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I just had the best idea for a comic book I've ever had.
It would star Billy Batson, as an actual 7-9 year old boy. It would be titled Billy Batson.
And it would treat his whole Fawcett City world the way it always should have been. The adventures that a little boy makes up, only there's a sense they might be real. He would tell his friend Freddy and his sister Mary about how he was brought down into the tunnels of a subway station, and he was given this awesome (in the old sense) power by an ancient wizard who disappeared underneath a boulder. And Billy, Freddy and Mary would have adventures -- and whether or not they were real or 'lets pretend' adventures would never be clear. Captain Marvel would appear, but sparingly. Sivana would appear often, but be made out to be a clear child's impression of an evil mad scientist.
The whole thing would be C.C. Beck meets Little Nemo in Slumberland. And because DC's completely screwed up right now, it would have to be a Vertigo book so that it could have a childlike sense of wonder without being written for subhumans. (Why people who grew up as children being delighted by comics that were written for smart people think that all comics for children need to be written like Spidey Super Stories was in the 70's is beyond me.)
It wouldn't be a kid's book, but any 8 year old could read it.
A land of talking tigers, of Billy's cousins who were all named Billy and who were Lieutenants, of the lovely (to a child's crush-laden eyes) Beautia, of giant machines with gears and tubes and a cackling madman in an old white lab coat behind them, shaking his fist... it would be beautiful, and it would be glorious, and thirty years from now people would still be talking about it.
There would always be some question of whether or not Billy was a radio reporter or if he was just playing.
This is what it was always supposed to be. C.C. Beck said as much.
There isn't a snowball's chance in Hell this would ever get published.
Ah well. Maybe it's worth writing a proposal. If nothing else, to get it out of my head.
It would star Billy Batson, as an actual 7-9 year old boy. It would be titled Billy Batson.
And it would treat his whole Fawcett City world the way it always should have been. The adventures that a little boy makes up, only there's a sense they might be real. He would tell his friend Freddy and his sister Mary about how he was brought down into the tunnels of a subway station, and he was given this awesome (in the old sense) power by an ancient wizard who disappeared underneath a boulder. And Billy, Freddy and Mary would have adventures -- and whether or not they were real or 'lets pretend' adventures would never be clear. Captain Marvel would appear, but sparingly. Sivana would appear often, but be made out to be a clear child's impression of an evil mad scientist.
The whole thing would be C.C. Beck meets Little Nemo in Slumberland. And because DC's completely screwed up right now, it would have to be a Vertigo book so that it could have a childlike sense of wonder without being written for subhumans. (Why people who grew up as children being delighted by comics that were written for smart people think that all comics for children need to be written like Spidey Super Stories was in the 70's is beyond me.)
It wouldn't be a kid's book, but any 8 year old could read it.
A land of talking tigers, of Billy's cousins who were all named Billy and who were Lieutenants, of the lovely (to a child's crush-laden eyes) Beautia, of giant machines with gears and tubes and a cackling madman in an old white lab coat behind them, shaking his fist... it would be beautiful, and it would be glorious, and thirty years from now people would still be talking about it.
There would always be some question of whether or not Billy was a radio reporter or if he was just playing.
This is what it was always supposed to be. C.C. Beck said as much.
There isn't a snowball's chance in Hell this would ever get published.
Ah well. Maybe it's worth writing a proposal. If nothing else, to get it out of my head.