Periscope: Portland's storyboard and comics studio.

For the past couple months, we've been pacing impatiently around the studio waiting for Jeff Parker's X-Men First Class Special to come out. Of course everyone was thrilled to see the Kevin Nowlan pages as they came in, and the Nick Dragoda/ Mike Allred story was a hoot, but what really had us shaking was this: "Will the Colleen Coover pages make the internet's collective head explode?" How can I put this diplomatically? Um...How about this: Not all comics fans are able to handle the idea of their funnybooks containing stuff that's funny. Well, the book came out last week and the reaction, I'm pleased and relieved to say, was better than we'd dreamed.

Bully says it best and notes the existence of a possible department of stealth humor at Marvel. We can neither confirm nor deny, though we were glad to see that he also tipped his hat to Parker's Marvel Adventures:The Avengers and David Hahn's Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane. Others who weighed in with praise include:Zodarzone | Blake Petit |Living Between Wednesdays |
The ISB |Phonin' it in | Comic Pants |Comics Should be Good |Silver Bullet |Gad Sir, Comics. |CGSPodcast board (this one's evenly divided between the yeas and the nays.) | and, of course, the good people at Scans Daily have put up one of Colleen's three pages and have taken the most important question to the people: Which is cuter: ducklings or otters?



For what it's worth, I've given the matter some careful thought, and I think that Hank's got it right:


EDIT: I forgot to add, Colleen and Jeff would LOVE to do more stories like these, but it's only going to happen if you let Marvel know you want more. Write and let Marvel know at mondomarvel@marvel.com

Labels: Colleen Coover, Jeff Parker