My Collection - GRIMJACK [1984 Series]

Grimjack [1984 series]
47 issues [1984 - 1990]
1 - 27, 37 - 46, 50, 52 - 53, 60, 63 - 64, 68 - 70, 74 

Long running science fiction series created by John Ostrander and Tim Truman, first showing up as a back-up in STARSLAYER. Truman was aboard as artist for the first little while, until he started up SCOUT at Eclipse, and then various artists continued with Ostrander until #81. Recently revived in a mini-series by Ostrander/Truman and reprint collections at IDW. The title character is John Gaunt, a mercenary operating in the transdimensional city of Cynosure.

I didn't start reading the book until around the time it was cancelled, originally picking up a few based on the back-up stories done by various guest artists ("Munden's Bar" stories, set in a bar owned by Grimjack and allowing for guest characters from any dimension). I liked those enough, and liked Truman's work in other books, that when I saw a good run of the early issues for sale I picked those up, and since then have picked up the rest I have. I haven't actually read the main story in all of them yet, partly because I have a lot of single chapters of larger stories, and partly because I have some trouble with a few of the post-Truman regular artists (I like Tom Mandrake's run in the middle a lot, but Tom Sutton and Flint Henry don't quite do it for me on first glance. I might change my mind when I actually read more of the stories).

Noteworthy issues:

#1 is a good intro story, with lots of hints for the future and character establishing bits

#12 - #15 had some good single issue lead stories, and backups by John Totleben, Phil Foglio and Bill Messner-Loebs

#42 is a nice example of Tom Mandrake's run, and the first issue I ever read thanks to the really weird back-up drawn by Larry Marder