Common Grounds
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Common Grounds is a six-issue limited comic series created by, writer, Troy Hickman and published by Top Cow Productions in 2004. The series examined the life of superheroes and villains in and around a chain of coffee shops called Common Grounds.
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[edit] Overview
The series began in 1994 as the black-and-white mini-comic Holey Crullers, written by Hickman and drawn by Jerry Smith, and was circulated through mail order and direct sales at comic book conventions (resulting in very few copies of Crullers being in existence today). In 1997, Wizard Magazine became aware of the cult comic, and devoted a four-page article to it (a first for a photocopied, black-and-white mini-comic).
Then, serendipitously, in 2003, Wizard editor Jim McLauchlin became editor-in-chief of Top Cow Productions, and quickly contacted Hickman about getting the rights to the Holey Crullers scripts. By the beginning of 2004, Common Grounds had been launched as a six-issue series, featuring Hickman's stories and new artwork by comics superstars such as Dan Jurgens, George Perez, Mike Oeming, Chris Bachalo, Sam Kieth, Angel Medina, Carlos Pacheco, and Ethan Van Sciver. Jurgens was the regular artist, providing art for one short-story every issue, while one of the guest artists provided the art for the other(s).
The series received a great deal of critical acclaim and garnered an even larger cult following, and in November of 2004, a trade paperback was published collecting all six issues. The series' fame continued to grow even after publication had ceased, and in the summer of 2005, it received two Eisner Award nominations (Best Anthology and Best Short Story for "Where Monsters Dine," drawn by Angel Medina).
[edit] Title
The original 1990s comic series, Holey Crullers, centered around a chain of doughnut shops named "Holey Crullers". The name was a clever word-play on the fact that a doughnut is a type of cruller, a deep-fried cake pastry, with a hole in the center and also paid homage to the regular humorous outbursts of Robin in the 1960s era Batman (TV series).
Hickman reported that the decision was made to update the central concept from a chain of doughnut shops to coffee shops and change the name to Common Grounds in an attempt to be timely and more relevant to the coffee culture in the US in the last 1990s and early 2000s. Just as with the previous title, the name "Common Grounds" includes some double entendre in that it simultaneously brings to mind a safe, neutral haven where those of differing viewpoints can find some agreement ("common ground") and also recalls an important aspect of coffee, namely the "grounds".
The series includes an in-story reference to the name change in issue six when the company founder explains to an interviewer that he originally wanted to call his chain "Holey Crullers", but received a letter from the lawyers of the "old 60s superhero tv show" in which the sidekick always says "Holy This" and "Holy That", so he opted for Common Grounds instead.
[edit] Themes and Stories
The first volume of Common Grounds consists of thirteen self-contained stories (though there is a thread of continuity) in six issues featuring numerous superheroes and villains, including Speeding Bullet, Man-Witch, Mental Midget, Flammabelle, Digital Man & Analog Kid, the Acidic Jew, Deb-U-Ton, Strangeness & Charm, Blackwatch, the Liberty Balance, Eternal Flame, Big Money, and American Pi.
Hickman addressed a number of themes in the series which some may consider uncommon in the mainstream comics industry, including aging, obesity, differing moral codes on good vs evil, second chances, patriotism, religious faith, guilt and regret, hope, suicide, self-doubt, responsibility for one's own life and choices, redemption, and a number of touching issues regarding familial relations. He accomplished this by de-mystifying his superheroes and villains and exploring their humanity in a way that normal people could relate to them.
Ironically, Hickman also poked a little fun at the growing cynicism and rise in popularity of the gritty, scowling, heavy-handed anti-heroes who became so ubiquitous in the main-stream American comic industry from the late 1980s through the mid 2000s, but his "big break" came from a publisher primarily known for producing just such comics.
Each issue of the six-issue mini-series included two or three short stories listed below.
- Issue #1 A - "Beyond the Speed of Life"
- Issue #1 B - "Head Games"
- Issue #2 A - "Roles"
- Issue #2 B - "Elsewhere"
- Issue #3 A - "Sanctuary"
- Issue #3 B - "Heir of Truth"
- Issue #4 A - "Time of Their Lives"
- Issue #4 B - "Fat Chance"
- Issue #4 C - "Glory Days"
- Issue #5 A - "Where Monsters Dine"
- Issue #5 B - "Lovelife"
- Issue #6 A - "This'll be the Day"
- Issue #6 B - "Loose Ends"
[edit] Characters
Although, the limited series only comprises six issues to date, Hickman introduced a number of heroes, villains, and civilians. Some of the prominent characters are identified below, but many more characters are merely mentioned by other characters and make brief appearances in the background or in passing shots without any detail or description provided.
[edit] Heroes
- Speeding Bullet - first appeared in issue 1, story A. He possesses superhuman speed. By his own admission, he is faster than Indy cars, can break the sound barrier hopping on one foot, and run on water. His speed affects every aspect of his life, including all natural bodily functions, not just his ability to run fast. He is not the first hero speedster in the Common Ground universe, as Mach Master, a founding member of Liberty Balance, was called the fastest man alive back in the 1960s.
- Mental Midget - first appeared in issue 1, story B. He stands between three and four feet tall (depending on the source) and has the power to read the thoughts of others, plant thoughts in their minds, and control minds, which he only uses in extreme emergencies.
- Deb-U-Ton - first appeared in issue 3, story A. Patricia Van Buren is just 16 years old and comes from a very wealthy family (thus the word-play on "debutante"). She possesses the mass of a 2,000-pound elephant in the slight frame of a fashion model, making her extremely dense and heavy. Her increased density has also made her skin effectively bullet-proof. She demonstrates super-human strength, though that is not directly explained. Presumably, her strength is a side effect of her increased mass.
- Acidic Jew - first appeared in issue 3, story A. Moshe Chomsky has the ability to dissolve any substance on Earth by simply touching it with his hands. He is a devote Hasidic Jew. That fact, combined with his unique ability, inspired some reporters to label him the "Acidic Jew". He does not consider himself a crime fighter, although he does try to help people in need. He has limited control over his "power", capable of briefly turning it off for only a few minutes at a time through prayer and concentration.
- Others include: Eternal Flame, Strangeness & Charm, Digital Man & Analog Kid, American Pi, Volks-Wagner, Patriette, the members of Liberty Balance, and others.
[edit] Villains
- Man-Witch - first appeared in issue 1, story B. As the seventh son of the seventh son and the son of a magically-obsessed mother, he possesses various magical abilities which include levitation and transmutation. He believes himself to be the arch-foe of Mental Midget, who has jailed him on at least six occasions. While he readily admits to being a criminal, he also claims to be a patriotic American and has at least some personal, moral code he will not violate.
- Others include: Baron Existence, Bloodwart, Marquis de Sod, Quantum, Red Death & the Death Squad, Mental Giant, and several gigantic monstrous creatures (Grondar from Planet X, Critorr the Behemoth Racoon, Kkrapp the animated garbage pile, and the dragon Wang Dang Doodle) among others.
[edit] Civilians
- Michael O'Brien - first appeared in issue 6, story B. He is the retired 1960's era superhero formerly known as "Big Money", an inventor, a self-made billionaire, and the founder of the Common Grounds chain of coffee shops.
- Jenny Saunders - first appeared in issue 2, story A. She is an aspiring actress living near Los Angeles where she works as a waitress at Common Grounds. She has a son, Matthew. On at least one occasion, she pretended to be a retired superheroine, Flammabelle, of the Liberty Balance team of heroes.
- Others include: Ed Franklin, a newspaper reporter; Stevie Parsons, a tv talk-show host; and Larry, a Common Grounds delivery truck driver.
[edit] Collected Edition
Common Grounds (ISBN 1582404364, collects Common Grounds Vol. 1 #1-6)
