Sleeper
I just finished the Wildstorm mini-series Sleeper, by Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips. Holy crap, that series was good. It’s definitely the best thing to come out of the Image/Wildstorm universe, better even than the Authority (which turned into a complete crapfest when Warren Ellis and Mark Millar stopped working on it) and Astro City (which, judging by the current run, has lost all its steam). I liked it so much I went back and re-read all the old issues of WildC.A.T.S. that spawned it
It’s funny how bad those classic Image comics look to me now. I was a HUGE comics fan as a kid, devouring every book I could afford, whether it sucked or not. This was back in the $0.60 a comic days. I was a lot less judgmental, then. I was still building my scales.
This obsession lasted until the beginning of my senior year in high school, when I realized two things:
1) Comics had been steadily increasing in price, and were about to hit $1.00/per
and
2) All that money was much better spend on girls.
So I quit buying comics. Then, in one of the more bone-headed decisions I’ve made, I sold the cream of my comic collection to Dragon’s Den on Central Ave. for like $200. Mostly Walt Simonson Thors and McFarlane Spider-mans, plus some other good stuff. Thank goodness I was possessive enough not to let go of my X-men.The Pickytarian told me at the time that if I ever regretted it in the future, I should remind myself that I really needed the money and it beat the hell out of getting a minimum wage job. True enough, Picky.
So I went a few (like 3-4) years without comics. They were years without sunshine. Years without flavor. Years without…Oh, who am I kidding? I was in my prime and actually getting laid. I didn’t give comics a thought.
But then in college, somewhere around 1993, I wandered into the local comics shop in Amherst NY (I went to college in Buffalo. As far from home as possible while still being in the state and therefore keeping my education affordable). Sadly, I don’t remember the name of that shop, despite going there weekly for the rest of my college years.
While there, I saw the new line of Image comics, and was blown away. Spawn. The Savage Dragon. Cyberforce. WildC.A.T.S. All the top creators at Marvel and DC had jumped ship to form their own creator-owned company, because they were sick of companies like Marvel owning and reaping all the benefits of their creations. Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen, Marc Silvestri, Jim Lee. The best of the best.
Oh, and Rob Liefeld, too, but that guy sucked and so did his crappy Youngblood book.
In addition to outperforming any of the work they did under the yoke of the Big Two, these savvy creators also upped the ante on production, using quality paper and the newly-applied computer coloring processes (before that, comics were colored by cutting out little pieces of colored gel with an X-Acto knife). The result came with a hefty $2.25/per comic price tag, but it was worth it.
Each week I went to that shop and collected my little harvest. I would go back to my room (or sit outside on the terrace if it was one of the two weeks a year in Buffalo when the temperature was above freezing) and plow through them, then e-mail the Pickytarian to talk about them or gossip about the comics industry in general. Wall Street was eyeing comics for the first time. There was a buzz on the street. A tingle in the air. Comics were HOT.
Of course, it took about 5 minutes for the above group of guys to fuck it all up.
Image went from cutting-edge art and stories to cutting edge marketing and production gimmicks. Variant holofoil covers. Annual company crossovers. Collectible trading cards bundled into the books. Shitty spin-off books starring b-list characters. Hack writers and artists taking over for the above groundbreakers so they could ‘focus on the business end’ (the most ass-backwards decision ever). Image comics quickly became unreadable.
When I look back on those books with a more critical eye, I wonder what all the fuss was about. The writing was usually atrocious, and the art makes my head hurt. Every panel bursting with action even when the characters are standing still. Or asleep. It really goes to show how far Marvel and DC had fallen that Image’s shit was considered the best on the market at the time.
A prime example was the WildC.A.T.S. That book didn’t really make much sense if you took a moment to think about it. A billionaire midget alien running a superhero team? Ye, gods. I was about to drop it around 1995, when critically acclaimed writer Alan Moore (Watchmen, V for Vendetta) took over the writing, and Travis Charest, who I say to this day is awesome, started doing the penciling. I got excited again.
But alas, I was to be disappointed. I just re-read those books. Moore created a whole new team of awkward, second-string characters, including a cyborg serial killer with a Pez dispenser for a head and Mr. Majestic, the douchiest Superman ripoff ever. The new team had a seemingly infinite budget and no direction. There wasn’t even a thong-clad female ninja with a sword. The only good thing about that book was one of the bit characters, a genetically designed test-tube baby named T.A.O.
T.A.O. (Tactically Augmented Organism) came on the scene as a superhero whose only superpower was that he’s better at chess than you, but he soon showed that was nothing to laugh at. After manipulating the WildC.A.T.S. into ruin, T.A.O. escaped and became the head of a vast criminal empire. Employing all variety of super-beings, T.A.O. operated on a global level, and only a handful of people knew he existed at all.
In Sleeper, Holden Carver is a government agent sent to infiltrate T.A.O.’s organization. He goes deep cover, his good name destroyed, his old life severed, and he has to become something brutal and harsh in order to survive and gain T.A.O.’s trust.
But when the one man who knew Holden’s cover is shot and left in a coma, Holden is trapped in the criminal identity he has created for himself, wanted by the law and with no one to turn to.
The complete 24-issue run is collected into 4 6-issue trade paperback collections, also known in the comic book vernacular as TPB’s (not to be confused with TPS’s, which are meaningless busywork). Matt, AKA the Suckytarian, whined that the first couple of TPB’s were pricey at $17.95. He had a point, as that comes out to like $2.98 per issue, which is barely a savings over buying the individual issues. I think this is because at that point, the book wasn’t yet on everyone’s radar. Less mass appeal means a smaller print run, which means a higher per/unit cost. Meh. Whaddaya gonna do? The story was worth every penny.
The second 2 TPB’s were more reasonably priced at $14.95, which is about $2.50 per issue. Still not cheap, but fair.
Each time a new trade came out, I eagerly took it home, but did not read it until I had read every delicious line of the previous issues again to prepare myself. I’ve read the first one 4 times now and I’ll read it many more before my days end, I hope. The intensity only builds as the series progresses, and it ends with a mindfuck at leaves you reeling. Jesus Christmas, what a book!
Ironically, despite the fact that tomorrow is Wednesday, and therefore Comic Book Day, I will not be going to the comic store tomorrow. I am taking a course (on blogging, no less) for work at lunch, and then have to stay late to make meeting books or something after hours.
Looks like comics will have to wait until Thursday.
Crap.
Addendum: I love the internet. I just spent 3 minutes on google, and found that comic shop I used to go to in Buffalo: Queen City Book Store. Maybe not the best name for a shop, but they had a good selection, and it was right by the south campus.