Cyclops

I am sitting on the filing cabinet in the back room of my house, Snake Computer purrs on the windowsill beside me, and my homemade fries are cooking in the oven. I spent this afternoon working on the redo of Captain Adventure Vs Crack Cocaine, hoping to hand out copies at the comic book event that Eden and I are going to at the end of September.

When I think about giving out my work to people that could effect my comic book career, it makes me consider my interpretation of the art form more seriously. I have to decide what I think is important about a comic book, and how I express those ideas with my own stories.

I was reading Astonishing X-Men 22 today, trying to pick out those ideas. It is the comic that I most look forward to. Whedon and Cassiday have made it the best interpretation of the X-Men that I’ve ever read. What they do so well is manage a dense 50 year history, take it seriously, and present well know characters as more believable than they have been before.



Looking at the last page: Cyclops is dying, floating in space, leaving his trusted family of teammates to protect the world without his guidance. His face is turning blue as he recalls his introduction to Jean Grey, the woman that he has spent more than a lifetime loving. The extreme nature of a super hero , and his extraordinary past, being taken seriously. In the shoes of the typical tight-assed, stereotyped leader of the X-Men, we have the representation of a real person.

Astonishing’s creative team accepts the common silliness that surrounds their protagonists. They make an extra reach to use the medium as an art form, rather than a hyperactive soup opera. That is a stretch than is important for me and my work. To use the form to express something about humans, and about life, but to do so while embracing the sometimes extreme conventions of comic books.

Captain Adventure is a reflection of me. His drug use and rampage representing my own mistakes, and how they have hurt people. The adventurous super hero comics created in the 1930s have grown to be strong vehicles for artist to say something about their lives.