Concrete: Heights - Paul Chadwick
Concrete remains one of my favorite comic book series, but it's a little hard to figure out the chronology of the books. This one is labeled with a #2 (there's apparently a #1: Depths), and the back-cover blurb says it "collects the second half of his original groundbreaking series." So do these two volumes collect the entire series? Or just the original series, after which he published more?
I feel like there's a bit of overlap between this and the "Concrete: Short Stories" collections, because I think I've read several of these stories before. There were a few that didn't seem familiar, but whether that's because I hadn't read them before or because I'd forgotten about them isn't certain.
For my future reference, here are the stories in this collection:
- No Sweat: Concrete helps out on a family farm
- What Needs to Be Done: marginally involving Concrete, an older couple gets hijacked
- A Remarkable Life: Strangely, Concrete grows antlers
- Everest: Solo: Concrete treks through Tibet and attempts to climb Everest
- Goodwill Ambassador: a kid's perspective on Concrete's trip to Tibet
- Always Fences: Concrete's mom is dying
- The Damp Descent: Some filmmakers in Vermont ask Concrete to investigate some odd phenomena
I still don't actually own any Concrete books, but hope to eventually. The problem is not knowing where to start.
And, for those of you wondering, well, what the heck is Concrete, anyway? It's about this 1200-pound rock man, who used to be a political speechwriter named Ron Lithgow until aliens put his brain into this strange body. He's become a sort of celebrity under the false story that he's a government-created cyborg. It sounds wacky, but Chadwick has a way with words and images that makes it one of the most thoughtful and intelligently-written comics around.
Fed to jonathan's brain | November 10, 2006
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