#astro city

[rubenellis78-blog]

I made this a few weeks ago but I thought I’d share it here to see if anyone is interested. I’ve been playing a lot of Marvel Rivals lately and Cloak and Dagger have become my mains. I’ve always thought they were cool interesting characters and I’d always enjoy when they’d pop up in a book I was reading. I decided I’d do a drawing of them.

I was inspired by a cover for the comic Astro City (which is so underrated) because I thought the pose they were in and how the man fades into the darkness just fit Cloak and Dagger as characters, but as I looked into it I discovered the cover is inspired by a advertisement made by J.C Leyendecker (you can crucify me if you want too for not knowing J.C Leyendecker first. I like to make art but I’m not that knowledgeable about art history) and when I saw the original piece I was inspired by its use of negative space.

I made this piece in IbisPaint X. For Cloak and Dagger’s designs I mish mashed their looks from the 616 comics, ultimate universe, Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon and Marvel Rivals. Overall I’m happy with how it turned out.

[chernobog13]

Samaritan getting in a morning workout, by Alex Ross.

[artbyblastweave]

A thing I find interesting about The Samaritan from Astro City is that as the setting's resident Superman analogue he's synthesizing the classic-paragon tropes with the grimdark tropes that were in the groundwater at the time of his in-universe debut in the 1980s. Rather than coming from a dying world as an infant, he was a time traveler- a Kyle Reese/Cable sort of guy who was sent back in time from an apocalyptic future in a last ditch attempt to butterfly away the end of the world, only to unexpected gain superpowers in transit. His family was alive when he left but (as expected) got Back-to-the-futured out of existence once he'd stopped the bad future from coming to be, so he just stuck around in the present since he no longer knows anyone back home. And despite this being an intensely Dark Age superhero origin (see cable, Bishop, Days of Future Past, Rock of Ages, etc.) his arrival is, in-universe, what finally shut down the edgelord 1990s period for superheroes by finally introducing a head-and-shoulders top-dog Paragon into a setting that had never had his level of integrity and maturity married to his overwhelming level of power.

[polygon1993]

[coolcomicbookcovers]

[theimaginauts]

THE TARNISHED ANGEL

Art by ALEX ROSS

[nightblood]

I've been reading Irredeemable and Astro City. It's really interesting to compare the Plutonian and Samaritan.

The Plutonian, from what I've read so far, is driven by a need to be loved. Which means he can't let it go when there are people who don't love him, or when he feels they demand too much.

Meanwhile Samaritan is driven by fear that one incident could cause a tragic future, much like the one he came from. He devotes himself to saving people, despite it making his life miserable.

It's interesting because both of these guys have let the superhero life have a negative impact on their mental health. But the Plutonian was showing signs of snapping before he went full villain, while Samaritan seems to have just accepted that his life is what it is.

The Plutonian needed so badly for people to love him that when he can't get it he decides that people are ungrateful and deserve his wrath, while Samaritan just never wants to let a terrible future occur again, especially because he traded all his friends and family for that.

Samaritan does accept awards to mollify people, but I think he does it because 1) he genuinely cares about people and 2) it helps make his life easier too keep people happy. But I don't think he's the kind of person to care if some people don't love him because he's not a superhero to be loved. He just wants to help.

[ultrameganicolaokay]

Astro City #4 ‘Safeguards’ (1995) by Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson, Steve Buccellato and Electric Crayon. Edited by Ann Busiek. Cover by Alex Ross.

[ungoliantschilde]

some Prelim Pencils by Alex Ross.

[taylor-mccue]

I made a tiny arcade for my anime figure for #pride

[thebibliomancer]

11 Days of Comics! 12/11: Image Firsts: Astro City #1 (2022) “In Dreams”

Twelve out of eleven? Did I miscount again?

No. And how dare you doubt me. So rude. Having one more comic than expected is basically a tradition for these X Days of Comics, isn’t it? So I threw this comic on the bottom of the stack.

Let’s end stronger than Ford Fairlane, y’know?

Astro City is a comic I’ve always wanted to get into but trades have a tenuous relationship with being in print. The comic shop where I bought this reprint issue said they’d let me know if they get the omnibuses in stock and I haven’t heard back in months.

Some day, though. I like Kurt Busiek as a writer. 

The issue starts with Samaritan, sort of a Superman type guy, having a glorious dream about flying that gets rudely interrupted by an emergency alarm about a tidal wave threatening Manila.

Weird that a Superman type guy would be so annoyed that a flying dream was interrupted when he can just fly around whenever he wants. Except, the issue takes us through his day and he can’t. Fly around. Whenever he wants.

He goes from one crisis to another and he’s so fast that to Manila and back only got him seventeen seconds of flight time. At the end of the issue he tallies up the total amount of time in the air and thinks that 56 seconds is the best he’s had in months.

Between various crises, he also has to show his face at his civilian job - proofreader for the Astro City Rocket. Where he does his proofreading behind a locked office door because he actually sneaks out to deal with more crises while an alien computer does his job for him AND tells him where all the crises are.

He stops in to meet with the Honor Guard - the Justice League-ish team to his Superman-ish guy - to talk shop and compare notes and go fight a bank robbery. 

He has to attend an awards ceremony with the Firefighter’s Association, to accept an award for being just a great guy. Samaritan would love to skip the award ceremony but snubbing these kinds of events just offended people so he makes the time because it just makes it easier to superhero if people don’t think you think you’re better than them. (And he still sneaks out during the ceremony twice to deal with more crises).

You get the idea. From one thing to another all day. Seconds or fractions of seconds of flight time from place to place.

After everything, he just collapses into bed and instantly passes out. And off into another flying dream he goes.

The comic is a deconstruction and reconstruction of superhero tropes, using expies of popular characters to examine those tropes. This one, obviously, looks at how harried someone with Superman’s abilities and desire to protect as many lives as possible would be.

The Superman comics have played with him try to be this active in saving people but without being able to live his civilian life even a little, I think he burned out pretty quickly.

Anyway, teal deer, this issue of Astro City is good, what I’ve heard about other parts of the series are fascinating, and I’d like to read more.

With that, another X Days of Comics has come to an end. I hope someone enjoyed this all.

[chernobog13]

Samaritan from Kurt Busiek's Astro City by Steve Rude.

[artbyblastweave]

I will say that Astro City does pretty comprehensively thread the needle that's been under discussion thus far about the risk of being being so aware of the mechanics of genre that you destroy your ability to just enjoy the thing. Admittedly it's still pretty inherently lost in the genre-awareness sauce but not in a way that feeds my rapidly metastasizing conviction that the world is a grim abattoir for the human soul. It can be done. It can be done

[magical-grrrl-mavis]

Thinking about the queer ally living doll superhero from Astro City

[coolcomicbookcovers]

[maswartz]

I love these kinds of characters, the ones who have the powers but don't want to be a hero or villain. They just want to live their lives.