For the first 7 in this series, check out: 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 5 & 6 & 7.
29. Comic That Totally Blew My Mind
The Gilded Age
Yes, it is a cheat. I don’t care. While I had stories printed up prior to this one, they were not done with the intention of only being an issue 1. Those were self-contained little beasts. Get in, tell the story, and get out. My short story.
Gilded Age is my novel.
Through completing that first script, and then needing to do an issue 2 (issue 2, what’s that?), and #3 and #4… all pointing towards a view to collect them into a trade paperback. It tells me I can do it again and again and again if I persevere long enough. If I’m just too damn stubborn, then maybe… just maybe.
(And of course it didn’t hurt that Sheldon Mitchell, Rich Perrotta, Tom Chu, and Khari J. Sampson did such excellent work bringing it to life.)
30. Favorite Comic Book Couple
I love Peter Parker and Mary Jane.
Wally West and Linda Park.
Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle.
But those are romantic couples, and I think the spirit of this one goes more to the team-ups which make comic books great. So in that spirit my choice is:
Rocket and Groot
When the two of them appeared on the cover of a book I was considering getting, I rolled my eyes. Seriously? A f#$@#$#ing raccoon and a big tree? What is this crap? They pay people to write this stuff?
Etc. Etc.
4 issues later I realized how wrong I was.
And everyone else found out the same thing when they saw Guardians of the Galaxy. I betting there were a lot of “A raccoon? Ugh.” before walking out of the theater with a “Rocket and Groot ruled!”
Yes. Yes they do. Welcome to the club.
31. A Comic You Plan on Reading
Invader Zim
If you’ve never had the pleasure of watching the cartoon, you owe it to yourself to do so. The story of an alien trying to take over the earth along with his idiotic sidekick – GIR, he finds that he must enlist in school and suffer as all kids must do.
I reread the above and realize I didn’t do the best pitch, so here it goes again:
Zim is a jerk.
GIR loves taquitos.
Dib is an f-up who is trying to expose Zim as an alien.
Ok. That’s probably confusing.
3rd time is a charm:
It’s awesome.
And now there is a comic.
Nuff said.
32. A Comic You Thought You’d Hate But Ended Up Loving
Watchmen
An odd choice to appear on this one, I know. Typically this would show up under Favorite Comic, Favorite Writer, Best Comic of All Time, Best Twist, and so on.
However, I didn’t read Watchmen right away when it came out (I would have been about 10). In fact, I was 23 or 24 before sitting down to read it. You know that thing where one person tells you something is great, and then you read someone else loves that thing… but instead of thinking “awesome, something new to love” you think “I’ll be damned if I’m going to like that THING.” Don’t know why it triggered that way.
So I avoided it for as long as I can. But at some point if you like comics you should probably read the damn book.
And of course I loved it. It’s great. It holds up really well to the passing of time. And if you view it for when it actually came out… wow. Just wow.
Obviously nothing new here to say about the book. Just happy to have been wrong in this case.
33. An Ongoing Series You Wish Was Still Being Published
Sometimes when we talk about series that we miss, we’re really talking about missing the way a series “used to be”. The comic may actually exist in some form or fashion, but it no longer lines up with what we had hoped for. So for this one I have a particular version of a comic (as it has come back in a few different iterations):
The New Warriors (original team)
This was my favorite comic for as long as it existed. There was about a year or so during college where the only two comics I could afford to collect consistently were The Flash and The New Warriors. I don’t know if it was the Teen Titans feel in some ways and yet that idea they were not sidekicks by any means. Maybe it was the fact that the whole thing opened with Night Thrasher holding a powerless Richard Rider (Nova to you and me) and dropped him from the roof in an effort to restart his powers (and he wasn’t sure it was going to work). Maybe it was Speedball, a throw-away character suddenly given a voice. Firestar, one of my favorites from the Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends cartoon.
I don’t know exactly why, but I just know I looked forward to it every month.
…
So that’s it, with a couple of extra thrown in, and it only took a year to get through. 🙂
***
John McGuire is the author of the supernatural thriller The Dark That Follows, the steampunk comic The Gilded Age, and the novella There’s Something About Mac through the Amazon Kindle Worlds program.
His second novel, Hollow Empire, is now complete. The first episode is now FREE!
He also has a short story in the Beyond the Gate anthology, which is free on most platforms!
And has two shorts in the Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows anthology! Check it out!
He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com.