Meet Me in St. Louie, Louie...

This past week I visited my family in St. Louis, where most of the comics I’ve accumulated over the past 28 years are stored in dozens of dusty long boxes stuffed underneath the stairs of my parent’s basement. Over the past year, I’ve started slowly extracting my collection back to my apartment in NYC. Each visit, I spend hours alone at night going through all the boxes and filling one to take back with me. Here’s what I brought back this past trip:

Sin City: Family Values, Sin City: Sex and Violence, Sin City: That Yellow Bastard and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For – I read these a long time ago and enjoyed them, but with the release of the movie (which I’ve not seen yet), I wanted to revisit these first. I know there are more series, but these are the only ones I own so far. So far I’ve reread the first three. If you’ve never read Sin City, and are not sure which trade to start with, I highly recommend That Yellow Bastard. What stands out is how incredibly well Frank Miller uses harsh lighting and heavy blacks to convey the mood of the city. The stories are well crafted, and his narrators are every bit as hard-edged as you would expect someone living in Sin City would be, but it is the art that turns these into classics. I’m enjoying these even more than I did the first time, and I encourage anyone else looking for a Miller fix to check out any of these series, especially the gorgeous one shot, Sex and Violence.

Kill Your Boyfriend – by the same team currently doing Vinamarama, this Vertigo one-shot from 1995 is superior in every way to the current series. And I like Vinamarama. But after re-reading this one shot, I can honestly say if you’re a Morrison fan and you haven’t read this, you should get it immediately. The story follows a young English girl who decides to abandon her mundane life for the promise of adventure. But she gets more than she bargained for, joining up with a group of pseudo revolutionaries who want to blow up Blackpool Tower. Bond’s artwork is so good, surpassing even Vinamarama, it makes me wonder why he doesn’t do more.

Prez: Smells Like Teen President – another Vertigo one-shot from 1995, and this one is written by Ed Brubaker and illustrated by Age of Bronze’s Eric Shanower. I forgot about this issue, if I ever read it at all, but considering the all star creative team, I couldn’t wait to read it. The good news is Shanower’s artwork is as excellent as ever. He is one of those rare artists whose work I will buy sight unseen. The plot is a road trip story about a group of three guys, who not coincidentally resemble the members of Nirvana, as they search for the lost teenage hippie President, Prez Rickard who may or may not be the father of one of them. It’s a decent premise, but it suffers a little from wordiness, and ultimately the ending is a little disappointing. Still, I enjoyed this and would recommend it to fans of either of the creators.

Fred Hembeck Destroys the Marvel Universe – I owned this for years (probably since its release in 1989) but never got around to reading it until now. It’s a fun premise - a cartoonist whose minimalist, cartoony style sort of resembles Peter Bagge, is basically allowed to kill every single Marvel superhero. It’s funny at times, particularly the Abbott and Costello routine involving Daredevil’s death, but as a whole, it’s not hilarious. It’s also very wordy and took me a long time to get through. Still, I commend Marvel (especially former editors Jim Salicrup and Tom DeFalco) for allowing such an uncharacteristic departure from their typical straight-forward superhero fare.

St. Swithin’s Day – this one-shot is a true lost classic for Grant Morrison fans. Someone should really reprint this. Published by Trident Comics in 1990, the story follows a disillusioned young man on a rambling three day plot to assassinate then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. It’s beautifully illustrated (in full color) by Kane’s Paul Grist and features some of Morrison’s best writing. The story is presented in a 4 chapter, 6 pages per chapter format that is popular in British anthology magazines 2000 A.D. and Crisis Magazine. For anyone looking to see how powerful a story can be within a single issue, this is worth seeking out.

So far, that’s all I’ve had time to read, but here are the other books I retrieved that I hope to get through in the next few months:

Thirteen O’Clock by Richard Sala – looks like a cool, obscure one-shot.
The Biologic Show by Al Columbia
Detective Comics Annual #14 – I remember really enjoying this story more than most Batman stories when I read it in 1989. It’s written by Mark Waid and Brian Augustyn, and illustrated by Val Semeiks. Looking forward to seeing if it stands the test of time.
Daredevil #227-233 – the complete “Born Again” storyline by Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli. I already know this is awesome, but it’s been years since I read it.
Batman #404-407 – same thing as above.
Give Me Liberty #1-4 – I must be in a major Frank Miller mood. Haven’t read this classic by Miller and Watchmen illustrator Dave Gibbons since it was new.
Doom Patrol #19-51 – a good long run of Morrison’s Doom Patrol that I haven’t read in years. Can’t wait! Plus I look forward to tracking down the issues I’m missing, including the Flex Mentallo mini-series illustrated by Frank Quitely, which I hear is a must read for Morrison fans.
Concrete: Fragile Creatures #1-4, Concrete: Killer Smile #1-4, and Concrete: Color Special – I only remember reading Killer Smile, and just barely at that. Paul Chadwick rarely disappoints and these are supposed to be amazing.
Hitman #1-7 – never read these either, but they looked intriguing and I had room, so…
Cereal Killings #1-4 – the little known series by James Sturm features the sad fates of many common breakfast cereal mascots. Sturm is an absolute comics master, one of the greats, and I can’t wait to re-read some of his earliest work.
A1 Book 5 – this is a random British anthology I picked up somewhere along the way, no idea where, but it looks pretty cool, with short stories by Neil Gaiman, Peter Milligan, Joe Kubert, Roger Langridge, Jeff Jones, Nick Abadzis, Bruce Jones, Ramsey Campbell, Steve Dillon, David Lloyd and others. Justice League International #25-36 – I recently reread the first 2 years of the original series from Giffen and DeMatteis and really enjoyed them, so here’s the third year. Too bad about DC Countdown but I’m happy to live in the past with this series.
Black Candy – one shot from Jessica Abel’s husband contains the following pull quote on the back from Tom Spurgeon – “With Black Candy’s studied, masterful pace and deeply disturbing subtexts, Matt Madden will almost certainly take a significant percentage of the comics-reading public by surprise.” Good enough for me.
Animal Man #1-32 – this includes not only the complete Grant Morrison run (which ended with issue #26) but Peter Milligan’s follow up arc, which I remember really enjoying, too. I haven’t read these since they were new, but the brilliant Brian Bolland covers alone have gotten me excited to re-read these classic, pre-Vertigo issues.

That’s about it. I hope to have reviews of many of these in the future. Also, drop me a note if you have any fond issues in your archives that you think are worth mention. I’d love to seek out some old classics and maybe if I get enough responses, I’ll post them in my next column.

Take care.