Wolverine

At my cool almost-40 un-birthday surprise party (enough qualifiers?) one of my good friends gave me the graphic novel compilation of the 4 issue Wolverine mini-series. This was written by Chris Claremont and pencilled by Frank Miller. Claremont spent over a decade scripting the Uncanny X-Men through some of their greatest story arcs. Claremont's original "Dark Phoenix Rising" was going on just at the time I was getting into comics, so I might be a bit biased in my judgement of X-Men in those days.

A few years later, I sat in the audience at Galaxy Fair 90 in Dallas, TX and listened to a panel of comics experts that included Chris Claremont. During that panel, Mr Claremont downed round after round of scotch and his high alcohol tolerance is the only thing that I remember about that panel all these years later. Many great writers have been alcoholics ("But I Digress..." - a phrase made famous in comicdom by Peter David, another great writer and I won't even start on his proclivities)

In the introduction to the Wolverine compilation, Chris Claremont mentions that Frank Miller is not only a great artist but also a great writer who had the audacity to get even better. Miller is currently probably better known for his comic magnum opus "Sin City" but this should not overshadow his standard-setting work on Daredevil and Batman.

If you have never read the Wolverine mini-series, I highly recommend it. This book is a very good example of the modern comic as art and literature, even though I know some people seem to think that nothing produced under the umbrella of a corporation (Marvel or DC) could truly be art. I will have to opine on "indy books" another day.