I’ve mostly settled on a definition for my Starlin book, but I’m still curious what others think: how would you define “cosmic comics?”

Oh, man.

Putting aside the temptation to snark and say “comics for stoners” – although, you know, there’s truth in that – I’d probably have to plump for some overly complicated definition. They’re comics that not only try to ask the big questions, but answer them, too – and, in doing so, bind those big questions to personal, mundane concerns that accentuate and contradict their scope, for want of a better way to put it.

A good cosmic comic for me is something that’s ambitious and, usually, unsuccessful in large part because it ends up being so personal that you either “get it” or you don’t. There’s no middle ground.

Cosmic doesn’t mean setting for me; like, Ron Marz’s Silver Surfer comics aren’t cosmic, they’re superheroes in outer space because he’s not trying to reach some Big Point About Existence As He Understands It. Same with Bendis’ Guardians of the Galaxy. But Englehart’s Millennium…? That’s amazingly cosmic, because he’s trying to say something about the meaning of life, as utterly bound to the 1980s as he lived them as it ends up being.

Hmm. I need to come back to this, I think. I’m very curious to know your definition – will I have to wait for the Starlin book to find out?

(I’m also very, very excited to read the Starlin book; he’s a creator I’ve tried a lot but never managed to love; that you do love his work so makes your book amazingly appealing to me.)

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