This book is amazing and beautiful. Amazingly beautiful. Go buy it right now. I’ll wait.
It was something like 67 degrees today, a freakishly warm day. So, I sat on my couch, opened the front door and windows, and pulled out Joshua W. Cotter’s newest masterpiece.
I bought it based on Brian Cronin’s recommendation here. (He also did a nice review of the book when it came out almost three months ago.)
At any rate. If you have any inkling towards non-super-hero work, you should pick this up. And yes, they’re working on a collected edition, but who knows how long that will take? You need to improve your life today, right?
I’ll be honest, it may have been the weather (doesn’t every change of season, even temporary, make you feel incredibly nostalgic for a simpler time?) but I was close to tears reading this issue. It is about a kid growing up in the 80s, Cotter’s nods to that “era” are subtle and affecting. Reading the kids’ adventure near the beginning of the book, I was thinking, “Odd, they looked like they’re dressed-up as He-Man characters.” It wasn’t until the panel that actually features He-Man’s sword that I was sure.
And then I as one of the boys curled up in bed, pulled his thick glasses on and grabbed a comic, I turned the page and saw this.
It was this loving re-creation of an 80s/early-90s-era Marvel Comics cover that brought me to my knees. The perspective, the thickness of the inks, everything about this faux-cover is perfect. It immediately took me back to a very specific moment of my life.
Skyscrapers is melancholy, and ruthless in it’s examination, whether relying on 20/20 hindsight, or hazy childhood memories. Cotter’s work is highly affecting, and executed with a balance of confidence and tenderness.
I can’t wait to read the first three issues, and then absorb them in the collected edition. Bravo.