Addressing the ever-shrinking credibility of rock journalism since 2007. With a sasquatch.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Off The Shelf: Mad Man

Mike and Laura Allred's Mad Man
The Allred's Mad Man series combines many genres (sci-fi, superhero, horror) with an emphasis on carpal tunneling defying artwork.

A lot of the time, if you tell anyone that you "like comics" you'll end up with the ol' glassy eyed stare. A befuddling fog rolls right over your hapless listener, as you gleefully describe what gives you the jollies about comics. As you drone on they'll inevitably tune out as they wonder why in the name of God a grown man is gibbering on about some called Mr. Natural, Art Adams or Galactus in a less than healthy manner.

What kept me in comics, while my friends and family went about their lives in the real world of dead end jobs, sports bars, offspring and being married were books like Mad Man. Mad Man is a character created by Mike Allred, a former tv reporter and rock guitarist turned artist and illustrator. Mad Man made his first appearance in a one-off called Creatures of the Id in October of 1990. After going through another four years of limited release one-shots and mini-series Mad Man was given his own title run of 20 issues at Dark Horse from 1994 to 2000. Seven years after the Dark Horse run ended, in 2007, in a time when comics were finding it harder and harder to compete with World of Warcraft, XBox and iGadgetry Madman Atomic Comics 1 through 17 were released by Image up until 2009.

Mad Man is enjoying another Renaissance in 2011 with IMDB reporting a movie being in production for 2012. However, dubiously, there's no "official" word on whether this film is live-action or animation...



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