Editor’s Note: It’s Wednesday, so that means it’s New Comic Book Day and another edition of Amazing Journey!
The Amazing Journey column will touch on a comics-related topic, such as writing the first issue of a series, what it’s like to run a comic book store, working with artists, and how writing comics is different from writing prose.
Amazing Journey back issues
True believers unite (#1) | My comics origin story (#2) | Comic event series (#3) | The comics of Kickstarter (#4) | Single issues or trades? (#5) | From prose to comics (#6) | Adapting a celebrated fantasy series into a comic (#7) | Charting a career in comics (#8) | Comic book spoilers (#9) | Lessons from Kieron Gillen’s masterclass (#10) | Comics marketing 101 (#11) Designing memorable characters (#12)
A short post today as I’m traveling and a redux of a post from last year about comic events.
In 2020, Marvel rolled out two line-wide events in short succession: Empyre, which was a galaxy-spanning event tying the Kree, the Skrull, the Avengers, and the Fantastic Four, and King in Black, which was focused on Venom but still managed to envelope all of the Earth-based heroes.
As originally envisioned pre-COVID, Empyre was massive, clocking in at close to 50 different issues. After it was slimmed down, it cleared 30, a still-large story with multiple event mini-series, backstory one-shots, two preludes, and two epilogues.
Since 2020 we’ve had smaller-scale Marvel events, but nothing approaching this size (last summer’s Judgment Day comes the closest I think).
This month, DC kicks off its own event, with the two-month Knight Terrors, coming on the heels of last summer’s Dark Crisis.
Although sometimes an event can be too sprawling, we’re due for a new Marvel event next year by my estimation, and hopefully one is announced at the Next Big Thing panel at San Diego Comic Con in a few weeks. Until then, it’s worth the monthly subscription alone to read SKTCHD's oral history of 2015’s Secret Wars.
That brings me to the Question of the Week and your first chance to enter the July giveaway. To enter, simply leave a comment with your answer to any of the Questions of the Week from any July Amazing Journey post.
What was the last line-wide event that you enjoyed?
What I’m reading this week
X-Men Before the Fall: The Sinister Four: The final Before the Fall one-shot and it promises to be explosive as we head into the Hellfire Gala in three weeks.
Daredevil #13: The penultimate issue of Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto's already-a-classic run on the Man Without Fear. Yes, I will be making an exception to my “No Omnibuses” rule and buying their first when it comes out a year from now.
Monstress #45: Maika is trapped in a world within a world and things are getting super weird, but I am here for it.
What are you picking up this week?