WELCOME TO THE SHOW! Introduction by Sam Weller and Mort Castle
He always was the Original Fan-Boy. In 1939, at the age of 18, Ray Bradbury traveled by passenger train to the First World’s Science Fiction Convention in New York City. At the age of 50, he attended the first Comic Con in San Diego, California. In the years to follow, he became a Comic Con regular, loading up with stuffed animals and artwork and graphic novels. From the get-go, Ray Bradbury loved the fantastic, his portal to examining what it means to be human. He knew that comics offered a perfect medium for the philosophical-fantastic in all its forms. Throughout his life, Bradbury had a soaring love affair with comics. He learned to read at the age of five, in large part by studying Happy Hooligan and Bringing up Father in the Sunday comic strips. At nine, he clipped out Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, along with many other important strips, and saved them for the rest of his days. Comics were always central to the Bradbury imagination, emblematic of the crossroads of his own literary aesthetic—the highly visual intersecting with the highly conceptual. It could be argued that Ray Bradbury was the first major literary writer to have his sense of narrative shaped by comics and cinema. And it is, in part, due to this influence that comic book readers have always so solidly connected to Bradbury and his Infinite Worlds of Ideas. What’s not to love about stainless steel rocket ships traveling o'er the void to land on Mars? Or the last dinosaur rising from the depths of the sea after it hears the moan of a coastal foghorn and believes it to be its lost mate? Bradbury arrived as a writer in the pages of the 1940s pulp fiction magazines. “The poet of the pulps,” he was deemed. And it didn’t take long before his stories made their way to comic books. In 1952, EC Comics famously "borrowed" from Bradbury without payment or attribution and Bradbury’s response has become the stuff of legend. He wrote Robert Gaines, EC's publisher, a cordial letter reminding them of their “innocent” oversight and requested pay for secondary rights to his stories. He also suggested they formalize their agreement and work together in an official capacity on future comic adaptations. Thus began
a long and storied relationship with EC, who brought Bradbury squarely into the four-color world of comic books for the very first time. Of course Bradbury was adapted into comics with increasing regularity in subsequent decades, and into graphic novels, too. The relationship was a natural: uncles with large moss green wings; time-voyagers headed back to far-Jurassic jungle to bag the most dangerous game; murderous babies; tattooed carnival freaks whose skin illustrations predict the future. This is the wonder-world of Ray Bradbury and it is perfectly tailored to the wonder-world of comics. No wonder, then, that Ray Bradbury was a passionate supporter of comics as a legitimate art medium deserving of serious critical attention. Just like the work of Bradbury himself, comics could be fun and present powerful ideas at the same time. And so by extension of Mr. B's lifelong love affair with comics, bringing the stories of many great creators Bradbury influenced to the pages of comic books is equally organic. In 2012, we coedited the prose anthology titled Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury. We gathered a who’s who of literary scribes, genre progenitors, and writerly upstarts to pay homage to Bradbury through stories that in one way or another reflected his vast and sweeping influence. The book touched upon the breadth of Bradbury’s work, including fantasy, weird fiction, Sci-Fi, small-town Americana, dystopic fiction and straight ahead realistic prose. The book was awarded the 2012 Bram Stoker Award. And it was around the time of publication that the visionary folks at IDW Publishing connected the proverbial dots between Bradbury and Shadow Show as a comic book. If Bradbury was adapted into panel narratives, why not too the stories penned in his honor by such lofty writers as Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Harlan Ellison, Dave Eggers, Alice Hoffman and others? The result is before you. We have suspicion a nine-year-old Ray Bradbury would be pleased. We hope you are too. Live Forever! —Sam Weller & Mort Castle
SHADOW SHOW: STORIES IN CELEBRATION OF
RAY BRADBURY
Joe Hill
COVER CHECKLIST:
based on the short story
“By The Silver Water of Lake Champlain” by
Jason Ciaramella art by Charles Paul Wilson III adaptation written by
Regular Cover Ar t by Gabriel Rodriguez
Subscription Cover Ar t by Shane Pierce
Jeremy Mohler & Charles Paul Wilson III colors by
Carlos Guzman & Chris Ryall letters by Robbie Robbins edits by
www.IDWPUBLISHING.com IDW founded by Ted Adams, Alex Garner, Kris Oprisko, and Robbie Robbins
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SHADOW SHOW: STORIES IN CELEBRATION OF RAY BRADURY #1. NOVEMBER 2014. FIRST PRINTING. Shadow Show © 2014 Sam Weller and Mort Castle. All rights reserved. “By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain” © 2014 Joe Hill. IDW Publishing, a division of Idea and Design Works, LLC. Editorial offices: 5080 Santa Fe St., San Diego, CA 92109. The IDW logo is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Any similarities to persons living or dead are purely coincidental. With the exception of artwork used for review purposes, none of the contents of this publication may be reprinted without the permission of Idea and Design Works, LLC. Printed in Korea. IDW Publishing does not read or accept unsolicited submissions of ideas, stories, or artwork.
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