Classic EBI #98: From the Archives

The DC relaunch continues to keep people talking, myself included. In this week’s Everything But Imaginary, I look at one aspect of DC that isn’t — and shouldn’t — change… the Vertigo line.

Everything But Imaginary #406: What Purpose Vertigo?

And rolling back the clock, we’re going to January 19, 2005. I was thinking format this week, specifically hardcover, long-term format…

Everything But Imaginary #98: From the Archives

When Will Eisner passed away a few weeks ago, I got the urge to go back and re-read some of his classic Spirit comics, and the best way to do that is from the very beginning, with DC’s Spirit Archives Volume 1.

Although it has a different trade dress, the Spirit series is part of what I think deserves to be known as the best series of archival American comic books on the planet. And more and more these days, I’m thinking those archives are an invaluable thing.

I was stunned at how many people, how many current comic fans, knew little or nothing about Will Eisner. I felt the same way last year when Julius Schwartz died. The contributions men like this made to the comic book artform are immeasurable, but because comics aren’t quite considered “high” art, their names can be lost. Just about every high school student has to slag through at least one book by a Bronte sister, but how many of them recognize the works of Otto Binder, Joe Simon or Bill Everett? For that matter, how many of you reading this column, under the age of 25, can even tell me which characters these men created or revolutionized?

That’s what makes the DC Archives such a great project. Although I’d heard about the archives for years, I didn’t own any until a few years ago when DC re-offered the first Batman Archives at a severely reduced price ($20, as opposed to the usual $50). I figured this was worth picking up, and immediately realized how fantastic these archival series are. Quality reproductions of the classic DC comics, complete, in the order they were originally printed. That last bit is especially important — complete, in the order they were originally printed. These stories are no longer simply comic books, they are part of our heritage, and to abridge them in any way would be robbing ourselves.

Now DC is not the first company to put out an archival edition like this. I believe the Marvel Masterworks line preceeded it. But I believe the DC line is better, for several reasons. Marvel’s line has been halted and re-started again various times, whereas the DC line continues to expand. Marvel has changed its trade dress, while the DC books are all uniform (except for a few titles that aren’t technically DC Comics, but which DC is reprinting – we’ll get to those next). And most importantly, DC just has much, much more to offer. They’ve got all the characters you’d expect to see in archives, of course — Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Justice League and so on, but DC doesn’t stop there. They constantly turn out archives for lesser-known characters like Blackhawk or Starman, different lines for Golden and Silver Age versions of the characters, and even include archival series for properties that they did not originally publish, but have earned a place in comic book history such as the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, ElfQuest and, of course, The Spirit.

The books are expensive, I know that. Fifty dollars for 200 pages of comic book is a hard price to justify. But it’s worth having the material in a higher-priced format for an archival project like this. It’s like buying a leather-bound edition of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare, knowing full well you’ll never own an original.

Plus, I’ll be honest with you guys, I have never paid full-price for a DC Archive. Unless it’s a really rare volume, you’d be sort of foolish to do so. Thanks to auction sites like eBay and various other online booksellers, you can frequently find them much, much cheaper. I think the most I’ve ever paid for a DC Archive is $32, and I own about a dozen of them, although there are dozens more that I wish to get.

Other companies, to their credit, are making an effort. Gladstone Comics spent many years on several series reprinting the work of the brilliant Carl Barks, including a Carl Barks Library series for his Uncle Scrooge comics, one for his stories from the Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories title, and even a line that just reprinted his one-page gags. The line was paperback, though, and the volumes were slim and pricey, and are now extremely difficult to find with Gladstone out of business.

Archie Comics has several archival series as well, most noteably the Archie Americana series. These trade paperbacks select the best comics from each decade and reprint them. Archie has also started doing trade paperbacks of their old superhero titles, such as the Shield, the Fly and the Mighty Crusaders.

The problem with this line, though, is that these are “best of” comics, stories carefully chrerry-picked from hundreds of comics produced. It makes for good reading, but it doesn’t make for a good archive if you leave stuff out.

Marvel’s Essential line doesn’t leave anything out, and it comes at a much more affordable price — about $15 for a phone book-sized volume of comics. It’s great for a reading copy, but again, it loses something. In this case, the artwork is reproduced in black-and-white, helping to keep the price down. That’s fine for the purpose of the book, but even though I’m no artist myself, I can tell that color artwork and black and white artwork is constructed differently. When you’re drawing something that will be colored, you use different techniques than something that stops at the inking stage, and as a result, color comics never look as good in black and white reprints as comics that were originally drawn in black and white.

Except for the DC Archives and the sporadic Marvel Masterworks, I really think that the best project currently in the works to really archive a comic is Fantagraphics’ The Complete Peanuts. In 25 volumes, this series is intended to reprint every Peanuts comic strip ever drawn, presented in their original order. That’s remarkable. Now naturally, most of us have read several Peanuts books, probably even own several. But not like this. Previous books were always selections of strips from a certain time period, Charles Schulz’s favorites, or perhaps grouped by a theme (Christmas strips, back-to-school strips, etc.). This is the first time every strip will be reprinted in order. Some of the strips, in fact, have never been reprinted before at all.

Now archives are not a way to snare new readers. No one who hasn’t read comics before is going to think to themselves, “$50 for a Plastic Man comic book? Sign me up!” And archives won’t even really help to educate the younger readers on the great comics of the past. Hopefully books like the Essential line will help with that. And personally, I long for the days when a new comic would give a few pages in the back for a reprint of a classic story. (Marvel tried this a few years ago with their “100-Page Monster” comics, but that’s another experiment that has gone defunct.)

But for people who already love classic comic book and want to study and preserve the gems of the past, these archives are priceless.

Well, technically they have a $50 tag, so they aren’t priceless. But you get the picture. So let me ask you… what series do you want to see as an archive?

FAVORITE OF THE WEEK: January 12, 2005

Fables #33 very nearly took this spot, but only a mystery that was too easy to solve held it back, making way for a comic even better. JSA #69. The work Geoff Johns is doing with this comic is phenomenal. Several Justice Society members have been hurled into the past, charged with convincing their own mentors to become heroes again, knowing that the fate of the world hangs in the balance. This is a crazy, classic superhero formula. And it still works, because it’s smart, well-written, and most of all, fun. JSA was my choice for best superhero comic of 2004. Books like this one are the reason why.

Blake M. Petit is the author of the superhero comedy novel, Other People’s Heroes, the suspense novel The Beginner and the Christmas-themed eBook A Long November. He’s also the co-host, with whoever the hell is available that week, of the 2 in 1 Showcase Podcast. E-mail him at BlakeMPetit@gmail.com and visit him on the web at Evertime Realms. Read past columns at the Everything But Imaginary Archive Page.

 

Classic EBI #96: The Spirit of Will Eisner

This week there’s been some interesting news on the comics front — a rumor that Marvel is planning a series of newsstand-aimed anthologies, and the announcement that Image Comics is going to adopt DC’s ratings system. What do I think about all of it?

Everything But Imaginary #404: More Changes to Your Comic Racks

But in this week’s classic EBI, we’re going back to January of 2005, when the comics world lost one of the greats.

Everything But Imaginary #96: The Spirit of Will Eisner

This week, folks, we were supposed to hand out the 2004 EBI awards. It was supposed to be a silly, jolly time just talking about some good comics — something I personally love to do. But man, the world pulls a fast one on you sometimes. Sometimes you just get dealt a severe blow, and sometimes you need to put the frivolities aside to pay tribute to something far bigger than yourself.

I’m talking, of course, about Will Eisner.

Eisner was a giant. A pioneer. A brilliant artist, an unparalleled storyteller. A man who revolutionized comics and helped them take their first steps towards becoming a true art form. It is hard to imagine any comic book creator more legendary than he.

And on Monday, Jan. 3, he passed away at the age of 87.

Eisner, the son of Jewish immigrants, got his start in comics in 1936 doing strips for WOW! What a Magazine and established a studio with his friend, Jerry Iger. In 1940 he debuted the comic book character that would make him a legend. Denny Colt was a police detective thought dead after a battle with a master criminal. Using this to his advantage, he became The Spirit, a masked crimefighter protecting the people of Central City.

That’s a very bland retelling of what was a groundbreaking comic. While his origin may not have been that different from any of a dozen other mystery men characters of the day, the way the Spirit was presented was very different. First of all, he didn’t appear in traditional comic books, but instead in a special 16-page comic that was released as a supplement to the comics section of Sunday newspapers. (Hard to imagine, I know, in this day and age where editors shrink comics down to postage stamp size and rearrange the panels at whim.) The weekly serial ran every Sunday for 12 years, with Eisner doing the writing or the writing and art for most of them (save for a three-year period when his talents were enlisted in World War II).

Then there was the writing. The Spirit, from a storytelling standpoint, was far superior to most of the comics of the day. It could be a hardboiled crime drama one week, a horror story the next, a comedy the week after and a soft sci-fi adventure to round out the month. Eisner freely flowed from genre to genre, but the character never seemed out of place.

And finally — and most importantly — there was the way this comic looked. Until Eisner, most comic book stories looked very much like their comic strip predecessors: a grid of panels, almost like still pictures lined up in a row to tell the story. Serviceable, yes, but hardly exciting. Eisner changed all that. He began to play with layout, experiment with design, with form and function of the comic book panel. He changed the stale grid to something bold and dynamic. Along with other luminaries like Jack Kirby, he turned the comic book from just being the stepchild of comic strips and magazines to being an art form in its own right, one which continues to grow and develop to this day. If you can find a successful American comic book artist who does not admit a debt — directly or indirectly — to Will Eisner, then he’s a liar.

Eisner was always out to try new things, too. He never settled on a logo for The Spirit, never gave it a traditional cover. Instead, he played with the logo of the comic every issue, often incorporating the design into the opening panel of that week’s story. These days you couldn’t do that because the marketing department would want an established brand, but at the time he not only got away with it, he created some of the most stylish, most dynamic opening pages in comics.

Eisner didn’t quit with the end of The Spirit, though. Throughout the 70s and 80s he turned out more and more comics, becoming more and more well-known. A Contract With God became known as the “first graphic novel,” coining the term for longer-form comic books that are often much more adult in tone than their magazine counterparts. While some would debate whether or not Eisner coined this phrase himself or whether Contract actually qualifies as coming “first,” few could possibly argue that his stories and the way he told them would change comic books and make the graphic novel a legitimate format for the artform.

He kept working right up until his death, turning out more graphic novels like Minor Miracles, A Life Force, The Building and Life On Another Planet. He was working even in his final days. His last graphic novel, The Plot, will be released later in 2005.

Eisner became synonymous with excellence in comic books. Even the premiere award in the entire medium bears his name — the Eisner Award is to comics what the Oscar is to film.

His thumbprint — what he did for and what he understands about the medium — remains an inspiration to comic artists to this very day. A few weeks ago, in the bustle of all the Christmas shopping I had to do, I was struggling to find a present for my sister, Heather. In a moment of epiphany, I recalled how she has recently renewed her high school interest in art and even asks me from time to time what it would take to learn to draw comics. (She has even shown a lot of interest in taking classes from the Joe Kubert school.) Then it became perfectly clear. I should give her the book almost universally recognized as the finest work ever written about comic books as an art form, what it takes to draw them, how to craft them, how to make a page exciting, how to tell a story.

That work, of course, is Comics and Sequential Art by Will Eisner. And I got her another of his books, Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative, to further her education. I knew that whatever question Heather might pose to me, Eisner was far more qualified to answer than I was.

I just never dreamed, as I watched her unwrap those books on Christmas Eve, that only two weeks later the icon who wrote them would be gone.

As Shakespeare was to theatre, as Mozart was to music, as DaVinci was to sculpture and painting, so was Will Eisner to the comic book. He was one of the last true legends of the comic book form. We will never see his like again, but as long as new artists sharpen their pencils and crack the spines of his books to study the craft, he will never be forgotten.

FAVORITE OF THE WEEK: December 29, 2004

The last week of the year also brought with it perhaps the most exciting launch, certainly the best comic of the week, the new Legion of Super-Heroes #1. While I was admittedly skeptical about this title’s reason for being (I really didn’t think the Legion needed yet another reboot), I did have faith in the talent of Mark Waid and Barry Kitson to deliver a knockout story, and I wasn’t disappointed. This was a fantastic comic book and a great new beginning for the Legion. If you’ve never read their comic book before, don’t worry, it’s all new from here on out. This is a great place to start.

Blake M. Petit is the author of the superhero comedy novel, Other People’s Heroes, the suspense novel The Beginner and the Christmas-themed eBook A Long November. He’s also the co-host, with whoever the hell is available that week, of the 2 in 1 Showcase Podcast and the weekly audio fiction podcast Blake M. Petit’s Evercast. E-mail him at BlakeMPetit@gmail.com and visit him on the web at Evertime Realms. Read past columns at the Everything But Imaginary Archive Page, and check out his new experiment in serial fiction at Tales of the Curtain.

 

Classic EBI #100: What Comics Do I Love?

This week, my friends, I’m celebrating a milestone. It’s the big, big 400th edition of Everything But Imaginary, my weekly comic book column at CXPulp.com! I’m highly excited about it, and decided to take this opportunity to explain, once and for all, just why I read comic books. I’ll give you a hint. It’s got a lot to do with potential.

Everything But Imaginary #400: Why Do I Read Comics

And as part of the celebration, in this week’s Classic EBI, I’m stepping out of order a little bit. Column #93 was scheduled to be next, but since I’m celebrating this milestone, I thought it would be nice to go back and celebrate the column’s very first milestone, EBI #100, from February 2, 2005. Let’s go, shall we?

EBI #100 SUPER-SIZED SPECTACULAR: WHAT COMICS DO I LOVE?

It’s hard to believe, I know, but for 100 Wednesdays now comic book fans have had something more to look forward to than just this week’s crop of fresh comic books: we’ve had Everything But Imaginary. Hard to believe I’ve been writing it for this long, hard to believe that I still haven’t run out of things to write about. It’s a wonderful feeling.

As comic fans, 100 is a huge number for us. It’s rare, especially these days, for something to last 100 installments, so when it happens it’s cause for celebration. How, then, do I commemorate EBI 100?

Part of my mission statement here, folks, is to talk about what makes good comics good. And that’s my favorite part of this job: turning people on to new comics, explaining why I think something is great or talking about how to make it better. So how better to handle this column than to talk about the greatest comic book properties I’ve ever read?

Then I hit another problem, because when I made my top 10 list, almost all of them were superhero properties, and comic books are so much more than that, and I didn’t want to focus just on superheroes.

Then I thought: “Duh. It’s my 100th issue, and I can make it super-sized if I want to.”

So that’s what you’re getting, friends — my 10 favorite superhero properties and my 10 favorite other comic properties. There won’t be any big surprises on this list. You’ve been reading for 100 columns now, you know what I like and I don’t like. The important thing here, the thing I hope you take away from this… is the why.

My 10 Favorite Non-Superhero Comics

10. G.I. Joe: Yeah, I’m a big kid and I know it. But that’s why this property is so great to me. Every little boy wants to play Army Man — well, G.I. Joe takes that concept to the extreme. And the greatest Joe tales ever were told in the comics — first in Larry Hama’s legendary run at Marvel, then with Josh Blaylock and Brandon Jerwa at Devil’s Due. What’s more, this is the property that jumpstarted the 80s nostalgia craze, and is one of the few survivors. Because it’s still really, really good. This property has grown and matured along with its audience. Guys my age fell in love with this comic book as kids. It’s amazing that, even as adults, it’s one of the best comics on the market.

9. PVP: Man, what’s left to say about Scott Kurtz and PVP? Birthed as a webtoon, turned into a successful comic, this title lampoons video games, office politics, pop culture, television, movies and everything else. It’s what Dilbert would be with a giant blue troll and actual punchlines. For me, to be actually funny, something has to be smart too, and PVP scores that in spades. I read it every day on PVP Online and I still geek out every time an issue arrives at the comic shop.

8. Strangers in Paradise: Terry Moore’s labor of love was one of the first serious, non-superhero comics I ever got into. It’s basically a love story about Francine Peters and Katchoo, but sometimes it’s a triangle with David or a quadrangle with Casey or a pentagon with Freddie. Sometimes it’s a mob drama. Sometimes it’s a sitcom. Sometimes it’s a romance. This is a title that can reinvent itself not just from story to story, but within the same issue. Moore’s work is unceasingly experimental and consistently interesting, and I love that.

7. Sandman. Neil Gaiman’s masterpiece, Sandman was the flagship title of DC’s Vertigo line, and is still a top seller in bookstores. Using bits and pieces of DC’s existing superhero universe, Gaiman instead crafted a haunting fantasy tale about the king of the Dreaming and his Endless siblings. Sandman is the only comic book ever to win a World Fantasy Award (and is likely to remain so, because the members of the Award federation were so incensed that a lowly comic book won that they changed the rules so they are no longer eligible). It’s a truly literary work, and it’s a book with a lot of crossover appeal as well, drawing in people who ordinarily wouldn’t read comics and showing them how much potential the art form has.

6. Fables: This is by far the youngest property on either of these lists, and it is a testament to how good it is that I’m mentioning it in this column at all. The brainchild of Bill Willingham, Fables takes all those fairy tale and storybook characters we read about as a child and casts them together in a bold new epic — alternately a drama and a comedy, it’s fast, smart, clever and engaging. Five years ago I never would have believed I’d be pulling for a reconciliation between Snow White and the Big Bad Wolf or reading stories about Cinderella pulling a Mata Hari routine on Ichabod Crane, but I’m reading them now. And I run — run — every month to see if it’s in my advance pack of reviews, because if there’s anything I like more than Fables, it’s telling people how good it is.

5. Archie: That’s right. America’s Favorite Teenager is making my Top 10 list. And you know why? Because it’s sweet. And innocent. And wholesome. And it’s something that each and every one of us can relate to at some point in our lives. I’d wager that at least 75 percent of comic book fans, at some point or another, have read an Archie comic. You have the love triangles, the goofy buddies, the brainiacs, the bullies, the jocks, the nerds, and it’s all wrapped up in a package that is perfect to hand to kids and entice them into reading comic books. If I ever have kids, when the time comes for them to learn how to read, you can bet that Archie is going to be part of the curriculum.

4. Uncle Scrooge: I love Uncle Scrooge for many of the same reasons I love Archie — it’s wholesome and great for kids and something we’ve all read, but Scrooge has even more going in its favor. A great Uncle Scrooge story is never dated, never too low for adults to read, never too highbrow for kids. And while Archie is primarily suited for slapstick comedy, Scrooge does it all. Want high adventure? Let’s go on a treasure hunt. Want romance? Weave the tale of Scrooge’s lost love, Glittering Goldie. Sci-fi? Fantasy? Monsters? Pirates? Cowboys? Mythology? Politics? Corporate scandal? With Scrooge and his nephews, you can tell just about any kind of story you can imagine.

3. The Spirit: The most famous work of Will Eisner is a borderline superhero comic (he does wear a mask and fight crime, after all), but it’s more than that. It’s a crime drama at its heart, but Eisner did some fantastic things with it. He delved into fantasy, comedy and horror — as many genres as Scrooge does, in fact, but he did it for a more adult audience and revolutionized comics while he was at it. There’s still one Spirit story by its creator left unpublished, a crossover with Michael Chabon’s Escapist, and I cannot wait for that book to see print.

2. Bone: This is one of those rare comic books to crop up in the last ten to fifteen years that will almost certainly become a classic. Written and drawn by Jeff Smith, this epic fantasy followed the three Bone cousins after they were driven out of their home and into a valley filled with strange and terrifying creatures. Smith tricked us all by playing up the first dozen issues or so of the comic as a lighthearted comedy before delving straight into hardcore, full-out Tolkien levels of fantasy. (Tolkien played the same trick with The Lord of the Rings, if you look at the early lighthearted chapters of the first book.) If you like fantasy, you have to read this comic, and you’ve got plenty of options to do so. You can hunt down the nine volumes of the series. You can put out a chunk of change for the ginormous one-volume edition. Or you can even get the new digest-sized reprints that Scholastic is now printing… in full color.

1. Peanuts: If you did not see this coming, go back and reread the last 99 EBIs. Charles M. Schulz was, quite simply, the wisest man who ever lived. A genius, a philosopher, a teacher, a friend. And he did all of his great work through a round-headed kid, a crazy dog, a kid who couldn’t let go of his blanket and a loudmouthed fussbudget. People don’t give him enough credit for the brilliance of Charlie Brown — when you’re reading that strip, he is you. His face is deliberately blank and featureless that anybody can project themself into his situation. We’ve all fallen for the little red-haired girl or lost the big baseball game. We’ve all gone to friends for advice only to be mocked. We’ve all fallen. We’ve all hurt. We’ve all cried. We’ve all laughed. And we do it all through the Peanuts gang. To read his comic, it would be easy to argue that Schulz thought the secret of life was, no matter what, to never stop trying to kick that football. It would be far harder to argue that he was wrong.

And now for the moment that far too many of you probably skipped down to read when I explained how this week’s column was going to work…

My 10 Favorite Superhero Comics

10. Batman: Some of you are probably stunned that he’s so low on this list, others may be stunned he’s on here at all. But remember, this is my list and I can do it however I want. Batman is a modern-day fable, something that all of us can look to and wonder. What we have, basically, is a normal human who had everything that mattered taken away from him, but instead of falling prey to the night, he conquered it and elevated himself to the status of the gods. His prime motivator is guilt — he believes, on some subconscious level, that he can bring his parents back and atone for the sin of surviving by spending his entire life fighting criminals. He’s probably the deepest, most complex superhero there is.

9. Captain Marvel: And I mean the real Captain Marvel — not Mar-Vell, not Genis, not Monica Rambeaux. I mean Billy Batson, a poor orphaned boy who was led down a dark tunnel to a wizard who, upon saying the magic word Shazam!, transforms into the world’s mightiest mortal. As deep and complex as Batman is, Captain Marvel is the opposite — simple and innocent. He is a good-hearted child given the ability to do great things. Heck during the Underworld Unleashed storyline, when the demon Neron was questing for the purest soul in existence, everyone automatically assumed he wanted Superman. When he made his move for Cap, they were proven wrong. Is it any wonder that, in his heyday, he was the most popular superhero there was? More than Batman, Superman or Captain America, kids of the 1940s dreamed of being Captain Marvel. And there’s something beautiful about that.

8. Justice Society of America/Justice League of America/Teen Titans: Am I cheating by lumping these three properties together? I don’t think so, because I think of them as being different stages of the same thing: a legacy of heroism. The JSA was the first team of superheroes in any medium. They are the old guard. The elder statesmen. They’ve done it all and seen it all, and usually did it better than you. They are everything you want to be. The JLA is the pinnacle of the modern heroes. They are the first line of defense. The strongest, the bravest, the fastest, the truest. If your world needs saving, these are the guys you call to do it. The Teen Titans are the future. They’re the heroes-in-training. They look at the JSA and JLA and know that this is what they have to live up to, that the world will some day need them to become that. And they don’t back down from that crushing responsibility — because they’re already heroes.

7. Captain America: Forget politics for a moment. I don’t care who you voted for in the last election or where you live in the world or if you’re from a red state, a blue state or a marzipan state. Think about what Captain America symbolizes. A scrawny little boy who so loved his country, so loved the ideals of freedom and democracy, that he served himself up as an experiment to save the world from evil — and in doing so became the greatest soldier of all time. Someone who fights nearly 70 years later for those same ideals. Someone who is not blind to the problems of the world but who has faith in the goodness of the human spirit to rise above those faults and build something grand. You can’t tell me there’s not something awe-inspiring about that.

6. Spider-Man: Possibly Stan Lee’s greatest creation, Spider-Man is amazing (pun intended) for many of the same reasons as Captain Marvel. It’s the story of a boy given incredible power to go out and do good… but he’s given more complexity because, like Batman, he is driven by guilt. He squandered his gift, used it selfishly, and as a result lost the only father he ever knew. He was the first really relatable superhero — having problems with women, problems with school, problems with money. He’s been called the everyman superhero. That’s definitely one of the things that has made him so great.

5. Green Lantern: I don’t care which Green Lantern is your favorite. Pick one. Alan Scott. Hal Jordan. Kyle Rayner. John Stewart. Guy Gardner. Kilowog. Arisia. Ch’p. Tomar-Re. Relax, gang, I could be going this way for a long time. Green Lantern, at least to the readers, started with one man — Alan Scott. It spread out to become an intergalactic peacekeeping force like none other. Heroes across the entire universe, all brothers and sisters of the ring. When one Green Lantern falls, another takes his place. The Corps will never be gone forever. And no Green Lantern ever fights alone.

4. The Flash: First it was Jay Garrick. Then Barry Allen. Then Wally West. But it wasn’t until Mark Waid really delved into the characters in the late 80s and early 90s that the Flash became what it truly is now — the greatest legacy in comic books. He’s not just a guy with super-speed. The Flash is an ideal. A mantle. A banner that will be worn for a time and then passed down. Bart Allen is next in line after Wally. And after him, there will be more to come, an unbroken line, stretching at least to the 853rd century, for that is as far as we’ve seen. But there will be even more after that, we know. You cannot kill the Flash. You can only kill the person in that mask today.

This, as a brief aside, is the reason that Green Lantern and the Flash compliment each other so well, and why each generation of these characters have formed a true bond. One is the symbol of Justice Universal. The other is the symbol of Justice Eternal.

3. The Legion of Super-Heroes: This is one of the first superhero comics I ever read, thanks to my Uncle Todd, and it remains one of my favorite. The concept has been rebooted and revamped several times over the years, but the core remains the same: a thousand years from now, a group of teenagers bands together, in the spirit of the heroes of old, to protect the universe from evil. It’s as simple as that. It’s also got some of the most diverse, most interesting characters in comics. The group has a fantastic history and, even more, looks to its own history as inspiration. Much like the legacy of the Flash, the Legion of Super-Heroes is about a promise… that even 1,000 years into the future, there will still be heroes, still be people ready to stand against the night, still be people willing to fight, to bleed, to die… to save the world.

2. Fantastic Four: I’ve tricked you by putting this here, you know. Because unlike the last eight items, the Fantastic Four aren’t really superheroes. They are superpowered beings who Reed Richards has cast as superheroes, to make them famous, to atone for his original mistake that stole their normal lives in the first place. No, the FF is much grander than a superhero. The Fantastic Four are explorers. Of what? Anything. Outer space. Inner space. Microspace. Cyberspace. The Negative Zone. The depths of the Amazon. The cold surface of the moon. The burning depths of the human heart. The Fantastic Four are a family, dedicated to plunging the boundaries of knowledge, to seeking out what’s out there beyond the realm of imagination. They are considered the first characters of the “Marvel Age” of comics, but age is not a factor for them. When the stories are written properly, the Fantastic Four is always, always about finding something new, something grand… something fantastic.

1. Superman: He was the first. He remains the greatest. Superman is an incredible tale on many levels. He’s an immigrant. He’s an orphan. He’s an endangered species. He’s an exile. And yet he still found a way to become the greatest hero in the world. I get riled when I hear people call Superman perfect, because that doesn’t sound like they really understand the character, that they’ve only seen the work of poor writers. He struggles against being alone, against his urge to use his power for his own ends, against the ability to become a conqueror and shape the world as he sees fit. His true power comes not from the distant Krypton, but from the heart of America, from Kansas. By raising the most powerful child in the world, Jonathan and Martha Kent are heroes in their own right, giving the world a protector who very easily could have become a despot. The “super” part of his name is not the important part. Far more importantly, he is a man, a man with a good heart and a gentle soul, an iron will and an endless reservoir of courage. He is the most human of us all. He is the human we all wish we could be.

So there you have it. Not just one, not just ten, but twenty of the greatest concepts ever put forth in comics. Not necessarily the most famous or the most popular, but the ones that speak to me more than any other, the ones I love even through the lean years — the Superman Red/Superman Blue fiascos, the spider-clones, the “Ninja Force” nonsense and even in the face of those Bad Writers Who Shall Not Be Named. Because even when these concepts are mishandled, there’s no writer on Earth bad enough to destroy what makes their core work. Even in the bad times, it is only a matter of time until a good writer (I’m looking at you, Gail Simone) finds that core, polishes it, returns it to the light and makes their stories great again.

FAVORITE OF THE WEEK: January 26, 2005

Two months in and Mark Waid and Barry Kitson’s new Legion of Super-Heroes has twice won my “favorite of the week” honor. In issue #2 Brainiac 5 leads a team of Legionnaires to Dream Girl’s homeworld of Naltor, where the youths of the planet have lost their ability to sleep and, with that, their precognitive abilities. It’s part sci-fi mystery, part superhero romp and part political drama. It’s great. Waid has frequently won “Favorite of the Week” for his Fantastic Four work – with that ending, it looks like he’s going to keep that distinction on a regular basis here with Legion.

Blake M. Petit is the author of the superhero comedy novel, Other People’s Heroes, the suspense novel The Beginner and the Christmas-themed eBook A Long November. He’s also the co-host, with whoever the hell is available that week, of the 2 in 1 Showcase Podcast and the weekly audio fiction podcast Blake M. Petit’s Evercast. E-mail him at BlakeMPetit@gmail.com and visit him on the web at Evertime Realms. Read past columns at the Everything But Imaginary Archive Page, and check out his new experiment in serial fiction at Tales of the Curtain.

EBI Classic: Down With Da OG(N)

My original plan for Time Travel Tuesdays was to post old Think About It columns, old Everything But Imaginary columsn, and anything else I could find. That was before Comixtreme.com went through its software upgrade, making the whole forum a hell of a lot cooler and simultaneously wiping out hundreds of old EBI columns. Rather than take a full seven years to represent that lost content while mixing it in with other stuff, I decided I’m going to simply re-present the old EBI columns here on Wednesdays, since most Wednesdays at Evertime Realms don’t feature anything except a link to the current EBI column anyway.

We’re gonna start with a column from October 15, 2003. As you can tell, even then my mastery of street slang was unsurpassed…

Down With Da OG(N)

These days, comic book storytelling is focusing more and more on the bookstore market — collected editions, graphic novels, products like that. Some people see this as an evolution of the storytelling form, with comic book tales shifting towards longer arc that are, often times, predetermined for a certain paperback collection. Others embrace bookstores as a chance to get the product out of the specialty shops and into the hands of new readers who otherwise may never have thrilled to the potential inherent in sequential art. Some may simply prefer the bookstore to the comic shop because there are more single women and a better coffee bar.

All of these are, of course, perfectly legitimate theories, and whatever the reason, paperback and hardcover editions of comics books are becoming more popular than ever before. Some of them are even produced specifically for the graphic novel form, eschewing the traditional magazine format entirely, and these original graphic novels, I think, deserve a little time in the spotlight to shine.

Comics legend Will Eisner is often credited with creating the graphic novel form with his book, A Contract With God. In the decades since then, we’ve reached a point where these books are actually gaining some mainstream attention, with Neil Gaiman’s recent Sandman: Endless Nights actually cracking its way onto the fabled New York Times bestseller list. What is it about this specific book that gave it this boost? I think it’s several factors. First, there is Gaiman’s seemingly invincible level of popularity, not just among comic book readers, but among readers of general fantasy as well. Second, it featured the return of a favorite creator to the property he made into a masterpiece. Look at how high the sales were when Frank Miller did The Dark Knight Strikes Again. Readers love to see this kind of match-up. Third, the book had an all-star lineup of internationally acclaimed artists, most of whom had never worked with Gaiman before, some of whom had never worked in an American comic before. Having Milo Manara illustrate the Desire story was absolutely inspired.

Original graphic novels are often thought of in terms of more offbeat, less mainstream projects like these, but superheroes can make a strong showing in the format as well. Take last year’s JLA/JSA: Virtue and Vice hardcover, written by David Goyer and Geoff Johns with Carlos Pacheco on pencils. Goyer and Johns had been doing great work for some time on the regular JSA comic — well-drawn characters with classic, old-school, mega-blowout superhero action. With this title, I became convinced that the powers that be at DC Comics should hand them the reigns to the Justice League as well. The two heaviest hitting teams in comics joined forces to battle numerous threats from across the years of their respective histories. Lots of action, spot-on characterization, and beautiful artwork.

My favorite original graphic novel in recent years, however, is one I’ll bet almost none of you have read, or even heard of. It’s a great black-and-white volume put out by TopShelf Productions last year, a sci-fi fantasy religious comedy dramatic romance epic called Creature Tech. The book is created, written and drawn by Doug TenNapel, who is best known as the creator of the Earthworm Jim video game, and he brings some of the same zany sensibilities to this book while at the same time dealing with something much bigger and deeper.

Creature Tech is the story of Dr. Michael Ong, a rational young genius scientist who has abandoned his faith, much to the chagrin of his minister father. He takes a job with Research Tech, a government lab that studies extraterrestrial and supernatural artifacts, known as “Creature Tech” by the locals. Ong becomes accidentally bonded to an alien symbiote that grants him amazing power, but can’t be removed because the symbiote damages the heart of its host during the bonding process. Meanwhile, the ghost of a mad scientist steals the Shroud of Turin (yes, that Shroud of Turin) from Creature Tech as part of a crazy scheme for power and it’s up to Dr. Ong, along with a giant grasshopper and an alien mummy, to save the world.

It sounds crazy. It sounds wacky. It is. But it’s really, really good. Not only is this science fiction adventure at its finest, but TenNapel gets bonus points in my book for unapologetically making religion and faith (specifically Christianity) such an integral part of the story without stooping to cheap jokes or pot-shots against people with those beliefs. To the contrary, in a book where virtually every character could have easily fallen into the trap of becoming one stereotype or another, TenNapel fleshes each of them out, making even the goofy giant grasshopper a real character with real emotions and real courage.

It’s the kind of story that you just wouldn’t have seen from one of the big publishers.

It’s the kind of story you can really only get in an original graphic novel.

FAVORITE OF THE WEEK: October 8, 2003

H-E-R-O #9, continuing the reimagining of the classic H-dial, topped my list last week with the story of a two-bit thug in Gotham City who happens to stumble upon the dial that has been transforming people into superheroes across the country. The dial grants powers and a costume, but does nothing to change a person’s basic motivation, meaning that when a crook punches in “H-E-R-O,” he’s still a crook even when he’s got his cape and tights.

Will Pfeifer tells a story in this issue that reminds me very much of another underappreciated DC title, Gotham Central. Like that cop drama, this issue was about a character living in a city constantly under the shadow of the Batman without ever actually showing him, and Pfeifer did it particularly well.

Blake M. Petit is the author of the superhero comedy novel, Other People’s Heroes, the suspense novel The Beginner and the Christmas-themed eBook A Long November. He’s also the co-host, with whoever the hell is available that week, of the 2 in 1 Showcase Podcast and the weekly audio fiction podcast Blake M. Petit’s Evercast. E-mail him at Blake@comixtreme.com and visit him on the web at Evertime Realms. Read past columns at the Everything But Imaginary Archive Page.

2 in 1 Showcase Episode 97: The Spirit of Will Eisner

On Christmas day, movie theaters will burst open with Frank Miller‘s big-screen adaptation of The Spirit. This week, Blake and Chase talk about the character’s history in comics, his current status in DC comics, and how the legendary Will Eisner turned a guy in a blue three-piece suit into one of the most innovative superheroes ever created. In the picks this week, Blake recommends Archer and Armstrong: First Impressions, and Chase is still loving the new Flash Gordon series. Don’t forget to send us your votes for our Best of 2008 episode! You can find the categories and nominees in Episode 95! E-mail us with your votes, as well as comments, “Ask Chase Anything” questions, or anything else at Showcase@comixtreme.com!

Episode 97: The Spirit of Will Eisner
Inside This Episode:

PLUS: In Week in Geek #3, Blake picks up the microphone to discuss the recently-announced Fables TV show. How does he feel about his favorite comic book being made into a weekly TV series? And then, he gives a quick review of the new DVD release of a childhood favorite, Jim Henson’s The Christmas Toy.

Week In Geek #3: Fables TV and The Christmas Toy

New Reviews:

Just so you guys don’t have to go through this day with no new Christmas content from me, why not check out my review of this year’s edition of Walt Disney’s Christmas Parade? Gemstone Comics has upheld the classic tradition of Disney Christmas comics, and this year’s book is a fine one.

And while we’re at it, here are a few more comics I’ve reviewed lately:

• Ambush Bug Year None #5 — Meet the New Boss
• Final Crisis #5 — Into Oblivion
• Hack/Slash #18 — Closer Part One
• Secret Six #4 — Unhinged Part Four
• Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the Eighth Grade #1 — Brand-new all-ages comic
• Superman #682 — New Krypton Part Six
• Superman/Batman #54 — Super/Bat Part Two
• Trinity #28 — Those We Have Lost
• Uncle Scrooge #383 — Guardians of the Lost Library! Highly recommended!
• Done-In-One Reviews for Dec. 6, 2008 — In which I review Doctor Who: The Forgotten #4, Ender’s Shadow: Battle School #1, Futurama Comics #40, I Hate Gallant Girl #2; Jingle Belle: Santa Claus vs. Frankenstein #1, Noble Causes #38, Simpsons Winter Wingding #3, The Spirit #23, The Spirit Special #1, Star Wars: Legacy #30, Wolverine: First Class #9
• Done-In-One Reviews for Dec. 13, 2008 — In which I review House of Mystery #8, Jack of Fables #28, Jonah Hex #38, PS 238 #36, Superman/Supergirl: Maelstrom #3, Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #698, Wolverine and Power Pack #2