In 2019 Shelfdust asked over a hundred comic book critics, podcasters, vloggers and commentators to pick their personal, subjective favourite ‘first’ comic book issues of all time. From their choices we counted down the top fifty entries, which you can find here! But we’re not leaving it there. Now the list is over and we know which comics made the list, we’ve invited critic and podcaster Matt Lune to host a weekly show right here on Shelfdust! Each week Matt will be sitting down with a different comic critic to look at every comic which charted into the top fifty, one issue at a time.
This week brings us a whole new superhero universe, as we look at the comic which ended up in 30th place: Astro City #1 by Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson, Steve Buccellato and Richard Starkings.
The first issue of the series explores a single day in the life of a hero, but through the adventures and rescues sits a beautiful character study which would go on to become the definitive voice of the series: every single person in this world is rounded and thoughtful, and over time the creative team would move on to explore each of them in turn. Matt is joined this week by critic (and actual Doctor) J. A. Micheline to talk all about the first hero, Samaritan, and his role in this first issue!
You can listen to the episode:
Come back next week….. as Matt will be talking to Heidi MacDonald about Ex Machina #1!
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J. A. Micheline has written for most of your favourite comics outlets, including The MNT, ComicsAlliance, The Guardian, WomenWriteAboutComics, and many more. She’s also a doctor! You can find her on Twitter here.
Matt Lune is a critic and podcaster who has written for publications including PanelXPanel, The MNT and Multiversity. You can find him on Twitter here!
This podcast is made possible thanks to the Shelfdust Patreon page! To find out more, head to our Patreon page here!