Andrew Seiple's Blog: Transmissions From the Teslaverse - Posts Tagged "astro-city"

Ever read Astro City? You should. If you at all like comics or the superhero genre, it's a fascinating change of pace.

It's the work of a very good author named Kurt Busiek, illustrated by Brent Anderson and Alex Ross. It was a very big influence on the Teslaverse, and it's still being published today.

The stories are good, for the most part. Very good! They take a lot of the tropes and run with them, think them out to some logical or fun extremes, and go from there. The genre is solidly silver age, with a few dips up into the modern spectrum, and it's a "kitchen-sink" setting, with everything from aliens to magic to superscience, and the heroes are across the board. There's a ton of familiar archetypes in there, yeah, but there's also androids shaped like human-sized Barbie dolls, living cartoon characters, and more.

The impressive thing, however, is that it tends to focus on character studies, rather than straight-up action. Oh, it's got some of that, don't get me wrong, but every arc gives you a perspective on a new character, or strong development for an old one. You don't just see the characters yelling banter and slinging punches, you get to see them in their day-to-day, picking up groceries, celebrating birthdays, and just generally living their slices-of-life.

It works.

It works really damn well.

It helps that it's an unabashedly positive comic, where the good guys nearly always win in the long-run, albeit at a cost sometimes. It evokes the silver age throughout, with a ton of affectionate callbacks and explanations for otherwise goofy things. It even does "Cosmic" well, and that's no easy thing. Going cosmic too early has hurt many a series, and I'll get into that in a later post. But Astro City managed it, and that's the important thing.

When I decided to put together the Teslaverse, I took much from Astro City's example. They didn't start with origins, or a dawn of heroes situation, or anything like that. Kurt just showed us, panel by panel, the broad strokes of a world which had grown up and grown old with heroes, and used each issue to peek a little more into a different part of the world.

I'm no Kurt Busiek. Dude's got chops. It'll take me years or more to get catch up to him, if I do.

But I think that parts of his method can be duplicated, for different effect, and I'm thankful to him for showing me part of the way.

Also for Steeljack. Tarnished Angel ROCKED.

But mostly for showing me the way.