Five Comics Worth Reading: June 2012

EARTH 2
I’ve been really getting into “world building” series lately, i.e. books that may focus on a set cast but really are telling the story of an entire society and moving the camera around a lot to do so; I feel like Paul Levitz’ first Legion of Super-Heroes run was the template for these in modern super hero comics and some really good ones have cropped up lately, from Age of Apocalypse to the current volume of Ultimates to Earth 2 by James Robinson and Nicola Scott. It’s not surprising that this type of storytelling falls in Robinson’s wheelhouse, as his Starman featured a vast array of characters beyond Jack Knight who could easily carry their own stories at any given moment (and the setting itself was as much a star as any of them). The idea of alternate realities featuring familiar characters is a tried and true one I’m a big fan of, and with the New 52 basically making the entire DC Universe one of these to begin with, I somehow find the concept of Earth 2 almost refreshing and particularly palatable for an older fan like me; this is another new take, but one rooted in a tradition dating back decades (if that makes sense). Really it’s the characters that sell it, though, in particular Robinson’s new version of Jay Garrick as The Flash, an everyman dreamer who stumbles across destiny he never figured within his grasp and now has to cope with a battle way over his head; that’s my favorite kind of hero. There’s also coolness to seeing guys like Garrick or Alan Scott not as the grizzled warhorses we’ve come to know them as, but fresh faced rookies who still possess the intangibles of the characters I’ve dug. So between the cross-reality scope, the likable protagonists, the “you know them but you don’t” twists with guys like Mr. Terrific and Nicola Scott’s classic, colorful, oh-so comic book art, this new series has become a quick favorite of mine.

FAIREST
Speaking of world building, Fables is another title that typifies that expression, as Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham and company have spent over a decade now creating and letting flourish their vast storytelling tapestry across genres and through dozens of stories. While they still do a nice job over in that book of putting the characters first and foremost, there’s no denying they have to top the last arc a lot—and that’s a tall order—so Fairest is a nice spin-off in that it goes somewhat “old school” with more self-contained stories set across Fables continuity but specific focus on smaller adventures. I’m loving the first arc, where Willingham has gone back to the well on one of the things that has helped Fables endure and taken an “origin story”—in this case Sleeping Beauty’s—and found a quirky ground that’s more hardcore than the cartoons we’ve seen, more lighthearted than the gory original “fairy tales,” and with the kind of wit and high adventure that makes a comic book. It’s an escapist delight to follow familiar characters like Ali Baba with a thoroughly modern edge plus get more insight into established Fables folk like the Snow Queen. If I may toot a pal’s horn though, my friend Phil Jimenez’s art on this book is gorgeous on a jaw-dropping scale; he was born to draw the lush landscapes, intricate palaces and beautiful people of Fables. It’s a visual feast nicely abetted by the inks of another amigo, Andy Lanning, plus knockout colors by Andrew Dalhouse.

INCREDIBLE HULK
When I was growing up reading Incredible Hulk, it was in the midst of Peter David’s reign as writer, and while it was also action-packed, psychological and often pretty dark, it was a funny book, with The Hulk as a witty lead operating a monstrous physical entity. Jason Aaron’s current run on Hulk is also very action-packed, also fairly psychological and quite dark, but while it’s not always funny—it frequently is—it’s damn sure demonstrating that some stuff I don’t typically think of as “fun” quite well can be. The current “Stay Angry” arc has at its core a clever premise that both subverts the “typical” Hulk hierarchy and provides brilliant set-ups for any number of stories: Bruce Banner is now the deranged side of the equation and is up to some crazy—and as yet unrevealed—scheme that has him spending his time “at the wheel” positioning himself into crazy situations then getting pissed off enough to become The Hulk, who has to deal with said situation, hoping not to inadvertently do exactly what Banner wanted, and thus far failing each and every time. Hulk also has to (wait for it) stay angry or else he’ll revert to Banner, who will either screw him over further or get them both killed. It’s an elaborate yet elegant framework that Aaron jumps off and then kicks to 11 by cramming the craziest things he can think of into the stories; so far we’ve had Hulk teaming up with The Punisher to take down a Mexican drug lord who was either a dog mutated into a man or a man who mutated himself to be part dog—to put the cherry on top, Hulk has Punished shoot him in the face several times when he’s in danger of calming down—and Hulk under the sea fending off a horde of Atlanteans and sea monsters inebriated by seaweed juice and thinking they’re pirates. It’s the kind of off-the-wall stuff you’d expect to find in a book like, say, Preacher or something, but that perhaps works even better here because The Hulk is such a resilient force you can throw into nearly anything and have him believably survive as well as make a bigger mess of things. I applaud Aaron for thinking big on this story and for creating a new take on Hulk himself: an astutely rational but annoyed monster that has to clean up the messes he himself created for years being perpetrated by the unfettered alter ego who has had to endure the brunt of that action. Inspired art choices like Steve Dillon and Pasqual Ferry only make things better. And this week, Tom Raney draws Hulk fighting Russian bears in outer space!

NEW MUTANTS
Speaking of that Lanning guy—and I was back in the Fairest write-up—he also writes, and along with Dan Abnett, he’s penning one of our consistent favorites on the This Week in Marvel podcast, New Mutants. This series occupies a very unique place in not just the Marvel Universe, but really all of comics, there has always been the problem of what to do with teenage characters when they kind of grow up—or rather are replaced by a younger generation—but can’t fully because they’re not going to supplant the adult characters already in place. The peak members of the New Teen Titans cast were—and really still are for the most part—victims of this grey area and the original New Mutants seemed doomed to a similar fate after their X-Force run came to an end and teams like Generation X or the young students of New X-Men and Generation Hope took their place, but Zeb Wells started up a new series that played on their connection to one another being what made them truly compelling, and now DnA have carved their niche out even further. Beyond having a very specific mission statement of mopping up the X-Men’s “unfinished business” (locating mutants who have fallen through the cracks or hunting down bad guys that eluded capture), the New Mutants are comics’ quintessential twenty-somethings: no longer in school, but still unsure of their long-term goals and therefore clinging to one another for support and safety. They fight Asgardian death maidens—as seen in the excellent “Exiled” crossover with Journey Into Mystery—but they also live in an apartment together, trying to get jobs at the local diner so they don’t have to ask Cyclops for cash. Two of the very best recent issues of New Mutants have been ones with little to no action—namely Magma’s date with Mephisto and when Blink dragged the team out for a night on the town—but then you’ve also got creepy horror stories like the Ani-Mator trilogy or their Fear Itself sojourn into the depths of Hel; New Mutants can do it all. The cast is endearing, relatable and quirky; the soap opera is suitably complex without being overwhelming; the humor is both dry and cute. Also, the art on the book fits its one-of-a-kind nature well, whether it’s David Lopez depicting evil death metal bands or Leandro Fernandez imagining a techno-organic freakshow. I love Dani, Roberto, Amara, Doug, Warlock and Nate like they’re my pals, and this book is among the best anywhere right now.

SAGA
Yep, Brian K. Vaughan’s new comic book is awesome—I’m as shocked as anybody else. Seriously, BKV has a near flawless track record, and Saga has done nothing to harm that reputation. Going back one more time to that old world building theme that seems to have encompassed this post, I love that just as with Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina and even Runaways (though obviously that last one wasn’t as self-contained as the first two), Vaughan began demonstrating immediately via newborn baby Hazel being the narrator that he has the long game in mind for this one, and I really enjoy the little teases in that narration when we meet a new character hinting at events far down the line, as a creator being in for the long haul certainly encourages me to feel the same way. It’s not hard to invest in this series right from the start, as every character from foulmouthed star-crossed lovers Alana and Marko to bounty hunter The Will already have hidden depths I’m keen to discover, and the mash-up of romance and humor against a big ol’ sci-fi background is a tasty genre smorgasbord. Only a few issues in there have already been eye-grabbing visuals like people with television heads having sex and pre-pubescent ghosts missing their lower halves that Fiona Staples absolutely nails; she can do the beautiful and the epic as well as she does the gross and the laugh out loud, so that’s pretty darn swell. As a bonus, BKV is hilarious on the letters page which featured in one instance thus far fan art from none other than Rickey Purdin himself!

First Impressions (and more): Wonder Woman

My first memory of Wonder Woman (as a comic book fan—blah blah blah usual disclaimer about how I saw her on Super Friends and lunchboxes as a kid) is her wearing a baseball cap and serving tacos at a fast food joint. I’m referring to the Brian Bolland cover pictured above to Wonder Woman #73, an issue set in the midst of William Messner-Loebs’ mid-90’s run with the character.

I didn’t read Wonder Woman growing up so my exposure came solely from DC house ads and seeing the covers, which more often than not featured her doing stuff I’d more expect out of Batman like fighting the mob or posing for sight gags like the aforementioned waitressing gig or having a delicious pasta dinner with Flash.

As a reader (rather than a cover viewer), I made Wonder Woman’s acquaintance when she became leader of the Justice League following the death of Superman. Now this was a ways before I understood what “pre-Crisis” and “post-Crisis” meant, so the concept that Wonder Woman wasn’t part of the Justice League already and further that her joining was a big deal first time thing baffled me a bit, but I rolled with it. More puzzling to me, I suppose, was how she come off almost as a bit of a wallflower with super strength. Fun Bolland covers aside, my abstract concept of Wonder Woman was still that she was a bad ass—she was an Amazon warrior after all—yet to my mind she was written in Justice League America as a figure whose name and reputation intimidated those around her, but she would then win them over with how down to Earth she was, which was a perfectly valid characterization, but seemed still off to me. I wanted to see her punching Guy Gardner in the face like Batman did, showing him there were women who could stand up to him physically as well as verbally, but instead she tended to reason with him.

Not long after this, Wonder Woman had her Death of Superman/Knightfall/Emerald Twilight prerequisite mid-90’s DC shakeup storyline wherein she was replaced in her role by a redhead named Artemis and took to just calling herself Diana and sporting a leather jacket and biker shorts as her look. I read the stories years later, and as is generally the case with Messner-Loebs (along with a young Mike Deodato) it was solid stuff, but again, at the time it was strange to me how there seemed to be this trending pattern toward making Wonder Woman/Diana “just one of the gang,” and humanizing her whether through comedy, fast food jobs, complacency on a team or losing her status; even at that age, I held the opinion—even if I couldn’t articulate it yet—that Marvel characters fit the “feet of clay” mold better while DC heroes were cool when they were aspirational, so humanizing Wonder Woman didn’t really work for me personally.

Apparently, somebody at DC in the late 90’s thought teenage me was right on, as the next era of Wonder Woman—which coincided with my getting out of comics temporarily, so I didn’t witness it first hand—brought her back in the direction of being a formidable and imposing figure who commanded respect through words as well as actions, both in her solo title under the reins of John Byrne and particularly as Grant Morrison penned her in JLA. Morrison’s Diana was certainly more along the lines of what I always expected, with her being an advocate for peace, but also somebody who understood it may take a smidgen of aggression to get there, at least in the short term. I dug how Wonder Woman fit into the team dynamic, with Superman and Martian Manhunter as her buddies, holding even Batman’s respect, flirting with Aquaman and then reducing Flash and Green Lantern to nervous man-children with her beauty/brassiness combo (Mark Waid was pretty great at writing that last one as well).

I finally jumped into the Wonder Woman well as far as her solo title when my good friend (not then, but now) Phil Jimenez was serving as both writer and artist. I’m a little nervous about using hyperbole here, particularly since I’m talking about a pal, but honestly, Phil’s Diana was the one I’d been waiting for.

Initially I picked Phil’s Wonder Woman up for the art—I’d been a fan since he did Robin fill-ins for Tom Grummett when I was a kid—but I stayed for an endearing take on a character I’d always been flummoxed by in regard to where her following came from. Ok, first off, the art was gorgeous, but I’ve talked about that before. What worked for me was that Phil was able to make Diana the fierce warrior I’d read about in JLA but also give her the softer side I’d always understood she was meant to have without having her roll over when challenged by her friends and teammates or depowering her. The key as I saw it and see was that where past creators had tried to make Wonder Woman more relatable in some way by “humanizing” her and attempted to bring her closer to somebody we felt like we knew, Phil made her empathetic by playing up that while the world may see her as a goddess, this can often make her feel more apart than embraced.

(This is about when I’ll get an e-mail from Phil explaining who this isn’t what he was going for but he can totally see where I’m coming from because he’s the nicest, most charitable person in comics)

She appreciated and loved the people who stood in awe of her, but felt a sad distance from the friends who had grown old while she remained young, the supposed peers who got weak-kneed around her, and the family she had reluctantly put at a distance so she could do her work. Phil’s Wonder Woman was powerful, regal and graceful, but she also had a loneliness in her eyes that made me feel like I knew her more than wearing a baseball hat ever would. This was a woman who could stare Lex Luthor in the eyes and not be intimidated, but didn’t know how to ask a normal man out on a date and was devastated when he said no (both scenes and several other terribly insightful ones occur in Wonder Woman #170, an issue narrated by Lois Lane who follows Diana around for a day and jots down observations, many of which I’ve cribbed for this article; I consider this essential reading for anybody who wants to tackle the character).

I would later read George Perez’s late 80’s reimagining of Wonder Woman—which came directly before the Messner-Loebs run—and see where Phil got a lot of his inspiration from. Perez brings Diana to Man’s World for the first time and grounds his story in her journey of discovery and her relationships with ordinary people. She is very much the foreign exchange student who is fascinated by everything around her and makes mistakes because she doesn’t understand, but she’s also still definitely Wonder Woman, able to stand up inspirationally to any challenge through strength and wits; just because she may be naïve doesn’t mean she’s not plenty clever. It was certainly a far cry from the Wonder Woman I remembered playing second fiddle to Captain Atom in my Justice League comics.

When Allan Heinberg launched a new Wonder Woman series back in 2006, I did a retrospective piece on the character speaking with him, Phil, Greg Rucka and others who had worked on her. It was an article about what was upcoming and what made Diana tick, but inevitably a lot of the familiar questions about her relative lack of commercial success against Superman and Batman came up. I explored the gender issue—character and fanbase—as well as the lack of a “Dark Knight Returns” (i.e. classic pivotal story), but also examined the other side of the coin: when Wonder Woman was a success. Two points came up specifically: Wonder Woman was a hugely popular character in the Golden Age, specifically during World War II, and that the Lynda Carter TV series remains a fondly remembered and cherished piece of Americana. While the character has been around over 70 years and had some great stories (and not so great stories) along the way, my conclusion was that her prominent place in the public consciousness came from images ingrained by those earliest tales and her multimedia portrayals in animation and live action TV shows.

I’m no expert on Wonder Woman, I’m just a guy who can kill an evening rambling 1500 words about her while waiting for the new episode of Happy Endings. But the take away I got from that article and really all my experiences reading the character is this: On Wonder Woman either go big or go home (coincidentally enough, a patented Phil Jimenez expression). She succeeded in the 40’s because perhaps even more so than Captain America she was over-the-top American propaganda, but also plain fun. She succeeded on TV because Lynda Carter embraced the role quirks and all. I love the work Perez, Jimenez, Morrison and others did because they enjoyed the fact that they were writing an Amazon princess who had a magic lasso and fought Greek gods; they didn’t feel like they needed to ground her in mundane trappings so readers wouldn’t be intimidated.

I’ve said it before, but it applies double to Wonder Woman: You don’t want to relate to every comic book character, sometimes you just want to read about them having crazy adventures. I’d much rather watch Wonder Woman hanging out with centaurs and fighting Joker with snake hair than serving fast food in a leather jacket.

My Five Favorite Wonder Woman Artists

Back during my Wizard days, somewhere in the neighborhood of 2006, I got assigned—or pitched, I can’t remember—a piece on Wonder Woman, a character I didn’t know all that much about aside from what everybody knows. The article was examining why a property as universally known as Wonder Woman had trouble sustaining the commercial success of contemporaries like Superman and Batman or even the burgeoning Green Lantern. I recall not being entirely happy with the finished product mainly because I found it to be a huge topic and couldn’t condense it into the space allotted, but I really enjoyed working on it because I got to chat with intelligent folks like Phil Jimenez, Greg Rucka and Allan Heinberg to get insight into the subject and learned a lot.

(NOTE: You can have a good conversation with Phil Jimenez about pretty much anything, but ask him about Wonder Woman and prepare to have your mind blown—also don’t plan to get anything else done that day)

The ultimate conclusion I reached on the question posed was that in many ways Wonder Woman had peaked early. More than any other character created in the 1940’s—including Captain America—she was very much of the era in terms of being designed with a specific purpose and thriving in a particular environment. There have been many great Wonder Woman stories told in print as well as through other mediums; in particular the classic Lynda Carter television series, but it was interesting to find how fondly remembered her Golden Age stories were by true fans of the character. With most properties, you find the 30’s and 40’s were a formative period but not so technically proficient; the original Wonder Woman stories have an undeniable energy to them and it also happened to be when the character achieved her greatest commercial success.

Basically, Wonder Woman got a reputation for being an equal point of DC’s “big three” triangle out of the gate and has been struggling to justify it ever since without the timelessness Superman and Batman seem to enjoy.

However, as I said, there are a lot of good Wonder Woman stories out there. In researching that article, I got to read quite a few. What I came to appreciate even more than the writing though was how challenging it must be for an artist to approach this icon and how impressive it is when they succeed. Created to be the female role model girls were lacking, Wonder Woman is the embodiment of feminism, but she’s also a beautiful woman in a form the idealizes—and often exaggerates—the female form. For an artist to walk the line between archetype and sex appeal with this character is an achievement that demands recognition.

Honorable Mention

HARRY G. PETER
The man who started it all deserves to be credited for a great design.

ADAM HUGHES
The most prolific Wonder Woman cover artist I can think of, and more or less defines the character for many, but I want to see interiors.

J.G. JONES
He can depict her as a beauty, as a fighter, and as a horror—see Final Crisis; one of the more versatile Wonder Woman artists for sure and he just misses the cut.

5. FRANK MILLER
Nobody draws Wonder Woman like Frank Miller. His bold choices when it comes to the costume or how he composes her face are undeniable. His Wonder Woman is not a lady you mess with. She’s got a primal energy that speaks to her status as a warrior princess. He’s number five only because I see too much of too many of his Sin City vixens in his take; if he had an extended run to make a mark on the character, he’d most likely be higher.

4. MIKE SEKOWSKY
As the designer of the bold “Mod Wonder Woman” redesign of the 1960’s, there’s no denying Mike Sekowsky has a major spot in the character’s visual history. Though I think it was definitely a good short term look rather than long term given the strength of the typical design, I look back at the “New Wonder Woman” as an era that featured very pretty art. Sekowsky had a knack for making something as simple as a white or black jumpsuit come alive through a strong use of basic shapes, dynamic inking and bold colors in the background to accentuate the figure. He drew great action sequences as well, really hurling Diana into the thick of it. Even before he took on Wonder Woman solo, Sekowsky spent years defining her look in Justice League of America and I would presume influenced many who came after.

3. DOUG MAHNKE
For a guy who made a lot of at least his early reputation on doing exaggerated extremes when it came to super heroes with The Mask, Major Bummer, etc., Doug Mahnke for my money draws a great Wonder Woman because he makes her look down to earth. When Mahnke was on JLA, I loved his mammoth Martian Manhunter and his ever-shifting Plastic Man, but I always thought the way he managed to make Diana look pretty in a relatable way as well as dangerous but not bloodthirsty was pretty neat. I dug the little things, like how he drew her with straight hair that matted down—as hair would when it’s fairly consistently drenched in sweat—as opposed to the wildly curly or silky smooth manes other artists give her. He gave her a nose that made her seem both unique and exotic; her eyes were a bit haunted. He was also able to balance her figure between sexy and sturdy; he used smooth, heavy lines to convey that this was a woman who had honed her body as a weapon, but possessed a more grounded strength as opposed to a bodybuilder’s physique. To describe Doug Mahnke’s Wonder Woman in a word, I’d go with “enchanting”—she’s a lady you admire from afar, but think twice before getting too close to.

2. PHIL JIMENEZ
I’ve encountered no bigger Wonder Woman fan than Phil Jimenez, and he brings the enthusiasm as well as the work ethic that comes with that distinction whenever he works on the character. He doesn’t draw every wisp of hair or every star on her costume because it’s his job, he does it because he loves it and he’s afraid to do her a disservice. During his run on Wonder Woman—notably as writer as well as artist—his Diana always seemed to tower over the rest of the cast—as she should—but as every bit the Amazon princess she is, not an awkward giant. He was—and is—excellent at framing the scene, her posture and her outline so as to emphasize her strength without detracting from her beauty. Phil doesn’t skimp when it comes to using as many lines as it takes to tell the story of the characters he’s drawing, but with Diana he also knew when to stop and let what he had on the page finish the job; he does a tremendous job of getting her face to “act,” whether it’s anguish over the loss of her mother, joy at the prospect of a new love, or rage en route to delivering an ass kicking. In his Wonder Woman stories—which are among my favorites—Phil seemed to delight in bringing in huge ensembles, be it dozens of Amazons or every female hero and villain in the DC Universe, but he never let the guests overwhelm his star; there was never a question that Diana was front and center and you believed she belonged alongside Superman and Batman. It was also Phil’s birthday yesterday—he only gets better with age!

1. GEORGE PEREZ
When I spoke at the beginning about the Wonder Woman stories I read while researching her that really made the character shine for me, I was talking about a few, but mainly George Perez’s run on her title. Rebooting her post-Crisis, Perez didn’t just make some costume tweaks or a change to the origin, he reinvented the entire world of Wonder Woman from the ground up. If you’ve followed George Perez’s work—and I have—you know among his many incredible qualities as an artist, perhaps nothing stands out so much as his unparalleled attention to detail. He will draw every piece of rubble in a fight scene; he will squeeze a hundred characters into a panel where most would put two. He brought this all-or-nothing approach to Wonder Woman as both writer and artist, mining every aspect of the character for story—warrior, teacher, ambassador, foreigner, daughter, hero—and sparing nothing when attacking her visually. His Diana was one who possessed statuesque and intimidating beauty, but a naive innocence in her eyes that made you trust her and want to protect the most powerful woman in the world. In battle, he made her formidable, with a grimace that you believed would scare a war god, but at peace he bestowed upon her a smile that said everything would be ok. My descriptions are lapsing into pretty sappy poetry here, but frankly that’s what Perez’s brilliance inspires in me as a fan. He also never settled to depict Wonder Woman in merely her iconic costume or to make a change and stick with it; he drew the heck out of the classic look and owned it, but he’d also create variation both subtle and bold as the occasion required, be it armor for war or a stately look for diplomacy. George Perez imbued every single character that appeared in his vast Wonder Woman cast with a singular energy and vitality, creating a diverse gallery of faces rather than an army of clones, but none shone brighter than Diana herself; nobody touches the master on this one.

Wizard Features That Never Were: Run Phil Jimenez's Career!

I feel like I say often "so and so is a really cool person" when referring to comic creators, but the lovely truth is I've had the good fortune to work with and befriend more excellent folks in this business than jerks.

That said, I hope it still has appropriate impact when I say Phil Jimenez is a really cool person. Seriously: really cool.

I have great relationships with a lot of creators, but Phil is a guy I can truly say is my friend. I've actually hung out at his apartment and grabbed dinner in the city with him, so that's the litmus test right there. Heck, my wife complains his Facebook feed takes over her page, so that's friendship.

It's always neat when I get to meet and in some cases get to know artists and writers whose work I remember from my childhood, and such is the case with Phil (and I don't feel bad saying that because the handsome devil doesn't age). I totally remember him as the guy who used to do the awesome fill-ins on Robin for Tom Grummett and who crammed a zillion people into that issue of Guy Gardner: Warrior where Guy opened the bar. Before I had any idea who George Perez or even Jack Kirby was, I thought Phil Jimenez had invented the crowd scene, and if he didn't, well, he packed so much detail into his that he may as well have.

While I can't quite remember how I first met Phil voice-to-voice and then face-to-face, I'm sure it was around Infinite Crisis time, as that was one of the first big deals I was intimately involved with covering for Wizard; most likely Geoff Johns made the introduction.

What I do remember was how taken aback I was by not only how nice Phil was, but how inquisitive he was and how he genuinely seemed to want your opinion on everything. He's for real a guy who just loves soaking up what everybody thinks about everything and applying it to what he does; nobody's take doesn't matter to him.

Phil is also ridiculously smart and knowledgable on just about everything, from comics to literature to architecture to theater to medical oddities (those last two comes from Wizard World Philadelphia 2006, during which Phil took me, Megan, Sam and TJ out to an amazing Italian lunch and was the life of the party, seamlessly switching from talking Wonder Woman and zombies with TJ to musicals with Megan; at the end of the meal, he recommended the girls check out an exhibit on medical oddities at the Mutter Museum because they were bored). He can regale you on pretty much any topic for as long as you've got to listen. I've had awesome conversations for hours with Phil on comics, but I'm pretty sure if I called him to talk European history he'd still manage to hold both our sides of the exchange.

It was around early 2007 or so that Phil called me very excited about an idea he had for a Wizard feature. Since Infinite Crisis had wrapped, he had been laying low a bit, recuperating from that epic, doing a gorgeous issue of 52 now and again and looking for his next project. Since he had not settled on said project quite yet, he told me he wanted his fans to do it for him.

As reality shows were (and are) all the rage, Phil wanted to run via Wizard one of his own after a fashion in which the readers helped him select what comic he should draw next over the course of several months. He had thought a lot about it, saying he could come up with a list of characters he was interested in, do up sketches, we publish them, then fans respond with which they liked best. Each month, we eliminate a project or two, and he does more sketched of the remaining characters; wash, rinse, repeat. There would also be an opportunity for folks to suggest their own ideas (though I think that would just be a courtesy; Phil wasn't going to completely surrender his professional destiny and end up drawing Amethyst or something...though as I type that I realize Phil would probably love to draw Amethyst).

I don't remember any of the characters from his initial list other than Green Arrow, who I believe was his example, so maybe he really was pulling for that one.

I loved the idea and also mentioned that we were trying to get some more heat on our web site at the time, so perhaps we could post more frequent updates there, including each sketch, selected reader feedback, polls, and maybe even some video with Phil. He was game for playing around with the format and finding what worked best.

My editors were also keen on the idea, we just had to cross some T's and dot some I's from a legal perspective to make sure it was all kosher. Unfortunately, when you're talking about something as ambitious as what we were, that kind of due diligence takes time, and of course Phil needed to work. Still, I thought we could make it work.

We couldn't.

Why not? Because somebody gave Phil a job first.

It's a shame there was so much manuevering necessary to get the pieces in place for this, because I think it not only would have been real fun not to mention awesome to see Phil drawing all these characters, but also because you'd have virtually a stone cold lock for a hit book off the "fan-selected" angle, I figured.

It didn't work out, but Phil is still awesome; he owes me a Nova sketch though.