A love letter to comic shops at a time when many of them wonder if they will make it to the other side of COVID-19 hits the nostalgia button hard, but appears to have left some of the longtime fans out of the conversation.
Cover by David MackWritten by Cullen Bunn, Aaron Douglas, Phil Hester, Jamie McKelvie, Jerry Ordway, Steve Orlando, Stephanie Phillips, Zac Thompson
Illustrated by Ted Brandt, Don Kramer, Szymon Kudranski, Leila Leiz, Bruce McCorkindale, Jerry Ordway, Gordon Purcell, Cliff Richards, Ro Stein
Colored by Ted Brandt, Juanchoi, Szymon Kudranski, Guy Major, Jerry Ordway, Ro Stein
Lettered by Ted Brandt, Marshall Dillon, Ro SteinThis 48 page anthology featuring stories from seven top creators emphasizes what it sees as a fundamentally irreplaceable role played by comic shops in their lives and in the lives of fans.
This review would not exist right now if it wasn’t for a comic shop.
I’ve told the story before of how walking into Brooklyn’s Anyone Comics led me to what has been this rather successful side career, and I owe so much to them as a result. And three years later, that hasn’t changed. Sure, I can’t exactly go out for an afternoon of giving the owner Dimitrios way too much of my money (he knows too well what comics I like), noshing on slice of pizza at Tony’s on Nostrand on the corner and washing it down with a cocktail at Branch Ofc. But even as I sit 40 miles away at home in Connecticut, they are never far from my heart.
That’s the power of a small business, the ability to create more than just profits: to create heart and community. AfterShock Comics understands this, and as such, commissioned this special anthology to celebrate just how valuable our comic shops are, now and always. (Note that this anthology is only available in comic shops, so check with your local shop to see if it is still available.) While each contribution is unique in its own script and artwork, there’s a few common threads among them.
One such thread is family as the genesis for the love of comics. Some stories present the family supportive of the newfound hobby, like Cullen Bunn and Leila Leiz’s “The Mystery of the Missing Issues” and Steve Orlando and Gordon Purcell’s “Full Color.” Patient parents indulging their child’s desires grow new hobbies. Others, like Aaron Douglas and Cliff Richards’s “Trash Can Comics,” Douglas’s comic book tale of rebellion against his fundamentalist religious parents, show the influence of family when they are less than kind and the desire to forge your own path in life. Hopefully the elder Douglases saw the light like Rev. Shaw Moore at the end of “Footloose” and perhaps even read a comic or two on their own.
But those of us who came to comics later in life like myself get their moment in the sun in Jamie McKelvie’s “Dreams,” his recollection of discovering comics as an undergraduate (and thanks to his girlfriend, a reminder that girls read comics too). That story also stands out as the only one that doesn’t focus on superhero comics – – it was Neil Gaiman’s “Sandman” that led McKelvie on his current path. No doubt you see that influence when you look at “The Wicked + The Divine.”
Another common thread that ties these seven unique stories together is that lens of nostalgia, a lens that manifests itself through artwork. Stories such as “Trash Can Comics” by Aaron Douglas and Cliff Richards and Jerry Ordway’s “Good Ol’ Days” stick with Golden and Silver Age square panel layouts and text blocks. Steve Orlando and Gordon Purcell’s ironically titled “Full Color” leans hard into sepia tones to further the point of his childhood memories. And Zac Thompson’s “Why I Love Comics” goes even further, eschewing color completely for heavy shadows in black and white and panel borders of film.
There’s one big thing that bothers me about this anthology, though, and it’s clear when you take a look at the credits above.
Three people that are not men (two women, one person who identifies as non-binary) contributed to this work. That’s it. Just three.
Continued belowThere’s scores of women and non-binary folks that love comics and their comic shops. There’s scores of women and non-binary folks that took the time to build websites and lists of shops friendly to women and non-binary people so that we can safely enjoy our funny books without the risk of assault or harassment. Outside of the one story by Stephanie Phillips, the only other woman that plays a role in a story that is not a parent is the nameless girlfriend in “Dreams.” These decisions erase women from the conversation, especially when there are scores of female comic professionals that could have been called on to contribute. And it’s a very bitter pill to swallow in 2020 when the Eisner award for the Best Comics Related Periodical/Journalism is an outlet that has “Women” in its name!
An even further bitter pill is (at least based on my look at the black and white headshots with the title page to each story) is that there are very few creators of color. While this was commissioned and completed before George Floyd’s murder and the United States’s nationwide reckoning with systemic racism, there have been many wonderful Black writers, artists, and editors that have very unique stories of finding representation in their books, and how that played into their own creations. Stephanie Phillips’ story features a Black girl as protagonist, which is progress, but only baby steps. In a year when the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 takes center stage in comics not once but twice, leaving Black creators out adds another layer of tone deafness to an otherwise well-done work.
(All this said, with the news today that two of three AfterShock’s new hires are women, I hope these creative omissions are a momentary lapses in judgment, though they do still warrant specific call out in order to hold them accountable.)
If it wasn’t for a comic shop, none of these creators would be gracing the shelves today and for that we should all be grateful. For a work that was quickly put together (and undoubtedly from home), it’s a decent effort. I just wish a little more attention would have come to the types of stories that this should tell, and who is telling them.
Final Verdict: 6.9 – Does a good job of giving you the feels for your LCS, but it’s a whitewashed sort of feels.
