The Best of Milligan & McCarthy

Required Reading!

  On September 11th, Dark Horse Books released the long awaited collection of classic collaborations from the creative team of Peter Milligan and Brendan McCarthy. Branded THE BEST OF MILLIGAN & MCCARTHY, and produced under the Dark Horse Originals imprint for great creators and original visions, this omnibus remasters stories that stretch back as far as 1978's The Electric Hoax comic strip from UK music paper Sounds. This deluxe hardcover contains the complete Paradax, Rogan Gosh, and Strange Days–including not just Freakwave, but all the interstitial strips and Eclipse titles that predate Vertigo like Mirkin the Mystic and the supplements to the Paradax Remix. One of the most indisputably unnerving sequential tales of all time, Skin, is here complete as well. So are Summer of Love and Sooner or Later, which have been whispered rumors to most American comics enthusiasts until now. At only $24.95 it's quite a bargain, too.

The really wonderful thing about this collection is the succession of reminiscences that precedes each story, which helps to give context to the content. Without it, the sheer importance of the work might be lost on the masses. This was groundbreaking stuff, and actually would still be groundbreaking if it were all brand new. Most of the work produced in American comics in the late 1990s and forward owes a great debt to the work of these two Brits, whose bravery was seldom rewarded as much as those who followed. Milligan & McCarthy weren't just contemporaries of Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison, they were influencers.

Not for sale, so don't even ask!

Included, perhaps, as a preview of an omnibus to come, are several covers and interior pages from their Shade, The Changing Man reboot, too. Long overlooked, this was an engrossing, dramatic series that delivered on every level in issue after issue as it got less and less commercial, losing many an award to the predominantly anthologized Sandman. And the page with which they chose to end this tome just happens to be the color version of the page I've had in my own collection since April 1992.  It is the page that–more than any other, inspired the Pop Sequentialism exhibition and catalog, and therefore this very blog. The grounded surrealism of Brendan's illustrations and the deep melancholy of Pete's words embodied pop in the new context of narrative art. As a lifelong collector of original comic art, I've at one time or another owned multiple Jack Kirby, Neil Adams, Simon Bisley, and Todd McFarlane pages that I had to let go for one reason or another, but I kept my Shade page. 



I am greatly honored to be included in this omnibus, as Brendan saw fit to run a quote from me on the back cover, alongside incredibly important people like Gorillaz & Tank Girl creator Jamie Hewlett, Vertigo Editor Karen Berger, and Marvel editor in chief Alex Alonso. I have been lucky enough to meet my idols on a handful of occasions, and by some miracle of fate I now call some of them colleagues and some of them friends. I am humbled by Brendan's friendship and proud to have presented his work in a gallery setting more than once. Both of the men presented in this book are a credit to the industry they choose as their own, and both continue to produce mature, relevant work that defies classification even within their genre assignments. So don't be surprised if THE BEST OF MILLIGAN & MCCARTHY turns out to be only Volume One...

Resurrecting Immortality

Inevitably, even the most die-hard comic fans stop buying them. They get married, have kids, move far away or into smaller, shared spaces, or get downsized, sick or otherwise preoccupied and let go of their collections. I have done this, myself, on several occasions. But after each move, separation, career change and spiritual cleansing there is always a handful of comics I just can't let go and Brendan McCarthy’s art has been in most of them. An original, four-way-folded Revolver promo poster has survived a dozen relocations for twenty years, and at some point I made the conscious decision to trash almost every photograph from my childhood, but kept several beat-up issues of the British punk newspaper SOUNDS because of the Electrick Hoax comics in them. I lost my social security card ages ago, but I know that my Skin graphic novel, the disturbing tale of a thalidomide baby cum angry adolescent skinhead, is between my high school yearbook and the manuscript of my first novel. 

Why? Well, for one, Brendan McCarthy is a genius.

Most of the innovations in comicdom’s past twenty-five years can be directly traced to his and writer Peter Milligan’s experimental forays into sequential storytelling, which stretch back to the late 1970s. The first person to suggest that superhero costumes were silly and toss a jacket on them, McCarthy has also been far ahead of the curve on superhero sexuality and post-modern narrative devices. McCarthy not only incorporated dadaic psychedelia and surrealism before it was cool, he helped design (and redesign) many of the characters that ushered those concepts into the mainstream. Brendan’s groundbreaking work at 2000 AD, Crisis, and Revolver paved the way for DC’s Vertigo imprint by either influencing, introducing or collaborating with the writers who helped launch it. His penchant for over-the-top (albeit, tongue-in-cheek) excess was also humorlessly co-opted by Image Comics, but we won’t blame him for that.

As important and as often overlooked as Steve Ditko was before him, Brendan McCarthy is a revolutionary. He’s an innovator’s innovator. He’s a modern day Jim Steranko with a better sense of story. He’s a visionary stylist who hasn’t sacrificed awareness for aesthetics. He’s exceptional but unassuming.

A collected volume of Brendan’s long out-of-print comics is not just way overdue; it’s essential.

I’m proud to confess that Brendan McCarthy’s work has highlighted some of the most pivotal events of my own, actual life. When I kissed my very first girlfriend at the age of thirteen, I had a copy of Strange Days #1 in my left hand. For the life of me as I write this I can’t remember that girl’s name, but I remember the comic and how awkward it was holding onto it and her, too; trying not to roll it up or drop it, but ultimately losing on both counts–losing on three, technically, if we include the girl.

When I was nineteen and jobless, fresh to Los Angeles from the northern Boston suburbs, I sold my first comic book collection to a shop sporting a sun-faded Rogan Gosh poster (“He’s Hot, He’s Hindu… In Revolver!”). I told the owner I’d price all ten boxes and run his sports card operation if he gave me a job, which he did. That shop’s manager was a sharp Chilean named Gaston Dominguez who shared my interest in dystopian British comic strips and grindcore. We became best pals, roommates, and I even helped physically build his fledgling shop. Meltdown Comics and Collectibles was at least partially financed by our joint, original comic book art sales–including most of the 25 pages of Shade the Changing Man #22. I say “most,” because I kept page 24, the full, psychedelic splash, which was also the first interior page featured in my Pop Sequentialism exhibit and book. To me it's the epitome of the British New Wave influence on modern comics: great style and great substance.

Peter Milligan’s text, “What’s left when you’ve left too soon,” resonates with greater poignancy as I grow older. McCarthy integrated the text as pop art, perhaps as a gentle reminder that we are only immortal for a limited time, but our work lives on.

When I curated my first massive, multi-artist exhibition as director of La Luz de Jesus Gallery I had the pleasure of including not one, but two Brendan McCarthy pastel drawings. It was at a later incarnation of that same show that I met my wife. I don’t think these events are unrelated. There is a string that runs through the entire body of Brendan’s work that draws people to it. Those people respond and bring something additional to the narrative, which manifests in creative ways. For evidence, one need look no further than the work of Grant Morrison, whose vast canon of meta-fiction is in many ways an extension of Milligan & McCarthy’s work on Paradax. It’s serious fun, and I mean that nonironically: it’s both intelligent and satirical, but above all, the work is significant. Dark Horse recently announced that they plan to release an omnibus including all of Brendan McCarthy’s work with writer Peter Milligan. This will preserve for future generations, one of comics’ all-time, greatest collaborations.


Hopefully that's what's left when we've all left too soon.

A Clean Break (of sorts)

Since I was thirteen years old I have been what you might term a "serious" comic collector. I had previously purchased the occasional comic from the newsstand, but after discovering specialty shops (after an episode of Simon & Simon–documented here) I took up the hobby in earnest.

In the twenty-eight years or so since, I have accumulated and sold many collections. My first collection of ten or so long boxes I sold to the shop that became my first employer after moving to California. The owner figured that no one would be able to price and highlight my collection better than me, so he hired me to do that and run his sport card department. It featured at least 20 books valued at over $300 each, and this was in 1991. I had a near complete run X-Men/Uncanny X-Men, and all the important Bronze Age first appearance and origin issues like Hulk #180-182, Amazing Spider-Man #127 and more. He gave me $3,000 and a job.

While employed there, I bought a crucial set of key and classic Marvel and DC Silver age books including the Neal Adams Green Lantern/Green Arrow series,  complete runs of Tales of Suspense, Journey Into Mystery, Avengers and Fantastic Four. I donated that collection along with a newly acquired run of Uncanny X-Men (Giant Size #1 and #94 to somewhere in the high 260s) to The Boys and Girls Club of America in 1998. It was four long boxes and two short boxes with an Overstreet value of $220,000.00. I needed the $22,000.00 tax write-off badly, and made a lot of kids happy on Christmas Eve that year.

In the 90's I had gotten way into the Vertigo stuff, and when I moved to Chicago in 2005 I dropped off three short boxes of Sandman, Preacher and pretty much everything that Alan Moore and Frank Miller had written, at Meltdown Comics. Through some sort of lack of communication I never got paid for those, and I still bust Gaston's balls about it to this day.

A few years ago an old friend of mine got me back into the hobby. At about the same time, my mother moved from her house in Massachusetts to Arizona, and my sisters found my secret stash of two short boxes of what I considered the really great stuff. Weird one-offs by Alan Moore and Dave Stevens and Bernie Wrightson, and rare undergrounds by Richard Corben and Rick Veitch and Steve Bissette. UK imports of Warrior Magazine and Crisis. Basically, these were the comics that didn't have much price guide value but which I knew would be difficult to track down in the pre-internet 1980s. I had started to read Bill Willingham's Fables, and it launched me back into hardcore collecting. From Halloween 2009 until my birthday (October 17th) this year, I went from guy with no comic books to a guy with nine short boxes. That does not include the two to three dozen Ombnibus, Absolute or other special edition hardcovers that still occupy about fifteen linear feet of shelf space.

On Sunday, October 21st, I sold the entire Pop-Sequentialism collection, with the exception of some recent issues from a handful of series that are currently ongoing and therefore not collected in hardcover yet. Well, those and a literal handful of comics that I treasure too much to sell or give away. I kept a CBG 9.5 grade Howard the Duck #1, and a similar Werewolf By Night #32. The first was the book I always wanted as a little kid, and the second was the first one I actually bought. I also kept a fine condition Haunt of Fear #19, which was a sixteenth birthday present from the guys I worked with at my first after-school job. Those guys were my mentors and if I ever escape a house fire, you can bet that this comic book will be make it out with me ahead of my wallet. The only other two comics I kept were the original Trident Comics edition of Grant Morrison's St. Swithins Day, which almost became a movie in the mid 90s and was a dream project for me as a young actor, and very good House of Mystery #261, which features a brilliant Mike Kaluta cover of the grim reaper, which is an image I redrew with some proficiency in my teens and of which I am still proud today.

Why am I liquidating this important collection? Because I'm moving. I'm also getting married next year and I realized that I have a ton of stuff. Like any mad collector, I've had trouble limiting myself to just one area of collectibles, so I've got a couple thousand DVDs, way more books than space to display them, fifteen CaseLogic binders full of audio and data cds, crates of movie posters and lobby cards, more clothing than I will ever wear, and more shoes than any other straight man on the planet.

And I'm practically hemorrhaging art. I've got more paintings than square feet of walls. I've got way more sculptures than counter top space. I've got guitars that I almost never play but find it impossible to get rid of them. Do you know what I use for a coffee table? Architectural drawers filled with artwork.

Somehow I've managed to limit my toy collection to a single suitcase-sized box.

So what have I given up? The list is below. The collection now resides at Comics Vs. Toys in Eagle Rock, CA. The owner, Ace Aguilera, has been a friend of mine for almost twenty years. He's a fair dude, and his clientele for back issues is well matched for this collection, which represents some of the best work done in sequential storytelling over the past thirty years and more. There are full sets, and obscure runs within titles by great creative teams. There are random issues of forgotten series that feature absolutely iconic cover art from some of the industry's best.

This is Pop Sequentialism:

After Watchmen: What’s Next? 
Airboy #5 (Dave Stevens) 
Alias #1-12
Alien Worlds #2,4 (Dave Stevens)
All-Star Superman collection Vol 1 & #7-12 (Morrison) Anarchy Comics #2 (1st Tales of the Black Freighter)
Animal Man tp (Morrison), and complete Animal Man series
Astro City: Confessions
Back to Brooklyn #1-5
Batman Year One (#404-407 Frank Miller)
Batman #666, 686, 687
Batman & Robin #1-16 (Morrison)
Bedlam #1, 2 (Bissette & Veitch)
Blood: a Tale #1-4 (Kent Williams)
Blood of the Innocent #1-4
Brat Pack tp
Capt. America Reborn #1-6 (Brubaker)
Chaingang #1,2 (Rex Miller)
Cinderella From Fable Town with Love#1
City of Silence #1-3 (Warren Ellis)
Comico Attractions: Rocketeer (Dave Stevens)
King Sized Conan #1 (BWS)
Corinthian #1-3
Criminal: Sinners #1-5 (Brubaker)
Grant Morrison's Dare #1-4
Daredevil #41 (Bendis)
Dave Stevens greeting card (Thanks for a Wonderful Night)
DC Sampler #3 (Bissette & Moore Swamp Thing)
DC Spotlight #1 (1st Frank Miller Dark Knight, 1st Watchmen)
Death Rattle #16
Detective Comics #853-863
DNAgents #24 (Dave Stevens)
Doom Force #1 (Morrison)
Doom Patrol (entire Morrison run)
Dreaming #55
Eclipse Extra #53
Eddy Current v.2, 3
Egypt #1-7
Elektra Assassin #1-8 (Miller & Sienkiewicz)
Elvira's House of Mystery #11 (Dave Stevens)
Enigma #1-8 (Morrison)
Ex Machina (whole series)
Extremist #1-4 (Milligan)
Fables #81,90-98
Marvel Knights Fantastic Four 1,2,3,4 #1-4 (Morrison)
Fantasy Masterpieces #1
Filth (whole series - Morrison)
Giant Sized Man Thing #1
Glueboy #1-4
Golden Age #1-4
Gumby Summer Fun Special (Art Adams)
Hellblazer #1-8, 12&13, 18-22, 25-27, Dangerous habits tp, 53, 61-end of Ennis Run, #134-139 (Ellis Run), #250-268 (Milligan Run)
Heroes for Hope – signed
History of DC Universe #1&2 (Wolfman & Perez)
Horrorist #1&2 (Milligan & David Lloyd)
Human Target – mini series complete, ongoing #1-3, 7-18, 20 (Milligan)
Incognito #1-5 (Brubaker)
Invincible Iron Man #20-27
Invisibles – complete run of all three series (Morrison)
Jack Cross #1-4 (Ennis)
JLA - #1-18 (Morrison)
JLA Classified #37-41 (Milligan)
Joe the Barbarian #1-5 (Morrison)
Johnny Nemo Mag #1-4 (Milligan & Morrison)
Johnny Nemo coll v.1
Johnny Quest #5 (Dave Stevens)
JSA Liberty Files tp
Junk Culture #1&2
Kick Ass #1-7
Kid Eternitiy #1-3 (Morrison)
Kill Your Boyfriend (Morrison)
Kurztman Komix
League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen v.1 tp
Losers Special #1
Losers – complete Vertigo series
Love & Rockets Short Stories & Heartbeak Soup collections
Madman Jam
Mage, The Hero Discovered – complete first series
Merv Pumpkinhead
Mesmo Delivery
Mindless Self Indulgence – signed
Ministry of Space #1-3
Moon Knight #29&30 (Sienkiewicz)
New Frontier – complete series
New Funnies v.1 #126 (1938!)
New Titans #50-55 (Wolfman & Perez)
Northlanders #21,23
Ocean #1-6
100 Bullets v.5 tp
100 bullets #67,82,86-97
One Million #1-4 (Morrison)
Planetary All Over the World tp (Ellis)
Preacher: The Story of You Know Who #1 (Ennis)
The Programme #1-12 (Milligan)
Proposition Player #1-6 (Willingham)
Reid Fleming World's Toughest Milkman #1
Robot Comics #0
Ruins one shot #1
Sam & Max #1
Sandman: Endless Night Special
Scalped #1,7,9,10,11,14,15-28
Sea Guy tp
Sea Guy v.2 #1-3
Sebastion O #1-3 (Morrison)
Secret Origins #1 special (Gaiman)
Seduction of the Innocent 3D #2 (Wrightson)
Shade the Changing Man #1-70 (whole series)
Skreemer tp (Milligan)
Slow Death #8
Sheena 3D #1 (Dave Stevens)
Spider Woman #1-7 (Bendis)
Star Spangled War Stories #151 (1st Unknown Soldier /dbl cvr)
Dr Strange mini series #1-3 (Waid)
Stumptown v.1 #1-3
Sub Mariner #1,2 (coverless)
Superman Annual #11 (Moore & Gibbons)
Superman Batman #60-62
Superman for All Seasons (complete series)
Superman Secret Origins #1-3
Saga of Swamp Thing – #21-64, annual #2 (x2) Alan Moore run, Annual #3 (Veitch), #140-147 (Morrison/Millar)
Sweeney Todd (Gaiman/Zulli)
Tainted (Delano)
Tales of the Teen Titans #41-43 & Annual 2 (Judas Contract issues - Wolfman & Perez)
Tank Girl tp
Teen Titans Lost Annual
Territory #1-4, (Milligan)
Thessaliad #1-4
Journey into Mystery #91, #104, #116, 119, Thor #127, 128, 129, 132, 138, 139, 144, 145 (Kirby), Thor #601-603, giant sized finale (JMS), annual #1
Tongue Lash #1&2
Torso #1-4 Jinx #6
Transmetropolitan #1-60 (whole series)
True Love #1 (Dave Stevens)
Twisted Tales #2 (Wrightson)
Ultimate Avengers #1-3,5
Umbrella Academy #1-6 & free comic book day
Unknown Soldier #1-4 (Ennis)
V for Vendetta #1-10 (whole series - Moore & Lloyd)
Vanguard Illustrated #2 (Dave Stevens)
Vertigo Pop London – full series
Vertigo Preview
Vigilante #17&18 (Alan Moore)
Vimanarama #1-3 (Morrison)
Walking Dead tp v.1
War Story #1-3 (Ennis)
Wasteland #1-18
Watchmen #1-12, Watchmen button set (Moore & Gibbon)
Wednesday Comics (complete set)
We3 tp (Morrison)
Witchcraft #1-3
the Witching #1-10
Wonder Woman #27 (Quitely variant)
World of Wood #1-4 (Dave Stevens)
X-force & X Statix (all Milligan issues)
New X Men (complete Morrison run)
Crime Does Not Pay #46 (classic SOTI)
IT #1 (Gaiman magazine)
Mad Magazine #159 (A Clockwork Lemon)
Neat Stuff #9
Neat Stuff best of
Weirdo #10 (first Peter Bagge art)
Comics Journal #273 (Gaiman), 278 (Gaiman), 176 (Morrison)