Keeping the World Strange: A Planetary Guide

by Cody Walker, Timothy Callahan, Ean Moody (Cover)

A snowflake that describes the multiverse. A team of archaeologists with a mystery benefactor. A century of pulp heroes, atomic ants, kung-fu ghosts, and ships that sail between universes. Villains who hide these wonders from a world they have sold to an unfathomable alien intelligence. And the man, born with the 20th century, who alone can save the world… and his lost friend.

These are the elements of PLANETARY. In telling its story, creators Warren Ellis and John Cassaday uncovered the secret history of the super-hero genre and helped point towards its future, as well as — just perhaps — our own.

KEEPING THE WORLD STRANGE: A PLANETARY GUIDE excavates all of this, as well as future studies, revisionism, decompression, whether the characters are proactive or reactive, and other topics. This book offers an archaeology of the archaeologists, and its essays allow us to see the snowflake-like structure of the series from new angles. PLANETARY lives and grows in these pages.

From Sequart Research & Literacy Organization. More info at http://Sequart.org

Genres: Nonfiction, Comics, Superheroes, Writing

181 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 28, 2011

Reviews

[Lloyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

While one would have hoped for an intricate and vivid dissection of the comic books series "Planetary" in this book, like the ones Sequart has produced about past works, this one was still rather interesting.

Essays from a number of voices examine all sorts of aspects of Warren Ellis' masterpiece, touching on some that even repeat readers may have never even considered.

A great companion to an absolutely stellar work of sequential art and one that I'd recommend to ANY fan of "Planetary".

[R J Royer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an interesting look at not only the series known as Planetary but also at the comic book genre in general. It made me think about comics in ways I never had before and pointed out many of the philosophical differences that I never saw. I now have a deeper appreciation for comics and one series in particular.

Over all I wish I could have found more issues of the comic than I did when it was running and now I think I may have to go and look for the issues I missed.

[David Macpherson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent enough critical study of the Planetary comic series. As in a lot of criticism, some of the writers are forcing their theories on work that doesn't support them, but for the most part, I liked the series Planetary, I liked reading works about it, even if they were a tad twee and self important

[Kelly Knapp · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have only become an aficionado of Planetary recently. The comics ran from the early 2000s to 2009 as a bimonthly consisting of a total of 27 issues. Rather than being a superhero comic, this is about finding the secret history of everything super-hero. One of its greatest concepts is the multiverse, described as "a theoretical snowflake existing in 196,833 dimensional space.”

This book, Keeping the World Strange: A Planetary Guide, is a gallimaufry of articles written by other aficionados about this unique endeavor into archeology. Each article looks into a specific aspect of the world created in Planetary allowing the reader access to its hidden depths and giving a new look into the future of comics.

I think my favorite is written by writer and podcaster, Ross Payton. He looks at the elements from Planetary that do not fit into society, both monster and misunderstood hero. (p.95) Payton looks at the character and describes the archetype from which each came. I had never looked at Comics this way before. Many readers have studied or looked for the archetypes in general literature, but I had not personally looked at comics from that point of view, seeing them primarily as entertainment, not as having insight into the human condition or comparing them to great works from the past. While I noticed that Planetary tweaked the characters (The HULK never returns to human form), I did not really realize how the characters were outcaste.

I am a product of the 1960’s -1989 televised super-hero, Superman worked side-by-side with the Comissioner, Superman worked with Lois Lane on friendly terms, and the Hulk was only chased by one frightened reporter, not the military. The shows’ creators purposefully mainstreamed them.
Planetary returned them to the fringes, while still trying to show us that it was their actions by which they should be judged. Payton expresses this distinction in his article.

[Neal · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a collection of essays about Warren Ellis' and John Cassady's graphic novel series, Planetary. The essays are of varying quality, with some only skimming the surface of the series, and others getting pretty in-depth into the underpinnings of the series, what makes it tick, and its place in comics history and relation to other graphic novels. I'd recommend it for big Planetary fans - if you haven't read Planetary, or didn't love it, there's no need to read this.

[thistlepong · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this more than I did. There were some reasonably coherent pieces and even one that took a few chances and really went somewhere. A lot of text was spent on the three crossover issues, the split between the first and second "halves" of the story, and the inconsistent release schedule. There's little new for a Planetary fan, here. And there's nothing to engage a new reader.

[Alex Hern · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some great essays, one terrible one. The best ones weren't about Planetary so much as comics in general, and I have to say, one of the things I'd have really liked - a reference guide - was absent. Ah well.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting ideas, but ultimately not worth the wait nor the (too high) price

[Jess · Rating 2 out of 5]

THis book looks like it will be a GOODREAD from GOODREADS.

[Daniel Ace · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a good collection of essays to help you get a sense of the Planetary comic series.

[Terry Quirke · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting set of essays about the excellent comic book series Planetary, makes you think even more on the various ideas raised in the series run.