Greek Street Tragedy

In a previous post I talked about Peter Milligan's modern Greek tragedy pastiche, Greek Street, which only lasted 16 issues. I had the first 6 issues bought but, for reasons I can no longer remember (either boredom or money) I stopped picking them up every month. Even though I was ridiculously excited to see a new Milligan series I just didn't connect enough to keep up with it.

Flash forward a bit and I'm grabbing the TPB at my library figuring, 'Meh, I'll give it another shot. Read it in one sitting'. Which I did, and I really enjoyed it the second time around. Now I wanted to pick up where I left off but, alas, I was too late to pick up the missing issues. They were long gone from the shelves of the stores I frequent. What I didn't know, however, that one of the stores did have copies, just not on the shelves. They were sitting in their dollar bins and I discovered them one morning while I was browsing on a day off.

I now have issues 8-13 (with issue 8 being in rough shape, but it's the only one available, so...) so that leaves 7, and 14-16 that I still need to find somewhere and pick up. Still, it's a much better position than I was in previously. Also, for the cherry on top of the story, I was at yet another LCS and I was looking for issues of The Unwritten when I inadvertently unearthed a bunch of issues of Greek Street which got the comic book archaeologist in me all giddy. Unfortunately, I didn't have the money on me to grab what they had but I'll be returning soon to try and fill in the blanks.

So, in the end, my Greek Street tragedy may have a happy ending after all.

αντίο

mike

Reading Some Greek Street

Typical that just before I decided that I did, indeed, enjoy Peter Milligan's latest creator-owned offering, Greek Street, I find out that it has been cancelled as of its 16th issue. Not sure how long ago that was but it's been a bit. I seem to have a history of being attached in some way to books that don't survive. I'm a walking, talking, cancelled comics cavalcade, you might say.

Anyway, I grabbed the first collected edition of GS at my local library thinking, "I'm going to give this book another chance", and found myself really enjoying the heck out of it the second time around. I'm still not overly familiar with the Greek tragedies that the stories and characters are based on, but the stories in the first 5 or 6 issues was compelling enough for me to ignore that fact. Add to that the beautiful artwork of Davide Gianfelice and you have a comic book that was definitely unappreciated in its time. From what I've read in interviews with Milligan, he really hoped this would be another long-term project and he had a lot of stories to tell.

As it is, there are 16 issues of the series and I have yet to read 10 or 11 of them, so at least I have that to look forward to. I'm also able to continue enjoying Milligan's writing over on John Constantine: Hellblazer, so it's not like I'll be going without his particular brand of storytelling month in and month out.

I do recommend checking out Greek Street, though, if you haven't already. It's definitely not for everyone, but it may tickle your fancy.

Later.

mike

Image Worth a Thousand Words

This image and cover makes me ridiculously happy.

mike

Kathy F***ing George!?!

So, I'm sitting on the crapper reading the latest issue of John Constantine: Hellblazer - which may be more information than you need to know but is a disturbingly apropos place to have been reading it - when I get to a part near the end where John is stumbling through some public bathroom in Hell and comes across two individuals. The first is a red-headed, grungy looking, bad-mofo kind of guy and he is sitting next to an attractive, sad looking girl with dark black hair. Upon seeing them, John mutters, "Kathy? Kathy...George?"

WTF!!!!!

At that precise moment, I barked with one of those surprised but happy one note laughs - "Hwah!" - which I'm sure must have had the poor wife thinking I'd dropped something terrible or torn something somewhere. Once my business was done and hands were washed and all that, I ran to my wife who was in our room and I held the page in front of her and said, "Look at this page until you see it. You'll know what it is." She stared at it for about a minute and a half when a smile, big and wide, crept across her freckled face.

If you don't know who Kathy George is, Peter Milligan, the current writer of Hellblazer blazed his trail in American comics by writing a weird little mature readers title called Shade the Changing Man (of which both the wife and I possess complete runs). It ended years and years ago but it was one of my favourite comic series of all time and Kathy was one of the main characters, along with Rac Shade and another female character named Lenny. To have her show up again, in any capacity and after reading her dialogue where she says, "You can't help me. Not now. Not yet..." it sounds like we will be seeing the cast of Shade yet again, which is just a real mind-blower. So completely unexpected, although not entirely unprecedented.

There's actually a John Constantine connection with these guys since the four actually met during a cossover where they are sent back in time and have to deal with some puritans and Shade is turning into a tree and Lenny and Kathy are going to be hung as witches. John takes a particular shine to Kathy, as most people who meet her do, and it was something left unresolved at the end of the storyline, if I'm not mistaken. Clearly Milligan never forgot and I have every confidence that it will have something to do with where that call-out is going to lead in future issues of Hellblazer.

The prospect of seeing these characters again has me very excited. I never thought I would see them again. If ever there was a way to hook me in to a series so thoroughly that I wouldn't dare drop it so long as a single particular writer was guiding the destiny of said book, Milligan has found it.

I will be waiting with bated breath.

Later!

mike