pieces. The dialogue is still pretty bad, but the story beneath it is pretty cool. I'm not even sure the whole story was published in this series, which, according to the GCD, only ran 13 issues.
That's it for today.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 9: 2000 A.D. Presents v.2 #9, December 1986

This is the first time I've read this comic. Which is pretty neat, really. So, we have the return of Judge Anderson, and the story was pretty neat. A tale of demonic possession. The occult is always a strange thing to find in a science fiction setting. Many of them eschew spiritual belief entirely, humankind having "grown up" and left religion behind. But I don't think that's something that's in our collective makeup. We'll always need belief, myth.
The Dan Dare story is super-ridiculous. Basically he's captaining a warship and they're tearing into this autonomous sector of the galaxy called the Lost Worlds, blowing the crap out of anyone who gets in their way. Really kind of fascist, now that I really think about it.
Harry Twenty has such potential to be like an outer space "Oz" (there's me dating myself). But again, I think that space and time limitation gets in the way of its development. That, and Finley-Day has some really bad dialogue. Really bad.
I'm co-chairing a conference this weekend, so I don't know how in depth the next couple of days will be. Y'know, 'cause it's all been so in depth so far.
See you tomorrow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 8: 2000 A.D. Presents v.2 #8, November 1986

Published by Quality Periodicals, Inc.

I think I'm going to stop listing the publisher. Does it add anything to the project to leave it in? I suppose it's interesting when a property changes publishers. I'm thinking of Angela's recent introduction into the Marvel Universe, and not just as a background figure, but a major player. I haven't read any of it, but I wonder if she remembers her past in McFarlane-Land? What does that do for my dissertation?

So, no more publishers. I'll mention them if they're important. If you want to know who published a particular comic, ask in the comments.

This was another 2000 A.D. comic. The new story, about an unjustly-convicted criminal on a space station prison planning a jail break. His cellmate is a squat Mongolian man, and let's just say Gerry Finley-Day does not have Alan Moore's facility with scripting dialect. It's really appalling. I'll admit to getting swept up in the end of Moore and Baikie's Skizz. It's actually wildly political, which I don't think I remember noticing the last time around. I was chatting with my friend Ian last night and he suggested that to really "get" this era of 2000 A.D., perhaps you had to have been a victim of Margaret Thatcher's United Kingdom. When you consider the writers, the brilliant, weird, disturbing writers to have come out of that place and that time, imagine what being there must have been like.

I think Skizz gets us to the basics of that in an accessible way. It's a protest comic. In the end it is a story about people standing up to the structures that govern their lives. And about those people realizing that there is a better way, and that all they have to do is stand up.

I guess 2000 A.D. is finally getting to me. 

On an unrelated note, the index number in my database tells me that this is entry #5806. I'm not sure of the significance of this, but I wanted to put in something random.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 7: 2000 A.D. Presents v.2 #7, October 1986

Published by Quality Periodicals.

Continuing my tour of the increasingly anachronistically-titled 2000 A.D. This issue represents yet another change. The page count rises to 52 pages, and it actually seems to work.

I was chatting this morning with my wife about why 2000 A.D. wasn't doing much for me, and I noted yesterday that perhaps it had to do with the weekly installments in which these stories are serialized. This particular issue features four chapters of the Dan Dare "Lost Worlds" storyline, and having these chapters laid out end to end does appear to have helped my enjoyment of them. This is not to say that the stories are approaching that nebulous thing I call "depth," and, again, I think this is a function of the weekly serialization under which they were composed. Having said that, Moore's "Skizz" does have that depth, regardless of the way it was serialized. The difference between a good writer (Gerry Finley-Day) and a great one, I suppose.

The Dare stuff has some Dave Gibbons art, but it doesn't really hold a candle to his Watchmen work. I find it interesting to see the differences in an individual artist's work based on publication company. Though it could, once more, have to do with the schedule under which the stories were written. I used to think that serialization could be talked about relatively simply, but the differences between weekly, monthly, or Daniel Clowes-esque publication definitely have an impact.

A nice synchronicity: I'm re-reading Jonathan Hickman's Avengers and New Avengers in the run-up to the "Secret Wars" event this summer, and I've just read the issue that presents the origin of the new Smasher, Isabel Dare. Whose grandfather's name is Dan.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 6: 2000 A.D. Monthly v.1 #5, August 1985

Published by IPC Magazines Ltd.

Yep. Totally, amazingly (said Waldo "D.R." Dobbs) getting tired of 2000 A.D. I know there's those that love it, for whom it's a cherished childhood memory.

I'm not one of those people. 

This issue's "Dredd" story was okay, but just okay. Same with "Strontium Dog." "D.R. and Quinch" was slightly better, if only because it featured a cross-dressing shell-shocked alien soldier, and that's not something you see every day.

6 more days of 2000 A.D., if memory serves, and I think that'll be just about enough until I get to the magazine format ones in my magazine collection. And that, honestly, could be decades from now. The later monthlies that I'll be reading this week have a more diverse selection of stories ("Harry 20," "Dan Dare"), so the variety will be nice. I'm not sure what it is about 2000 A.D. that I'm not enjoying. Is it perhaps the weekly format that requires a much quicker turnaround for stories, coupled with the smaller portions in each issue? Do these factors lead to stories that seem to be all surface, no depth?

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 5: 2000 A.D. Monthly v.1 #4, July 1985

Published by IPC Magazines Ltd.

I am beginning to see a problem with reading things in alphabetical (numerical?) order. I'm a bit tired of 2000 A.D. And this, perhaps, is an answer to why I've never got into this particular series.  The Dredd story in this issue is a stand-alone, and not bad, but again, not stellar. Same goes for "D.R. and Quinch," though I notice that Moore's facility for voice is really impressive even in this comedic structure. D.R.'s voice is consistent and authentic-sounding. But we can definitely see these as Moore learning his craft. The stories are well-wrought, but don't have as much depth as his Marvelman and Swamp Thing writings that are contemporaneous with the 2000 A.D. material. Is there something to the idea that the former two are superhero comics, and the latter is science fiction? Does it say more about Moore's writing or the potential of the genre?

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 4: 2000 A.D. Monthly v.1 #1, April 1985

Published by IPC Magazines Ltd.

Due to an error of filing, I ended up reading the issues from volume 2 before those of volume 1. Here's volume 1. We've got the obligatory "D.R. and Quinch," the Alan Moore-ness of which justifies this piece's place in my collection. The lead-off Judge Dredd story is cool, in that it takes place outside of the Mega-City in the Cursed Earth, populated by strange mutated people. This story does demonstrate one of the more interesting aspects of the character of Dredd, in that he believes not necessarily in the law, but in justice. He journeys outside of the city to render assistance to those who are not citizens. Perhaps there's more to this Dredd character than I first thought.

I was less impressed by the "Strontium Dog" story. The characters didn't resonate with me, though Carlos Ezquerra's art is always pretty to look at. The nice thing about this collection is that it isn't Moore-heavy. I get that he's revered, and rightly so, but it's nice to see other writers featured. I sometimes wonder if these stories suffer for their proximity to the Moore stories, not necessarily because they are better, but because Moore's name carries a certain cache with it. I will try, from now on, to consider him as a writer amongst many, at the very least in the context of 2000 A.D.

Which I will continue with tomorrow....

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 3: 2000 A.D. Presents #5, August 1985

Published by Quality Periodicals Inc.

And there's that title change, the sort of thing that drives we cataloguers crazy. Also, the date is a misprint. It has to be August 1986, but the changeover of publisher probably caused some consternation.

The Dark Judges story is good, but not great. It's a mediocre science fiction story that suffers from some mediocre art and a refusal to follow the implications of the Dark Judges to a level that would raise the story from its mediocre status. Perhaps this has been my problem with the Dredd-verse stories that I've read: science fiction is, as far as I'm concerned, meant to speculate, to metaphorize, and I don't get any of that from this story. It seems to be a precursor to the empty comics of the early 90s (which I'm sure I'll get to eventually).

"Skizz" continues to be interesting, and reading bits and pieces of it makes me want to go back and read the collected edition. The trouble is I can't decide whether I like it better in colour or in B&W. I know, I know. First world comic collector's problems.

The Abelard Snazz reprint in this issue is of some interest. According the the GCD, "[t]his is the only story not reprinted in the Titan Books collection ALAN MOORE'S TWISTED TIMES, because, according to Moore, he unknowingly lifted several ideas from a story by R. A. Lafferty." This raises an interesting notion. If it was an "unknowing" use of ideas, doesn't that still class the story as an original creative piece? I'm sure bits of songs I've written sound like other songs, but I wouldn't inhibit their dissemination for that reason. I'd just acknowledge the similarity. But that's Moore for you, I guess.

More 2000 A.D. tomorrow!

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 2: 2000 A.D. Monthly v.2 #4, July 1986

Published by IPC Magazines Ltd.

Aaaannnddd....it turns out I do not have the whole series. So, somewhere between issue #1 and issue #4, Anderson is placed on suspension, and the Dark Judges are rampaging through Mega-City One. Easy enough to follow, really. There's some really terrible dialogue in the lead story, but the Dark Judges and Anderson are cool enough to overlook that little glitch. "Skizz" continues. If there's one thing to note about Moore's writing here, it's that his ability to mimic dialect in print is really pretty great. Or I'm assuming it is, never having been to Birmingham. "D.R. and Quinch" has vanished from the pages of the comic, which means their adventure on Planet Hollywood was a short one. It's replaced with an obscure Moore/Dillon sci-fi comedy called "Abelard Snazz" ("The Man with the Two-Storey Brain!"). It reads a lot like most of the 2000 A.D. one-offs: good art (it is Steve Dillon, after all), sort of trite writing. If you really want funny Moore, read Maxwell the Magic Cat (I'll get there eventually. Come back in a decade or so!). This is followed up by a piece that disproves what I've just written, the Moore/Gibbons (pre-Watchmen) short "Chrono-Cops," a clever little time travel paradox story.

Probably another week of 2000 A.D. in the pipe. This particular reprint series changed its name a few times. It's strange to me that a publisher would make that decision. The switch is small (from "Monthly" to "Presents"), and the series retains its numbering, but a lot of comics sales, especially in the pre-Comics Are Cool era of the 80s, was about branding. Changing one's brand seems a bad decision, especially this early in a comic's run.

See you tomorrow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1: 2000 A.D. Monthly v.2 #1, April 1986

Published by IPC Magazines Ltd.

I'm kind of happy to have started with this comic. I have quite a few 2000 A.D. reprint series, and, unless there was Alan Moore or Grant Morrison in the "Scriptbot" box, I didn't pay attention. I am now. Of course, this issue features the first installments of two of Moore's early works, "D.R. and Quinch" and "Skizz." I've read them both before in collections, though this might be the first time I've read them in colour. They're both pretty good, and it's been a while. The other story, though, is "Anderson: Psi Division." I have to admit to not being a fan of Judge Dredd and his universe. The recent film was pretty good, but I've never got into the comic. I know who Anderson is, but that's about it. Well, that's only sort of true, I guess. The thing is, the story is about Judge Death, a grim-reaper type who inhabits a parallel universe. And I've heard of him before. But I can't think of where. Dredd comics happened early in my life, perhaps. I have vague notions of this Brit-comic staple.

Anyway, "Revenge, part 1" was quite good. Creepy and weird, and a bit less noise than I seem to recall from my perusals of Dredd's own strip. I'm really hoping that I have the full run of this mini-series (I think I do) so I can finish the story.

A decent beginning. See you tomorrow.