Dude come up to Mountain View toward the NorCal Bay Area, please? There’s this cool comic shop here, “Lee’s Comics”. That would rock man, anyways, why is Scud being released the day after super Tuesday, man, I’m way to much of a political junkie. Happy black history month, yay, ok, thanks, bye.
You know, there are few milestones that a man can look back on and remember having throughout his life. Scud wasn’t the first comic I ever read; that honor belonged to an issue of Jughead Double Digest. It wasn’t the first uncrappy comic I ever read, either. But it was the first comic I ever read that I can reliably say had some personal vision behind it. I was twelve years old, living in Berkeley. My dad took me to the local comic shop for my birthday and told me I could pick any one book that I wanted. The first thing I brought to him was a collection of Gen13. He took one look at the scantily-clad women, titties just barely covered up, and told me to find something else. I searched around, and came across a copy of Heavy 3PO. This, with the violence and the cursing and the black-magic US founding father, he had no problem with. Thus began for me a love affair with Scud. Over the next three years, I collected everything I could possibly get my hands on: every spin-off, piece of merchandise, .gif off the Fireman Press website, anything I could find was cherished. Scud opened up whole new worlds to me, not just in terms of comics (an affinity I am now writing my thesis on), but in terms of being cool with who you are. I remember getting my Scud poster and hanging it over my bed(s) for almost ten years, until no amount of scotch tape could keep it from disintegrating. But for me, it wasn’t about having my favorite comic character on the wall. It was about the line on the poster, “It’s cool to be a robot.” Man, Scud really made me realize that. Scud was always about being cool with who he was, appreciating who he was, and wanting against all else to preserve who he was, and, whenever possible, help out a few other people along the way. Some part of me, a big part of me, took that mantra of self-recognition and appreciation and applied it to all the parts of my life I might have been ashamed of. I took what that golden assassin said to himself climbing the wall of a penitentiary and used it to remind myself that it’s cool to be whatever you are, regardless of abnormality. Hell, because of abnormality! When I read issue #16, and Scud repeated what he first said, I felt like I was being spoken to directly. I’ve never had such a moment before or since in the comics medium.
Next week, Scud begins to conclude for all of us out here in comicland. February 6th. Almost eleven years to the week after I first discovered Scud, Fireman Press, and everything Schrab. I’m excited, but when I think about it, a little sad too. It’ll be great to see Scud again, but a little melancholy to see him go again so soon. At the very least, I can rest assured knowing that the same creative energy put into that custard mechano-man is still out there, still voraciously devouring chunks of cardboard and making them into magic. And at the very most, I’ll be able to see again how cool it is to be a robot.
Thanks, Rob.
Dude come up to Mountain View toward the NorCal Bay Area, please? There’s this cool comic shop here, “Lee’s Comics”. That would rock man, anyways, why is Scud being released the day after super Tuesday, man, I’m way to much of a political junkie. Happy black history month, yay, ok, thanks, bye.
You know, there are few milestones that a man can look back on and remember having throughout his life. Scud wasn’t the first comic I ever read; that honor belonged to an issue of Jughead Double Digest. It wasn’t the first uncrappy comic I ever read, either. But it was the first comic I ever read that I can reliably say had some personal vision behind it. I was twelve years old, living in Berkeley. My dad took me to the local comic shop for my birthday and told me I could pick any one book that I wanted. The first thing I brought to him was a collection of Gen13. He took one look at the scantily-clad women, titties just barely covered up, and told me to find something else. I searched around, and came across a copy of Heavy 3PO. This, with the violence and the cursing and the black-magic US founding father, he had no problem with. Thus began for me a love affair with Scud. Over the next three years, I collected everything I could possibly get my hands on: every spin-off, piece of merchandise, .gif off the Fireman Press website, anything I could find was cherished. Scud opened up whole new worlds to me, not just in terms of comics (an affinity I am now writing my thesis on), but in terms of being cool with who you are. I remember getting my Scud poster and hanging it over my bed(s) for almost ten years, until no amount of scotch tape could keep it from disintegrating. But for me, it wasn’t about having my favorite comic character on the wall. It was about the line on the poster, “It’s cool to be a robot.” Man, Scud really made me realize that. Scud was always about being cool with who he was, appreciating who he was, and wanting against all else to preserve who he was, and, whenever possible, help out a few other people along the way. Some part of me, a big part of me, took that mantra of self-recognition and appreciation and applied it to all the parts of my life I might have been ashamed of. I took what that golden assassin said to himself climbing the wall of a penitentiary and used it to remind myself that it’s cool to be whatever you are, regardless of abnormality. Hell, because of abnormality! When I read issue #16, and Scud repeated what he first said, I felt like I was being spoken to directly. I’ve never had such a moment before or since in the comics medium.
Next week, Scud begins to conclude for all of us out here in comicland. February 6th. Almost eleven years to the week after I first discovered Scud, Fireman Press, and everything Schrab. I’m excited, but when I think about it, a little sad too. It’ll be great to see Scud again, but a little melancholy to see him go again so soon. At the very least, I can rest assured knowing that the same creative energy put into that custard mechano-man is still out there, still voraciously devouring chunks of cardboard and making them into magic. And at the very most, I’ll be able to see again how cool it is to be a robot.
Thanks, Rob.
I’ll be there with bells on sir. I can’t wait.
SCUD IS REAL, MARTY…