Fantastic Comics #24/The Next Issue Project #1

Fantastic Comics #24/The Next Issue Project #1 (Image Comics)
By Erik Larsen and many, many others

Here’s The Next Issue Project, in a nutshell: back in the Golden Age, there were a lot of comic publishers that went out of business and allowed the copyrights and trademarks of their stable of comics to lapse. Those books are now in public domain, and Erik Larsen is bringing them back. Together with an impressive (both in quantity and in talent) stable of writers and artists, they’re taking defunct comics and publishing, literally, the “Next Issue,” including the old characters in new stories. Fantastic Comics #24 starts off with a new tale of Samson and his young ward David, who is under scrutiny by child protective services. Time-traveler Flip Falcon winds up creating the universe, while Space Smith wards off another nasty alien invasion. Fred Hembeck delivers a hysterical “Dr. Fiend” strip, while Mike Allred and Joe Keatinge resurrect the wizard Stardust in a surreal tale that could have fallen right out of Allred’s own Madman series. Some creators went for a full-blown Golden Age homage (such as the Captain Kidd story), while others used the original characters in a more modern tale. Still others emulated the Golden Age style, but (like Larsen with Samson) added a story element that is distinctively 21st-century. There’s even a two-page prose story by B. Clayton Moore. The book is Golden Age in almost every aspect, right down to the size (considerably larger than a modern comic) and the throwback ads throughout the book. The only things separating the book from a true GA comic are the much higher paper quality and, with it, much higher price. (Higher for the Golden Age, that is — $5.99 for an oversized 64-page comic isn’t bad at all these days). Like any anthology, some stories are considerably better than others, with Samson and Stardust being the best in the comic. The project as a whole is fascinating, though, and definitely worth looking into for anyone interested in the history of comics.
Rating: 8/10