"MR. MAJESTIC" PART TWO
Last week, we started looking back at the "Mr. Majestic" series from WildStorm that started in late 1999. The series would go on for nine issues in total. The final three drawn by Eric Canete are lost somewhere in a longbox I haven't found yet, so we're concentrating on the front six, written by Joe Casey and Brian Holguin, with art by Ed McGuinness.
Let's pick up where we left off, starting with the fourth issue:
ISSUE #4: "Being & Nothingness"
LET'S END WITH THE INTRODUCTION
The text page of the first issue introduced the series with a piece by Joe Casey and Brian Holguin. I didn't notice that in there until after I had written this column. This way, however, I got to see if their goals lined up with the results. I knew what I thought the book was doing and what it's accomplishments were.
Now, I could better see the authorial intent.
I think the two lined up nicely, making the series an even bigger success than I had given it credit for.
Here's a quick excerpt:
"Done right, it would be a book where the only limitations would be our own imaginations. A book that delivers galaxy-spanning tales of adventure and heroism, from the edge of universe to the core of the atom. A book that expands the possibilities of comic books instead of reducing them. A book that drives a stake into the heart of the cynicism and seems to pervade today's comic market.
No more reluctant heroes who wear their dysfunction lie laurels. No more constraints on the type of story that could be told in a comic. No more whining about what superhero comics AREN'T doing. We were gonna put our money where our mouths were. It felt right.
It's clear that they accomplished what they set out to do. Reading that today, though, it also feels like these two fresh-faced comic book writers didn't take long into their careers before realizing the problems with doing superhero comics at Marvel and DC.
"Mr. Majestic" was collected into a trade paperback in 2002. It is, sadly, out of print. I'd buy a nice hardcover presentation of this one. With the changes in DC from the New 52 and beyond, I doubt DC really wants to remember this series. Maybe if "Run Love Kill" takes off, they'll do a new collection to include issues #7 - #9 with Eric Canete's issues in there, too.
I'm not holding my breath. It's a great series that maybe we'll get a Comixology release of someday.
PIPELINKS
- John Byrne's "Namor" run 15 years ago has always been one of my favorite runs of his work, particularly for the way he worked with the tones in some of the issues. It felt like Byrne was experimenting on the page with the series, often trying different artistic techniques to keep the book and himself fresh.Just to give you an idea of how much of the pages in some of those issues were made up of the tones, check out this before and after from "Namor" #7.
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In News So Ridiculous I Couldn't Have Made It Up: Wizard World has been forced to reschedule one of its events because it conflicted with --- another Wizard World event already on the schedule. From their press release:
Internally, I bet they've added a new item on the To Do list for the next time they buy up a convention: "Double check our existing schedule for date conflict."Wizard World, Inc. (OTCBB: WIZD) today announced that Wizard World Comic Con Albuquerque will be postponed until June 24-26, 2016. A timing conflict with the concurrent Wizard World Comic Con Sacramento, June 19-21, 2015, and late introduction of the show just last month are the primary reasons cited for the rescheduling of the 2015 event.
- Your comic collection isn't as big as you thought it was. This guy's pushing 100,000. Put aside some of the annoying over-production of this video (those sound effects! UGH) and just be impressed by what he's got.
- But remember that Don Rosa's collection is impressive, too, even after he sold off all his post-1970 comics...
- I just went down a rabbit hole. It seems there are a lot of people who make videos of their comics collections. I didn't realize that was a thing. Sadly, mine aren't displayed as nicely, so a video would be very annoying for you to watch and me to make. They're in three different rooms in my own house right now, plus a storage locker, plus two closets at my parents' house. And this is after two purges! I need more bookcases -- but I don't have enough wall space to put them up against.
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