“Surviving The Big Wet”

With our Comics Bulletin Wasteland Retrospective entitled “Surviving The Big Wet” concluding this week, I thought I’d just leave a quick link-dump here for everyone, to catalogue the posts in a way that I can easily point people to in the future. It was an absolute honor to help bring this series home in my small little way, and to be a fringe part of it. I feel nostalgic when thinking about Wasteland, and feel a special connection to it. It’s been running for about as long as I’ve had this site.

I picked up a signed copy of Wasteland #1 in 2006 at San Diego Comic Con. I chatted briefly with Antony, Chris, and (then) cover artist Ben Templesmith at the Oni Press booth, loved the issue, and went off and wrote a review. Months later, I walked into my LCS to unexpectedly find a pull quote on Wasteland #6, the first I’d ever gotten outside the world of mini-comics. Web traffic spiked after that, and in some small way I felt that it was a sign I’d arrived as a mainstream critic. I used to joke that Thirteen Minutes was “the house that Wasteland built.”

It’s been a joy to watch the series evolve over the years and to see long-form storytelling in action, to see new artists contribute their interpretations of the post-apocalyptic world  (a genre I just adore), and to follow the creators to other projects, from Antony Johnston’s The Coldest City with Sam Hart, to Justin Greenwood on Stumptown with Greg Rucka, to Antony and Chris Mitten just absolutely killing it on Umbral and getting the acclaim they deserve.

Anyway, special thanks to Antony, Chris, Justin, Shy Allott, and James Lucas Jones at Oni Press for the opportunity. I’m nervously awaiting the finale of #60, a bittersweet moment where I’ll celebrate the rare feat of indie creators sticking the landing of a long-running title and telling the story they wanted to tell in the manner they wanted to tell it, but I'll also lament the loss of a book that’s been a constant favorite in my life for nearly a decade. But hey, we’ll always have those gorgeous crimson Apocalyptic Edition Hardcovers, and I’m one of the lucky people who has a rare black one!

Antony Johnston Interview, Part 1

Christopher Mitten Interview

Justin Greenwood Interview

Antony Johnston Interview, Part 2