Jim Owsley and Christopher Priest

I was a big Conan fan in the 80s. John Buscema's art always killed me...just beautiful, amazing renderings. I don't think I paid as much attention to the writing, but it looks like most of what I read at the time was written by Michael Fleisher or Roy Thomas. Some of it still holds up pretty well, but not all of it. I am still a huge John Buscema fan but some of Roy Thomas' writing has not stood the test of time very well, in my humble opinion. So browsing through the 50 cent bins a little bit ago I found some stuff I had completely forgotten about, towards the end of the time when I collected Conan-- a great run with a new team: Jim Owsley writing, and Val Semeiks and Geoff Isherwood doing the art. Looking through them I remembered that this was good stuff, and still is. Kind of like a Conan "reboot"-- a bunch of new characters, really nice artwork, and much more interesting stories that continue over several issues. And I remembered the name Jim Owsley from back in the day but can't recall precisely where else I read his work. Mental note made though.

Now, stay with me for a minute as we change course. Black Panther has long been been a favorite character of mine. In my teens I read the classic stuff-- Jungle Action, the Kirby series, etc.. But recent research keeps pointing to Christopher Priest's run in the late 90s/early 2000s as something to check out. My interest is piqued. I've never read these. So I Google Christopher Priest and, holy cow...Priest and Jim Owsley are the same person. What? This blew my mind. Apparently he changed his name sometime in the 90s. I'm sure this is old news to some of you, but I had no idea.

I also see that he wrote the last batch of Power Man & Iron Fist issues, which suddenly makes total sense. PM & IF was another book I read quite a bit of, which now seems pretty spotty at best, upon revisiting it. However, I distinctly remember that the last run of issues right up until the finale was quite good.

Priest's website is really interesting...starting with his "Why I Stopped Writing Comics." Some really cool insights into Marvel, the characters, the race issue (he's African American). And he talks specifically about his runs on Conan, BP, and PM & IF, among others. I find it fascinating. The site is a bit hard to navigate, but you can get to a lot of the good stuff from here.

New Avengers...and New to Comic Books Again

Thanks to my friend Stu and his terrific Earth 603 Comic Book Podcast, I'm fully on board again. It's been a while, but there's still some familiarity there. I practically grew up on Marvel Comics in the 80s. Well, some independent stuff too, but I was mostly a Marvel guy. It seems so much has changed in the last 25-30 years, it's hard to know where to dive in.

On the Earth 603 podcast, the guys routinely praise Marvel's New Avengers, so that's exactly what I picked up at the comic book store this weekend. Which brings me to another old friend, The Million Year Picnic in Cambridge, MA. Back in the day (yes, I really did just use that phrase), I visited MYP on a regular basis to get my fix. And in some ways it hasn't changed much, except for the fact that they've downsized a bit. They used to occupy two spaces directly across from each other-- one had the new comics, and the other housed all the back issues. So space is a bit more cramped now that they've had to give up the back issue room and put everything in one place. But they still have an amazing selection and the place sort of feels like it always did, which is a good thing.

So...I'm in Million Year Picnic, and there's New Avengers. I grab issues 15 and 16. Flipping through, I'm immediately impressed with the art and the writing. This is a seriously sophisticated book. Nothing like the Avengers I read in the 80s. In fact, after taking these home and reading them fully, they are complex enough that I can't fully wrap my head around what's going on...but that's okay. This is really interesting. Jonathan Hickman's writing is thought-provoking and mature. This is epic stuff. I am sucked in!