Is this any good? I’m a fan of Alan Moore. I hear this is sort of like Doc Savage. Anyone got any information, and opinions?
I read the first issue while I was in the States and hated it. But then out of utter boredom and lack of Moore in my sistem I bought number three in the newsstand. It was great. It had Aztec dominated parallel universes and a blood fed computer.
The magazine also had Top Ten which is even better. I bought the first two latter. The Strong stories were good but not great but Top Ten is simply amazing. Unfortunately, as with everything that’s not X-men/Spiderman/Batman/Superman, it got cancelled.
I’ve never read Doc Savage but Tom Strong does capture that old pulp story charm. It’s nice but not great IMO.
I love it. It’s one of the only series I buy & read regularly (for reference, the others are Hellboy and related series, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and JLA).
It’s a very pulpy, ironic adventure-story comic. I won’t go into the whole backstory here, but Tom Strong is what the series calls a “science hero.” He’s super-intelligent, super-strong, and ages extremely slowly due to a rare plant cultivated from the mystical island of Attabar Teru, where he was reared. He’s married to a princess from the island’s native culture. They have a daughter, Tesla; a talking gorilla named King Solomon; and a robotic butler named Pneuman. They’ve lived and fought crime in Millenium City for the past 100 years or so. Strong’s arch-nemesis is, or was, a mask-wearing “science-villain” named Paul Saveen.
Those are the details, but the story is never told in a straightforward way. It’s presented more as a “meta-comic;” it’s only been around for a couple of years but emulates a series that’s been going on since the “golden age.” So there are various alternate realities, never-before-revealed back-stories, twisting plot lines, characters that are suddenly introduced into the continuity as if they’d been around the entire time, etc. (Saveen is dead, by the way, but he still frequently appears in the comic.) In a sense, Moore treats these characters as if they were iconic, and then throws them together in every conceivable configuration, maintaining the pulp-comic feel throughout. A recent special issue had Tesla going through about a dozen different alternate realities and meeting a different version of herself in each one; that’s the norm for this series. Like The Sandman, it’s more a story about stories than a story about plot and characters.
Sounds good = I have located books 1 and 2 and will buy them.
Is the series drawn by Art Adams, or just some of the covers?
I think only one or two of the side-stories are drawn by Art Adams. There are frequently guest artists. The main “artist” is Chris Sprouse; he gets “co-creator” credit along with Alan Moore. I’ve always liked his stuff a lot, which is a good part of why I like the series.
Speaking of that, some of my favorite comic book art ever is in the most recent issue of “Tom Strong’s Terrific Tales,” a side series. The first story, a children’s-book take on a Tom Strong adventure, is drawn by Shawn McManus (who drew the J.M. DeMatteis “Dr. Fate” series in the late 80’s). Beautiful stuff that reminds me a little of Maurice Sendak’s books.
** Alcibiades**, if it’s Art Adams artwork you’re after, check out the Tom Strong sister anthology title, Tom Strong’s Terrific Tales. There’s usually an Art Adams “Jonni Future” story in each issue.
I have to agree that Tom Strong is one of the best comics today. The artwork is crisp and the stories are consistantly great. I particularly liked the “Tom Strange” story around back around issue 10.
I wasn’t particularly after Art Adams art: but will check out Terrific Tales if its in tpb.
>I read the first issue while I was in the States and hated it. But then out of utter boredom and lack of Moore in my sistem I bought number three in the newsstand. It was great. It had Aztec dominated parallel universes and a blood fed computer. <
I actually liked the first issue best, for some reason. There was something about the separate chapters and the framing device of the cartoony little kid reading about the slightly-more-real Tom Strong that I thought gave one the feel of finding and reading an old pulp comic or novel.
One of the best things about Tom Strong is that no one but Chris Sprouse can draw him quite right. Art Adams draws him well, but it doesn’t quite look like Tom. Same with almost every other back-up artist (except perhaps Paul Rivoche, in the trapped-under-the-polar-ice issue).
And MusicJunkie-- I agree, Top Ten was pretty good. Look for Forty-Niners and Smax sometime soon.
Wow, you’re Zander Cannon! Your work on Top Ten ruled, dude!
Aw, shucks. Honestly, it’s Gene Ha that deserves all the credit for the look of the series.
/ending threadjack
I just saw a bizarre typo in my earlier post…
I have no idea why I put quotes around that. It sounds like I’m being sarcastic, but I’m definitely not – I thnk Sprouse is a terrific artist and I’ve been a fan of his stuff for years.
Well, I’ll be damned. Great work on Top 10, Zander.