Matthew Jackson

Here we are, beginning my quest to discipline and hone the way I read and think about comics. This would normally be the part where I give you a little bit of my comics reading background - an origin story, if you will - but that just doesn’t seem necessary. Long story short, though: I’ve been reading comics for about a decade, though I’ve often been without the money to pursue it seriously. I’ve hit many of the key points, but I want to dig deeper, and so I’ve begun a kind of journal to help me do that. 

So, we begin with one of the most acclaimed superhero runs of the 1990s: the first issue of Mark Waid’s run on The Flash.

Flash #62 (May, 1992)

Writer: Mark Waid

Penciller: Greg LaRocque

Inker: Jose Marzan, Jr.

Colorist: Glenn Whitmore

Letterer: Tim Harkins

We’re starting off with a bit of an easy one for me, as I’ve read this particular comic about five times (three times in the last two days). It’s easily one of the best first issues of a run I’ve ever read, and it includes what is, for me, one of the best opening sequences of any superhero comic. Greg LaRocque’s one-panel page of Wally West barreling toward us at full speed the minute you open the book is a classic Flash moment.

I said that there would be no predictable way in which I approached these comics when I started this thing, so while I will say that I dig the art (right down to the lettering and coloring) in this issue, what I really want to talk about is Waid, because this is a textbook issue. Seriously, he knew exactly how to begin, and he nailed every page of this thing. 

Flash #62 is the first issue of the “Born to Run” storyline, part of a larger branding as FLASH: YEAR ONE, an attempt to revisit the origin story of Wally West, the third Flash (and quite possibly the best Flash). So it’s not just another issue of a comic. It’s a return to Wally West’s origin, the story of how he became first Kid Flash and then The Flash. Waid is keenly aware of these events. He’s famous for his continuity expertise, but he’s also famous for using old details of a character’s life in new ways. So, rather than retell Wally’s origin story in a straightforward (and possibly ultimately boring) way, he structures it as a frame story in which an adult Wally looks back on how he became the reigning Fastest Man Alive.

The opening sequence I was talking about earlier features Wally trying to find a soon-to-explode bomb in a massive airport, and it’s a textbook example of how to place a superhero in the midst of an absolute action moment while still telling us so much about him. The structure of these pages - which we have both Waid and LaRocque to thank for - is always, always, always conveying motion, and Waid’s monologue from inside Wally’s head is perfect. It’s perfect because he fills it with plot points but also constantly references just who Wally is. The rest of the issue is just like that.

Even as we find ourselves taking a trip down Memory Lane with Wally to the time he first met his aunt Iris’ boyfriend - the then-Flash, Barry Allen - we keep getting clues about who Wally is. He fidgets when his grandfather drives too slow. He’s starving after a particularly exhausting bout of Running Really Damn Fast (that might be my favorite little insight into Flash’s powers in this issue), he tells himself to “put it in neutral” when he feels like he’s thinking too much. Though the story is masterfully structured, it’s these things that are the real gems. These are the things that made Mark Waid a great Flash writer, and Wally West a great character. 

I’ve been thinking a good bit about comics lately. I mean, I’m always thinking about comics, but these days I’m feeling like I could do better, like I want to dig into this medium that I love and not just see more, but see deeper. I want to spend more time following the evolution of writers and artists, seeing how characters changed from the way we knew them 20 years ago (or 70 years ago) to the way we know them now. I want to understand the way these things are built in a more meaningful way, from individual panels all the way up to big godalmighty crazy event books. I want to at least attempt to feel like a comic book expert instead of just saying I am and feeling like it’s half a lie (Note: I probably am somewhat of an expert, but compared to someone like, say, Chris Sims, I look like a sleepy-eyed novice.).

The point is this: I would like to refocus and discipline my comics reading in an effort to get closer to the medium and fill some of the many gaps in my decade or so of semi-immersion in this field. I would like to not only change the way I read comics, but the way I think about them. So, to that end, I’m going to start up a daily (or at least several times weekly) comics journal. Every day I’ll stop in here and record my thoughts on a single issue (or more if I feel like it) of a comic book, or a single graphic novel, or a big event. There likely won’t be a pattern. One day it might be a Flash comic. Another day it might be a Matt Kindt graphic novel, followed closely by a series of Will Eisner strips. I might write about the dialogue, or the art, or both. I might write about the big events of that particular book, or its impact, or I might just say it was neat. 

The point here is to keep track of my reading and log it in a way that makes me feel like I should keep reading, yes, but it’s also to train myself to think critically about every comic book I read. 

And yes, have fun and likely tell some jokes too, because this is me I’m talking about.

So, if you want to read me blathering about comics, keep checking back here. This As-Yet-Untitled Journal Thingy will kick off soon.