A New Way Of Looking At It

Comic books are not immune to fads. Just like movies, television and books, comics can have that “been there, done that” feel. Comics have had two distinct phases over the last 20 years. There was a dark and gritty phase, typified by Watchmen and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, which gave way to a conspiracy phase and notable books such as The Invisibles and Y: The Last Man.

Now I sense a new phase in comics, one where everything is made over new. Marvel has its Heroic Age and DC has Brightest Day. My two current favorite comic books (other than Pretty Vacant) have a makeover feel as well: DC’s Batman and Robin (with the original Robin, Dick Grayson, as the current Dark Knight) and Dark Horse’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight (a full television season in a comic book format).

My previous comic book series before Pretty Vacant was The New G.A.R.D.E., a superhero comic which could be summed up as “Yesterday’s heroes showing today’s world what it truly takes to be a hero.” It was my best selling series, but I ended the comic on issue four as I felt I had nothing more to say.

Thankfully my next project came quickly. When I originally pitched Pretty Vacant, I was told how the concept was very original. I will admit that I don’t see many mad-scientist-corporation-plastinates-exceptional-woman-for-making-mannequins stories out there. Yet what makes PV original is how I combined the damsel-in-distress thriller with an old fashioned horror movie and held it together with help from eurospy flicks. Using different genres in different ways gave me my “original” concept.

Take current and future movies based on Marvel Comics characters. "Iron Man" has science fiction, "Thor" will have mythic fantasy and "Captain America" will be a war movie. All three superhero movies cross into different genres! As with "Iron Man", there is hope that the other two movies will make the familiar seem new.

Change is constant. Comics have changed, with even my beloved Comic-Con no longer really about comic books anymore. For better or worse, change is there. We can moan about it or keep going. With that in mind, I will write my next Pretty Vacant story!