ASTRO CITY part 3

Due to the erratic schedule this series experienced, the creators decided that they would rather tell the stories in mini-series format, and that's when we got the first of (hopefully) many, called Local Heroes. On the picture you can see the 5 issues (above) and the hardcover and trade paperback versions of it (below).

The next series came in 2 volumes or "books". The Dark Age: Book One was a 4-issue miniseries that was soon followed by Book Two, again with the same number of issues. Since these are the most recent series of the Astro City saga, they haven't been collected, yet. I'll keep you informed when they come out.

Along with the mini-series, special one-shots were published in 2004, such as (pictured from left to right) "The Visitor's Guide", which is a clever tourist guide-type book of the fictional city; "Supersonic" a 40-page prelude to The Dark Age: Book One, "The Astro City/Arrowsmith" flipbook (the other side's cover is drawn by Carlos Pacheco) and the 2006 "Samaritan Special" which bridges the gap between the 2 Dark Age series.

Again, none of this stories are IN MY COLLECTION therefore I cannot comment on the plot and characters.

If you want to know more about Astro City, visit this link to "The Astro City Rocket" a site that helped during my research on this series.

ASTRO CITY part 2

The first miniseries proved to be a success, critically and comercially, so an ongoing series was launched by the same team, Busiek, Anderson, Ross and publishers Image and Homage comics. It lasted 15 issues and there was also a special #1/2 published with the help of Wizard magazine. Below are all 15 issues with their glorious covers by Alex Ross. The order of the issues is as follows: Issues 1-9, then Wizard's issue 1/2 and finally, numbers 10 - 15.


After a hiatus, the series resumed with issue 16, now under the wing of Wildstorm, Jim Lee's publishing company, which was later bought by DC Comics. From that moment on, Astro City is now part of the DC family. Due to the late shipping of this ongoing series, it was cancelled with issue #22. Below: Issues 16 - 22


This ongoing series was later collected in volumes, counting Life in the Big City as Vol.1, Confession was Vol.2, Family Album and The Tarnished Angel were Vols. 3 & 4. These collections came in hardcover and trade paperback versions, below is the art for the latter, since I couldn't find the art for the hardbacks, in some of these the art is the same in both. None of these issues are IN MY COLLECTION because I have prioritized other series, I'll get to them, eventually.

ASTRO CITY part 1

In 1995, with his Marvels’ partner, Kurt Busiek, Alex Ross embarked on an award winning series that continues up to this day called Astro City. Due to time constraints, Alex contributes on this series as a character designer and cover artist. The interior art is handled by Brent Anderson. Now this series is really cool, if you haven’t read it, go ahead and pick it up, it takes all of these character archetypes (i.e. Samaritan is like Superman and Winged Victory is like Wonder Woman, there’s also the Confessor and Altar Boy, you could probably guess those and so on) and spins new and exciting tales with these characters. There aren’t all references to heroes like Captain America or Fantastic Four, there are other new guys which makes this tale so incredible. It was originally published by Image Comics through a Busiek-created imprint called Homage. Featured here is the first 6-issue miniseries that started this saga, as you can see Alex painted the covers and each back cover featured a sketch of one of the main characters.







This mini was collected later and sold as Astro City: Life in The Big City. And although Brent Anderson’s art is not the best ever, give this series a try because of the amazing writing and story. IN MY COLLECTION I only have issues 2,3,4 and 6.