Kurt Busiek's Astro City: Life in the Big City by Kurt Busiek, Alex Ross (Illustrator), Brent Anderson (Illustrator)
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(Paperback)
- Pub. Date: June 1999
- 192pp
- Sales Rank: 229,623
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Product Details
- Pub. Date: June 1999
- Publisher: DC Comics
- Format: Paperback, 192pp
- Sales Rank: 229,623
- Series: Kurt Busiek's Astro City Series
- ISBN-13: 9781563895517
- ISBN: 156389551X
Synopsis
Welcome to Astro City, a shining city on a hill where super heroes patrol the skies. Each chapter in this collection is a standalone story, highlighting different aspects or characters in the Astro City world. The city's leading super-hero tries to be everywhere at once, and berates himself for every wasted second as he longs for just a moment of his own. A smalltime hood learns a hero's secret identity, and tries to figure out how to profit from the knowledge. A beat reporter gets some advice from his editor on his first day on the job. A young woman tries to balance the demands of her family with her own hopes and desires. Despite the fantastic settings, the characters in these slice-of-life stories feel like real people, and that gives the stories real power.
Customer Reviews
Kurt Busiek's Astro City: Life in the Big Cityby Anonymous
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September 04, 2003: Due to his work on Marvels, Kurt Busiek became a widely respected, award-winning and critically renowned writer. For those who don't know, Marvels is a masterpiece of the graphic narrative, using the genre of the superhero to explore so much more about the history and social climate of our country. It deserves to be an A Graphic Novel in its own right, and it will be someday down the line. But not today, for today I want to recognize Marvels for another reason than its own genius. You see, without Marvels, Kurt Busiek would never have had the freedom to create the world of Astro City. And without Astro City, the milieu of the superhero would be much less vibrant and exciting. The Astro City stories, originally published through Image and then moving to DC when they absorbed Wildstorm, each explore a world that feels comfortable, like a place we've visited before, despite still being shiny and new. Busiek and collaborator Brent Anderson take the concepts of super-heroism that we are already familiar with and break them down until nothing is left but the most vital components of the genre. Once the concept of the superhero has been refined to its core elements, Busiek uses these distilled ideas as his foundation and builds the world of Astro City up into something wonderful, a fresh new take on a long-established tradition. In Astro City, heroes exist not just to get into brilliant battles with each other, but also to offer up insight to us on a variety of themes, including the old superhero standby about power and responsibility. In the very first Astro City story 'In Dreams,' a superhero known as Samaritan (an obvious Superman analogue) leads a life of emptiness. The only enjoyment in his life is the freedom he gets from flying, and even that he only gets a few seconds of flying each day between the disasters and various other crises he must combat. That story and five others are collected in the first Astro City trade paperback, Astro City: Life in the Big City, a series of vignettes that each look at life in Astro City in a different way. Each story then also takes a different perspective on the superheroes that populate this metropolis, one the average reader might not be used to. From a newspaper reporter who witnesses a crossover-style event to a thug who discovers a hero's secret identity, this book takes the point-of-view of the average men and women in a world full of the extraordinary. We can connect with these narrating characters, identifying with their unique viewpoints on these virtual gods they share the world with. We share their feeling of awe and wonder at these 'Marvels,' yet they also feel commonplace. And that's the great thing about this series; it reads on many levels. Longtime comic fans will enjoy hunting for the many Easter eggs and in-jokes Busiek and Anderson dropped into the background of each issue. They can also look at certain characters in the context of analogous archetypes and analyze what aspect of the superhero is being commented upon. Yet it is also the type of superhero book you can give to the totally uninitiated to prove the merit of the genre, that it can offer more than fistfights and spandex, that it can be meaningful and even beautiful. Try it and see. Pick up Astro City: Life in the Big City. I dare you to read it and not fall in love with superheroes all over again. And when you then go out to pick up a copy of the next collection, be sure to loan this book to a...
Kurt Busiek's Astro City: Life in the Big Cityby Anonymous
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April 29, 2003: Just finishing this TPB for the second time, I am struck by just how great this collection of the first Astro City series really was at the time of its release and still is today. In my opinion, a beautifully painted picture of life lived in a world where the heroes are very real, and the lives of everyone brushed onto this immense metropolis of a canvas come together in a four color tale for all ages to enjoy. My personal favorite as always will be Jack-in-the-Box, but this burg offers heroes of all shapes and sizes for you to enjoy and indentify with. I reccomend this to anyone looking for a profoundly well-constructed comic with a depth and beauty not often associated with this form of media.
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