Familiarity, thy name is Mignola, Rude, Allred and Miller

It was like 1995 again.
Sometime last month – I know it was on a Wednesday, and you’ll know why in a few more words – I was at the local comic book store buying that week’s new comics. I walked out having bought a new issue of “Nexus,” “Madman,” “Hellboy” and “Martha Washington.”
Why is this significant? Well, with the exception of “Hellboy,” the titles had been essentially mothballed for years. Now they are back, and I am very happy about it.
All four titles were comics I discovered after a year or two or three of a comics-reading hiatus I sort of took from somewhere in mid-1992 to late 1994. For various reasons, to include becoming an alarmingly arrogant snob who decided Harvey Kurtzman and Alex Raymond were such brilliant cartoonists, there was no need to read anything current, I cut back on my comics reading significantly. It also had to do with that bane of all young comics fans, the First Serious Girlfriend, but you know how that goes.
All that came and went, and when I was ready, comics were there, waiting to welcome me back.
I started with “John Byrne’s Next Men,” and “Harlan Ellison’s Dream Corridor,” but I found my way to three of the titles I picked up last month. Hellboy, oddly enough, was created and drawn by Mike Mignola, but the same John Byrne from “Next Men” wrote the script to the first Hellboy story.
I found “Madman,” in a black and white graphic novel collection of his earliest stories. While it was obvious that writer-artist Mike Allred was still growing as a cartoonist, the book was clever, fun and well-drawn.
I started picking up “Nexus” because I had read it years before occasionally, but I never was a rabid fan. It was something familiar, which I knew was a high-quality product. I really got into it and bought almost all the back issues in a several-months-long binge.
“Martha Washington” was written by Frank Miller and drawn by Dave Gibbons, both outstandingly talented cartoonists I knew well. I came about it from a roundabout way, reading all the copies of Miller’s “Sin City” I could find, and then working my way to his other recent products.
It is difficult to explain the glee from re-discovering a beloved hobby like I did. By not reading comics for a while, I had allowed the candy jar to be re-filled with all sorts of unknown delights.
I traveled around to different comic shops hurriedly gathering all I had missed and making sure I didn’t miss any more. In the process, I found Monarch Comics, in Toledo, Ohio, where I would go on a weekly basis for something like 12 years to buy comics.
There I found regular issues of “Hellboy,” “Nexus,” “Madman” and various Frank Miller projects including “Martha Washington.”
Slowly, time passed and all except “Hellboy” stopped being published regularly. I don’t remember when the last “Madman” or “Nexus” was, but it was probably in 2000 or so.
Imagine my surprise when I went into the comic store and found all four in one week! The first issue of a new “Madman” came out the month before, but “Nexus” and “Martha Washington” were completely unexpected.
Now, after a many-year hiatus, Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier are bringing out a new “Groo” series next month. Could life get any better?