The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1709: Arion, Lord of Atlantis #5, March 1982

(Told you I'd catch up!)

Oooo, I had no idea what the hell was going on in this comic. Not a clue.

My only other exposure to the character Arion in my 34 years of reading superhero comics is his brief inclusion in the original Crisis on Infinite Earths. That's it. He starts out as a back-up feature in The Warlord (I think), so we will be seeing quite a bit of Arion as soon as I track down those last 3 issues. But for now, I think there was time travel involved, and Arion met his father, I think. This is one of those comics that, one day, will make retrospective sense.

This comic has given me a very cool demonstration of the differences an inker makes. The comics are only a few years apart, so I'm going to assume that Ms. Duursema's work remained fairly consistent. But the comics look so different, thanks of course to the inking of Tom Mandrake (Arion) and of Jan Duursema's own inking on AD&D. I like to see examples of that stuff. It makes me appreciate the amount of work that goes into a comic that much more.

"You are fortunate, Garn, that our father was the man he was."

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1708: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons #13, December 1989

Waaaaayyyyy back in the early days of this project, I had the wacky notion that I would read my collection in alphabetical order. I stuck with that for a surprisingly long time, until, I think, Alpha Flight bogged me down enough that I started jumping around. Here is what I had to say about the AD&D comic back then, as well as some reproductions of the old advertisement comics from the 80s.

The reason for my having the series make a comeback is that this week's theme is fantastic and important female creators from mainstream comics. Long seen as a boys' club, there is a really fantastic tradition of lady creators in the mainstream, though they rarely attain the heights that some of the rock star male creators do. I'll just say that this is not because the men are better, and leave it at that for now.

Jan Duursema is today and tomorrow's focus. Her work on AD&D is virtually flawless. She translates the chaotic and strange environment of the Forgotten Realms to the page in a way both believable and fantastic. Much of DnD is played, of course, in the head, and even when one uses miniatures, they're static. Comics, though a static medium, conveys a good deal of motion, and I think it's that that I appreciate about these comics most - they convey a breath of life to things very often only seen by the mind's eye. Ms. Duursema does this, and more.

"Curse and double curse me not to have forseen this!!"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 241: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons #12, November 1989

Dang.
Missed it by 36 minutes.
I read this comic today, if today means the awake periods between sleep periods.
I'll blog more tomorrow.

(Continued)
This storyline ends with a confusing chase through the sewers of Waterdeep. In confusing, I don't necessarily mean that it confuses the reader, but that alliances shift, new players jump in, old players vanish for pages at a time, all contributing to the effect of confusion that one might feel chasing and being chased through the sewers of a medieval city. Timoth and Onyx, of course, escape to regale their companions at "Selune's Eye" with their adventures, but I'm left with the feeling that I've alluded to previously for this series that there's something a little larger going on that we're only just beginning to see the edges of. We've been introduced, through the adventures of our focal characters, to factions of guildsmen and nobles all vying for some kind of power in the city, and it would be a pity if Mishkin, Grubb, et al. gave up such a nice set up for large-scale intrigues. That the comic gets a lifespan of at least two more years makes me think that we might see a payoff in this particular direction.

We'll see, I guess. I'll move on to more adventures of Onyx, Timoth, and company after a short break to read some contemporary comics. Need to change things up a bit. See you tomorrow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 240: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons #11, October 1989

Oh, I must be getting to that point of having read enough of this series. I'm about to be critical.

The crocodile that Onyx faces in the actual comic is not quite so big as to be able to swallow him whole. I was waiting for the monstrous croc, and when I came to the 3 panels or so that this scene actually takes up in the comic, I was a bit disappointed.

I've figured out what it is about this particular story arc that's bugging me, and it has everything to do with the fact that it's a new writer. I'm not sure why Mishkin took a break after his first arc, but Grubb's really does feel like a fill-in issue, stretched over four issues.

That said, there does seem to be an intrigue being build that involves some of the politicians and nobles who inhabit the higher strata of Waterdeep's society, so it'll be interesting to see if our intrepid heroes end up enmeshed in a large-scale political battle. Those are always fun in fantasy worlds, though I think we'll probably have slightly less incest than Game of Thrones. I do hope they continue this story line, as it really could rescue the series from being a monster of the week sort of title.

We'll finish up this story tomorrow, and then move on to something else, maybe back to Alpha Flight. Reading a single story line, or trade paperback's worth of comics seems the best idea. You'd think this far into the project, I'd have figured that out already. Ah well.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 239: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons #10, September 1989

Moving right along in the "Catspaw Quartet" story line. Timoth's been captured by "Jinxikins," an AD&D creature I've never heard of, Onyx is being manipulated into the sewers beneath Waterdeep, and Vajra and Kyriani are laughing it up at the bar.

This issue is basically just moving things along. There's an interesting balance to be maintained when telling a story in arcs rather than in single issues. In the single issue, one has to have a beginning, middle, and end all within the space of 22 pages. It forces a creator to consider what can be left in and what can be left out in a way that the longer format of the four-part series does not. What an extended story line does require is that, though one is ostensibly not giving the concrete beginning/middle/ending format in a single issue, the comic still needs to feel like a satisfying read. This particular issue only achieves that with the final page. Having never written or illustrated a work like this, I'm not entirely sure what one would have to do differently for this comic to have had that satisfaction more prevalently than simply in the final reveal. There's certainly action, and there's certainly intrigue, but because it's happening in what is part two of a four part story, the action is somewhat lacking in its climactic feel, and the intrigue smacks of simply being the surface of what will undoubtedly (and hopefully) become deeper as the story progresses. There's a difference between writing an 80-page graphic novel and a four-part monthly story. This issue doesn't quite make the transition smoothly.

That said, perhaps things will pick up with tomorrow's comic. I'm kicking around the idea of filling in the rest of my AD&D run on the weekend, but now I'm wondering if the stories work better as collected editions. I'll reserve my judgment until regular writer Dan Mishkin returns in the next story arc. See you tomorrow.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 238: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons #9, August 1989

133 days later, we return to the city of Waterdeep and the lovable group of rogues we've been following through its environs.

First things first, I really hate Timoth's haircut. There. I've said it. He should have gone to the barber in Waterdeep that I recommended. Anyway...

The AD&D comic is good for numerous reasons, many of which I've laid out in my previous posts. What strikes me with today's comic is that the series manages a really great balance of humour and adventure, which is really the maximal experience of a role-playing game. They're social events, and one is generally inclined to not only pursue an adventure, but have a few laughs with friends as well. It does, admittedly, rely a lot on how the DM wants to run the game, but I've been involved in very, very few sessions in which something comedic didn't happen, either intentionally or unintentionally. Those critical fails can make for some amusing, if dangerous, moments.

What the comic does have over and above the RPG is that when a party splits up, as Timoth and Onyx do here, it's not a ridiculous inconvenience for the Dungeon Master. I'm curious as to whether these characters are based on actual PCs, and if the stories are based on actual adventures in Waterdeep. I imagine there'd have to be a whole bunch of co-authors, if that were the case. At any rate, it's nice to see the characters each getting a spotlight, something that I've been noting over in my Alpha Flight posts as well. Often times when we read team books, we forget that teams are made up of individuals. That said, I am hoping that we'll see the whole team together again soon. Perhaps in the next story arc.

I've discovered that I only need 14 issues of this series to have the complete run, and I've found a place that has most of those issues for $1. Thus it's actually cheaper for me to get the individual issues than to invest in the admittedly gorgeous IDW reprints of the series. Hopefully this coming weekend, I'll fill out the series, and we can thrill to more adventures. I am, however, set for at least a week without a hole in the run, so we'll see more of Timoth, Onyx, and you, tomorrow.