irrg! orrrrg!

In the last few months I’ve seen a few articles pop up about First Second. A recent example is the announcement that Scott McCloud, of Understanding Comics, Zot! and Google Chrome comic fame is joining First Second.

Prior to that, I found out that Paul Pope’s next book, Battling Boy, will be published by First Second.

Leaving me to ask that eternal question: Whuhwho?

First Second is “an imprint of Roaring Brook Press, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, which owns some of America’s most prestigious publishers, known for great integrity and literary quality”. First SEcond lists an impressive roster of creators and is managed by cartoonist Mark Siegel.

As Siegel writes, “First Second is committed to quality, aiming for the highest literary, artistic and production standards. The works of true authors and artists, as opposed to the old style of mass-produced disposable comics, these books are intended to be works of lasting value.” It’s when I read this mission statement that I got most excited about this publisher.

However, sadly, aside from an interesting State of The Union with Mark Siegel on Newsarama, there’s very little mention of the publisher on the Internets.

The short version? From everything I’ve found, First Second is awesome.

I had fully intended to write a decent SP Vol 5 review myself, but I found that Abhay Khosla at The Savage Critic already wrote what is probably the best review that you’ll find. And for once I decided to not explore my own journey into blog post mediocrity.

Abhay identifies the point in the series well by connecting it to minor cast member Young Neil. “He’s an asshole”. So are you”. “I’m young, I’ll grow out of it” is the essence of the book. Within the six volumes that will make up this series, this book is the asshole. It’s a bit of a downer as it’s a dark book but at the same time it’s such a gorgeous progression of the original story that there’s no way that it feels unnatural. This is the book where everyone wakes up and realizes they’re a older than they were. This is the act where things look bad. This is the act where you get both depressed and really excited about the upcoming conclusion to the series.

Scott Pilgrim is probably, long term, one of the biggest things to come out of this decade. While a movie is being made, this merit is purely deserved based on the fact that it was impossible to describe SP as being “like [insert book title here]” and in the years to come, we will (hopefully) see graphic novels that will be described as “like Scott Pilgrim”.

While “the art is like manga art” will be thrown around, it doesn’t quite cover it. Manga influenced, yes. Cartoony in places, but clearly “indie cartoonist” in other. Try labeling it; you’re wrong no matter what you do.

Scott Pilgrim is like Scott Pilgrim. Labeling will not bring you happyness, only sadness; read Vol 1 through 5 of an amazing series and receive both in a double whammy.

Note: I wrote this as a post for Geekocracy, as I’ve been trying to steer the irrg.org ship towards more diversified grounds. But, for some reason I liked it enough to post it here. Clear case of  misjudgment on my part.

You are usually able to trace back addiction to a specific moment.

For me, it’s easy enough to track it back to that moment. I also know exactly what the causes were: X-Men #1 by Chris Claremont, Jim Lee and Scott WIlliams, Uncanny X-Men by John Byrne, Whilce Portacio and Art Thibert and X-Factor by Peter David, Larry Stroman and Al Milgrom were responsible for a 5+ year descent into brokeness caused by collecting X-Men comics. Claremont “left” X-Men after #3, and I stayed. Jim Lee bailed after 11 to go off and co-found Image, and I stayed. And I kept spending.

I bailed from X-titles about 4 years later, but never strayed from spending a regular sum each month on comics. Via the X-men, I (like many of my peers) burnt a nice stack of money on Image comics, left both of those franchises behind and instead dove into some DC work (Starman, specifically) and some wacky indies and some of the Vertigo titles. I returned for two stints to the X-Verse; Grant Morrison’s run and Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men arcs. Hey, enough with the stares. It was a familiar place, and the drugs, er, books were great.

A few more jumps followed (again to the DC camp, but that’s a long, boring story) and I’d like to think that I came out as a more balanced, well-behaved junkie. Er, collector.

Or so I thought.

Early February, Marvel announced a new X-men book. X-Men Forever, written by Chris Claremont. The skinny: Chris never left. It’s 1991. Marvel is reprinting X-Men #1-3 as X-Men Forever “Alpha”. The book picks up from there.

Now, I’ve picked up more recent copies of Chris’s work. I can’t lie — It was completely lost on me. Stiff writing, overly wordy dialog and dubious plots just didn’t work for me anymore.

With that in mind, I approached the solicitation for this new book rationally: It can’t work. It’s a bad idea. Better yet, it’s a horrible idea. Disasterous. Think Catwoman (the movie). What about the last 18 years of continuity? Morrison’s run? Insulting. Awful. Yes, just plain awful.

Yet in the back of my mind, I have to wonder: haven’t we all imagined this happening to all our favorite nerd-fi franchises? Roddenberry resurrected to helm Voyager out of the Suckfest Nebula? Neil Gaiman putting the finishing touches on Sandman #242? George Lucas coming back to dir…er…yeah…uhm…

You get my drift. It’s something that hasn’t been done. It’s X-Men Forever, bitches. It’s 1991, I’m 15, I’ve never seen a girl naked, and God do I want to buy issue #1 of this series. Shoot me now.